Mother’s Day. Birthdays. Fridays.

All occasions for getting somebody an unusual gift.

Assuming you know someone who’d appreciate a Swedish synthesizer, you’re in luck...

Just look at what you’ll find at Austere, a big white sprawl of Scandinavian design-y stuff you couldn’t find elsewhere, opening today in Downtown.

Say you’re Downtown with time to kill and an inkling to bring more Swedishness into your home. The gold pants at Acne aren’t your style. You’re on a meatball-and-ABBA hiatus. So, you’ll just turn the corner and enter this place—it’s a former auto showroom transformed into something like a two-story love child of Ikea and Eames, full of the sort of nice, clean-lined and hyper-practical stuff these Nordic types have built their post-Viking legacy on.

You’ve got free rein to tinker with their Teenage Engineering synthesizers and Hasselblad cameras. Try on classic yellow Stutterheim raincoats and sit in Ilmari Tapiovaara chairs. Browse the art gallery and sit at the small kitchen for a culinary demo. Pester the floor manager about the authentic pronunciation of Gyllenhaal.

Basically, you can play with just about anything you find here. Including the large Volvo SUV in the middle of the room.

Downtown’s best free parking spot.