The Facade Project on youtube was started in 2020 and is still ongoing. The idea is to document every architectural decoration on every facade in every block in Gothenburg.
Since I am a geologist by trade, there is of course also a section on rocks. And tunnels, railroads and stuff I work with and find interesting
And the whatnot section deals with miscellany like shortfilms, science fiction fandom, tolkienism and other things that can’t be described as Architecture of Geology.
Enjoy!
In episodes 269 to 273 we climb up and down the ridiculously hilly terrain in Olivedal.
District: Olivedal
Photo date: 9 July 2022
The terrain in Olivedal is remarkably hilly, with ridges running circa north – south one after the other. On the zoning map from 1891, there are carefully drawn stairs, like the ones we find at Övre Majorsgatan outside the Good-Templars’ door. The first Swedish lodge of the IOGT was founded in 1879 here in Gothenburg. More stairs were planned, but then the motorcar arrived and had to be catered to with broad and smooth streets.
District: Olivedal
Photo date: 9 July 2022
In Olivedal there is a sharp line between the older stone houses to the east and the 1960s houses to the west, up against Masthuggsbergen and Slottsskogen. It was originally a valley of landshövdingehus, often called Vega-town. According to Fredberg, the houses were not as drab and uniform as usual, but in the 1960s they all had to go to make way for progress in the form of concrete. Much-needed mod cons, yes, but it’s not a very interesting cityscape.
District: Olivedal
Photo date: 9 July 2022
The Nordhem School must have been really difficult to build, at the top of a hill with steep sides all around. The poor horses, having to lug all the brick and granite up the cobbled streets!
District: Olivedal
Photo date: 11 July 2022
The Linnea Church is also a charity and an outreach for troubled teenagers, addicts and homeless people.
District: Olivedal
Photo date: 12 July 2022
Foundations were obviously much better here than further south along Linnégatan, as the 1900-houses still remain. So we can imagine what the whole strip from Järntorget to Slottsskogen must have looked like when it was new, and with a bridle path running in the middle for posh people to ride up and down and cause copious amounts of dust to rise. Even the back street looks grand, compared to modern houses! (Here is a picture of what the area looked like even earlier.)
In episodes 264 to 268 we enter district Olivedal proper – a rather confusing district often mixed up with Kommendantsängen, Annedal, Masthugget and Stigberget.
District: Olivedal
Photo date: 26 June 2022
The castle-like entrance to Slottsskogen was in fact designed by Oscar Nilsson together with Hjalmar Zetterström, my main source says. And the preschool was built in 1955, from designs by one P Mårtensson. In the 1950s, facade decorations were a strict no-no.
District: Olivedal
Photo date: 2 July 2022
On the 1891 zoning map, you can see that there actually was a bridge over the Djupedal Creek here, thus giving the block its name Creek Bridge. It is a popular area, with flats being snapped up left and right. At one of the estate agents, you can see pictures from the interior of the block too.
District: Olivedal
Photo date: 9 July 2022
Nordenskiöld and his ship Vega were extremely popular back in the day, The Vega expedition was sponsored by one of the big magnates in Gothenburg, Oscar Dickson. It was so popular it even inspired the name for a ubiquitous cap in Gothenburg and elsewhere, the Vega cap.
District: Olivedal
Photo date: 9 July 2022
There isn’t much to add about this block. It was rural farmland until the 19-noughties and -tens, and then the stone city suddenly sprang up around the nearby farm house. Some sixty years later, half the block had to be replaced with new houses that blend in so perfectly it’s difficult to tell when they were made. Unlike the concrete boxes otherwise prevalent at that time.
Episodes 255 to 259 explore the northern part of sub-district Kommendantsängen.
District: Kommendantsängen (part of district Olivedal)
Photo date: 25 May 2022
This block contains much architectural history, from the dull late-1960s tenement to the delightful 1920s Classicism to elaborate 1890s woodwork (designed by O W Nilsson). But Fredberg describes an earlier, long-forgotten vista: that of itinerant Italians living in hovels next to rowdy rogues in huts clambering up the hill towards the fortress. His descriptions aren’t dissimilar from the camps of Romanian beggars that one can find all over the city nowadays. Even the racism and classism are the same.
District: Kommendantsängen (part of district Olivedal)
Photo date: 25 May 2022
The plaster and iron-work in the western, circa-1900 half of this block contrasts with the more sober red brick facades of the 1930s and 1980s in the eastern half. Towards Skanstorget, the 1930s houses were designed by G Jacobsson and D Persson, and contained a cinema that was turned into a theatre dedicated to dance. I haven’t been able to find any info on the nice decorations on the 1980s house, but a three-room apartment there went for just over 5 and a half million a few months ago. That’s cheap!
District: Kommendantsängen (part of district Olivedal)
Photo date: 29 May 2022
The Olof Asklund Steam Bakery apparently was a runaway success, rapidly expanding and needing bigger and bigger premises. When this dedicated house in The Castellan was built in 1901, it employed 100 people and a promotional picture shows five tall chimneys belching black smoke over the neighbourhood. Twenty years later there were 200 employees and in the 1960s the company merged with another bread producer and moved to big industrial premises in Högsbo, under the new brand name Pååls, now Pågen. The street where the current factory stands is named after Olof Asklund.
District: Kommendantsängen (part of district Olivedal)
Photo date: 27 May 2022
Hans Hedlund’s house from 1899 was built by ”SJ:s Änke- och pupillkassa”, a rather nice name. And a nice house, well designed and robustly built – unlike many of the houses built today which need refurbishment immediately the scaffolding has been taken down. Ever since I walked around this block I’ve meant to visit the Purrfect Cat Café but it hasn’t happened yet.
District: Kommendantsängen (part of district Olivedal)
Photo date: 27 May 2022
At Linnégatan 48 the entire facade is clad with limestone, a rather exotic rock in Gothenburg. Ten years later, fashion had swung to local materials and granite became de rigueur for decorations. There are also many other types of rock in Gothenburg facades; here is a geological guide to them!
In episodes 251 to 254 we come to the end of District Haga and take a closer look at the socialist history of Gothenburg.
District: Haga
Photo date: 23 May 2022
In the 1970s Gothenburg was a bastion of socialism, from serious social democrats to ravening revolutionaries. But that was actually a fairly late development, rising rapidly when ship-building and other heavy manufacture expanded in the early 1900s. Before that, Gothenburg was a city of merchants, with conservatives and liberals (in the economic sense) being by far the dominant political factions. In the late 1800s, though, workers’ gruops and parties emerged and made their HQ at the Iron Square.
The first HQ was built around 1900 and was quite pretty, but bigger premises were needed in the 1950s. The current newspaper (long since discontinued) house was built in 1957 and designed by Uppling & Fylking. But a decade earlier, Nils Einar Eriksson had designed the People’s House across the street in The Longboat, in clean and simple Modernist style. The new hotel colossus, designed by the Erséus bureau, looks frankly weird in the middle of it.
The Iron Square is named after the important iron scales that were moved to this area from the city centre in 1785. Gothenburg was the biggest export harbour for timber and iron in west Sweden and the scales is where quality control was performed. But the site of the current square was variously called Toll Square, Tree Square, Furniture Square, even Bierhalle Square, reflecting various businesses still more or less in place. In the 1920s it was given its current layout with the little houses designed by Hugo Jahnke and the big fountain by Tore Strindberg.
District: Haga
Photo date: 23 May 2022
The big Louis Enders house fronting Järntorget hasn’t changed much since it was built. There have been bars and restaurants in it and other houses in the block since their inception, with bohemians and artists often frequenting them. Järntorget can be quite raucous in the nighttime. But I still haven’t found any explanations to Fredberg’s term ”tarachim entertainments”!
District: Haga
Photo date: 23 May 2022
The Sergeant is dominated by the development along Linnégatan, which started in the late 1800s. Before then, the street area was drained by a creek called Djupedalsbäcken, which was rapidly hidden in a culvert. Soon, this turned out to be not a very good idea…
District: Haga
Photo date: 23 May 2022
The last two blocks in district Haga are also part of the development along Linnégatan. The wooden houses ”at the back” along Landsvägsgatan were neglected, partly deliberately, to the point where they had to be condemned and were torn down in the 1980s to make way for modern housing. In fact, most of Linnégatan had to be torn down then, due to serious subsidence damage, but more on that later…
Episodes 247 to 250 in the west end of Haga consist of a mix of listed 1800s houses and Post-Modernism from the 1980s-1990s.
District: Haga
Photo date: 7 May 2022
In all my sources, this block is the one showcased when conservation in Haga is discussed. If all other blocks were levelled, this one at least would contain examples of all types of houses still remaining after fires and waves of re-development have swept through Haga.
District: Haga
Photo date: 8 May 2022
Car parks from the 1980s and on can sometimes have surprising decorations, like the one here. But mostly they are just functional, meaning drab. They need good foundations too, of which the older houses in the west end of Haga sadly lacked. So when the latest zoning regulation was made in 1984, it was mostly to replace rotting wooden hulks with modern concrete castings. At least the houses on the hill here were founded on solid rock so they could remain. For now…
District: Haga
Photo date: 8 May 2022
Landsvägsgatan was the main western thouroughfare into Gothenburg until the late 1800s when Linnégatan was built. Nowadays it is only a thouroughfare for bikes, which whizz by dangerously and copiously. Watch out! In olden days the street was called Tullgatan because of the toll boom near Järntorget: you had to pay a tax to be able to sell your wares in the city, and you were only allowed to sell wares in specific cities, so the Crown could have its cut.
District: Haga
Photo date: 8 May 2022
Zoning regulations for this part of Gothenburg have been made in 1866, 1878, 1893, 1933, 1934, 1941, 1942, 1954, 1967 and 1984.
Episodes 243 to 246 comprise charities and public amenities in western Haga.
District: Haga
Photo date: 30 April 2022
Until the early 1800s, much of Gothenburg consisted of wooden houses. And devastating city-wide fires were all too common. In Haga too there were many fires, and seeing all the wood in the northern part of this block one can understand why. All houses were warmed by one or more fireplaces and there were bakeries and smithies and other businesses employing fire. Fredberg has a whole chapter devoted to conflagrations in Haga.
District: Haga
Photo date: 30 April 2022
The Castle originally had a terrace on the roof, to give the tenants access to clean-ish air and sunlight. But it wasn’t waterproof so after 20 years it was replaced with an ordinary roof. I think the topside tenants were relieved, imagine the cost for buckets!
District: Haga
Photo date: 30 April 2022
Imagine not being able to have a proper bath or shower! The modern city dweller shudders in revulsion at the very thought. So did many others 150 years ago I guess, and not just at the thought but at the actual pong of unwashed bodies. Thus a public bath was really necessary. Architect Axel Kumlien specialised in hospitals and other public institutions. Among other things in Gothenburg, he designed the Maternity Hospital and the original core of the Sahlgrenska hospital in Änggården, of which only one small pavillion remains today.
District: Haga
Photo date: 7 May 2022
The Tai Shanghai restaurant was put up for sale in 2025 – the end of an era. Where will Club Cosmos have its annual meetings now? And yes, it is spelled ”Tai” and not ”Thai” as most contemporary persons think it is. As for the Dickson Foundation block, contrast these houses with the ones in Annedal.
In episodes 238 to 242 the focus is on oldey-timey fortifications, the Caponier and Fortress Kronan.
District: Haga
Photo date: 23 April 2022
Most of this block was re-developed in the 1980s but the quaint facades along Haga Nygata were preserved – much to the delight of all the cruise ship tourists who visit in summertime.
District: Haga
Photo date: 23 April 2022
Sometimes people ask what houses I’ve looked at are my favourites. I usually answer it’s the ones with subtle surprises, that you don’t notice until you actually look closely at the facades. And the Abako-designed house comprising this whole block is a prime example of this. Yes, the Post-Modernist style is a violent break from the general 19th-century look of Haga, but it’s hard not to be delighted by it, so over the top. And then, if you step closer, you see the reliefs… Artist Pelle P adorned other facades too, like the Guldheden church in part 476 of this project.
District: Haga
Photo date: 30 April 2022
Are libraries a thing of the past? I do believe so; listening to young people on the town who brag about not ever having read a book and being disgusted by the very idea, it seems easy-access knowledge is no longer wanted. Maybe AI is convenient and all that, but I think it’s fun to make and find out things myself. Anyway, the early users of this library here had no other options and made good use of the facilities.
District: Haga
Photo date: 30 April 2022
On a map you can see how narrow these north-south running blocks are, as they follow the line of the old caponier that connected fortress Kronan with the rest of Gothenburg in the olden days. Having heard the stories about people falling into the stagnant water here, I always thought a caponier was a sort of mini-moat. When it was eventually filled in, the land was only deemed suitable for poor-housing, which the Dickson Foundation snapped up in the 1870s before selling it to the Burmans. Might one suspect poor geotechnical conditions?
District: Haga
Photo date: 14 May 2022
The little square in Soldaten is the centre of Haga, where you might find market stalls, buskers and other events. In all seasons! But in October-November and January-February the Gothenburg weather is not amenable to outdoors activities with items that aren’t waterproof…
My memories of Skansen Kronan are rather sketchy, and involve the old military museum with slightly spooky mannequins dressed in 19th century uniforms, and waffles. The latter still remains, in the shape of a shed which serves pricey pastries that you really need after climbing all those stairs. Club Cosmos celebrated its 50th anniversary in the fortress, but that was before my time.
Episodes 260 to 263 look at the engineering geology behind, or rather below, Kommendantsängen and Linnégatan. And an enigma: why is there an Illuminati sign in the sidewalk outside a small shop?
District: Kommendantsängen (part of district Olivedal)
Photo date: 6 June 2022
Looking at orthophotos of this block, you can see it is built as a single open courtyard instead of cluttered with courtside houses or several smaller courts, as in surrounding blocks. This was very progressive for its time. The 1920s in general seemed very progressive and forward-looking.
District: Kommendantsängen (part of district Olivedal)
Photo date: 6 June 2022
I wonder why there is an Illuminati sign in the sidewalk outside a small shop… First time I passed it I missed it: who looks down at the pavement when walking briskly along busy city streets? Maybe a medium operated here in the 1910s, or the shop was a front for one of the many secret societies? Marie Hermansson has written several entertaining detective books set in 1920s Gothenburg, maybe she could take up the story. Oh and by the way, the Asklund garage was designed by the F O Peterson firm.
District: Kommendantsängen (part of district Olivedal)
Photo date: 4 June 2022
The Creek is of course named after Djupedalsbäcken, or Råttebäcken, that runs underneath it in a culvert. Geology students are often taken on local excursions to witness what happens when you ignore hydrogeology in areas dominated by postglacial clays: subsidence! Also, many of the hastily put up houses along Linnégatan in the late 1800s had really poor foundations that meant moisture was sucked up into the buildings which rotted from within… Hopefully the modern replacements from the 1980s and 90s were built with better foundations.
District: Kommendantsängen (part of district Olivedal)
Photo date: 6 June 2022
Kommendantsängen is still regulated by the zoning plan from 1891. On the map, one can see the original terrain and houses at that time, before development started. Rather quaint. Even the cholera cemetery is marked.
It’s been a long and busy period with too much work, followed by a short vacation where I prioritised spending time outdoors looking at houses. But this collating project is not over yet! When the weather turns bad again I hope to get back to blogging, scores of posts are waiting in the drafts queue.
Meanwhile, here is an old booklet which my father read to pieces as a child and I did the same. It’s the story of Ulysses, told for children in easy Swedish with simple drawings. A favourite book which I have never heard anyone else has read. Enjoy.
Episodes 233 to 237 look at houses from the 1850s to the 1980s, and pay respects to a much-loved TV show that has cemented Haga’s place in the hearts of Swedes of an older generation.
District: Haga
Photo date: 10 April 2022
In Copenhagen there is a lively commercial street called Strøget to which all other commercial streets in the Nordic countries are compared. Here in Haga, Strøget is Haga Nygata and like all the other blocks along it this one has preserved the pretty 1880s landshövdingehus fronting the commercial area while the back was rebuilt in the 1980s. The new style is bland but inoffensive, sometimes the architects have even strived to make the facades blend into the historical surroundings. I have not been able to find any information about architects old or new except that it was Bostadsbolaget that commissioned the houses.
District: Haga
Photo date: 13 March 2022
The masonry heater, or ”tile oven” as it is called in Swedish, was once a standard component of every Swedish home. It’s a really clever and efficient construction, and it looks pretty. Since they were all junked in the 1970s, pretty much everyone wants to get them back and production has started again. Of course, burning wood in cities is not optimal from a pollution point of view. In the old days there were many factories for tile ovens and one of them was located in this block. Like many others at the time, August Ringnér was also heavily into theatrics, of which CRA Fredberg writes far too much.
Half of this block was redeveloped in the 1980s but much history has been preserved: the ancient school, the former mission church on the commercial street, and some two-storey wooden houses along Husargatan, all owned and developed by Ringnér in the 1850s to 60s. The school was one of the very first in Gothenburg for children of lesser means, started by poor-house priest Johan Willin.
District: Haga
Photo date: 13 March 2022
Many of the old houses in Haga, entire blocks even, had been torn down in the early 1970s and left as empty parking spaces. From my childhood, I remember a city full of empty gaps with old cars and former living room walls with wallpaper still dangling forlornly in the wind two or three storeys up an exposed firewall… Because of bureaucracy and foundation problems, redevelopment in Haga didn’t start until the mid 1980s. The zoning documents for the area describe the planning history and the subsidence headaches of the 1970s.
So almost this entire block was built up in the 1980s, except for one landshövdingehus from 1879 and the low old houses along Skanstorget. They are particularly interesting as a vanishingly rare example of the pre-landshövdingehus type of wooden houses that were built in the 1850s.
District: Haga
Photo date: 23 April 2022
There is not much to say about this block that was completely rebuilt in the early 1980s. But before that, this was one of the very earliest developments in Haga, seen in a map from the 1690s. Recurring fires have devastated Haga since its beginnings and Fredberg writes about the big one that destroyed this block in 1859.
District: Haga
Photo date: 23 April 2022
In the mid-1970s Swedish television decided to licence a popular British show from the 1960s. Having listened to the radio version of ”Steptoe and Son” I think our ”Albert och Herbert” was much better, with actually likeable characters. Even in the 1970s there were no more rag-and-bone-men in Sweden, certainly not horse-propelled ones, and there was not much left of Haga either, but there it is on grainy video: a few old landshövdingehus, two-storey wooden buildings and cobbled streets, and Skolgatan 15 where the father and son were supposed to live. Further up the street there actually was an old stable for horses but it burned down in 2015.
Again, almost the whole block consists of houses from the 1980s, except along Strøget where quaint remnants from the 1850s and 1880s have been left to entice shoppers. Presumably the 1859 house was built after the devastating fire of that year.
Rockyramblings 