Etikettarkiv: 1920s Classicism

Style, https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arkitektur_i_G%C3%B6teborg

Kvarteren Syrenen, Poppeln, Pilträdet

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Episodes 213 to 215 cross the Ascheberg street and the tram tracks to district Landala – but first some blocks that were originally part of district Vasastaden.

Episode 213: kv Syrenen

District: Landala (formerly Vasastaden)

Photo date: 5 September 2021

The Lilac Tree and the Poplar were first envisaged as one single block, in Eugen Thorburn’s plan of 1904. West of them would be built stylish cottages. But then Albert Lilienberg changed everything to what we see today, much to Thorburn’s chagrin, as detailed on page 434ff. The stone houses along Aschebergsgatan were built first and a couple of years later came the posh landshövdingehus along Erik Dahlbergsgatan, all in rather heavy National Romanticist style. Some of the architects were Ernst Torulf and Johan Jarlén. When the corner at Kapellplatsen was finally built, after the chapel had been moved, the style had shifted towards 1920s Classicism. Nils Olsson designed this house.

Episode 214: kv Poppeln

District: Landala (formerly Vasastaden)

Photo date: 5 September 2021

Aschebergsgatan 33 with its weird animals was designed by Ernst Torulf in 1913. Otherwise, all the text for Syrenen also applies to Poppeln. The corner house at Föreningsgatan was also built in the early 1920s, but blends in better with the older buildings than Olsson’s house at Kapellplatsen.

Episode 215: kv Pilträdet

District: Landala (formerly Vasastaden)

Photo date: 29 August 2021

The National Romanticist landshövdingehus designed by Arvid Bjerke and R O Swensson were meant to segue into the existing landshövdingehus around Kapellplatsen. They were already some 20 years or older when the modern development started – and only this one example at Kapellplatsen 1 was allowed to remain when the next redevelopment boom started 50 years later.

Charles Felix Lindberg was one of several magnates who donated parts of their fortunes to the city in the late 1800s, early 1900s. The fund bearing his name is targeted towards beautifiying the city, with public art, parks, or rewarding beautiful architectural designs like here at Erik Dahlbergsgatan. Emily Wijk also belonged to the families who donated monies, and her foundation provides housing for a ”better class” of women who are in financial straits.

Kvarteren i Övre Johanneberg och Chalmers

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Episodes 209 to 212 explore two separate bodies of architecture: one seminal Modernist group of buildings on a hill, and one agglomeration of academia in a valley.

Episode 209: Övre Johanneberg

District: Johanneberg

Photo date: 18 August 2021

In this Modernist dreamscape, every house is its own block: Hämplingen, Snöskatan, Strömstaren, Staren, Stjärtmesen, Lövsångaren, Berglärkan, Blåhaken, Sädesärlan, Steglitsan, Tornsvalan, Rödhaken, Flugsnapparen, Rörsångaren, Klippduvan, Ringtrasten, Alsiskan, Pilfinken and Snösparven.

If Albert Lilienberg was the frontman for 1920s Classicism in Gothenburg, his counterpart for Modernism was Uno Åhrén. As soon as he became planning director in 1927 he ushered in the new era, which really took off in the mid-1930s. Upper Johanneberg is one of the finest examples of early Modernism in Gothenburg. A quick search doesn’t say much about the architects themselves but Erik Friberger designed the lower houses west of Gibraltargatan, says the conservation paper on page 141.

Episode 210: kv Talltitan – Chalmers part 1

District: Johanneberg

Photo date: 28 August 2021

If Poseidon and Gustav II Adolf are the physical icons of Gothenburg, Chalmers is their spiritual counterpart. It is a sprawling agglomeration of buildings that in the latest decades also has colonised the northern shore of Göta Älv. Chalmerists, i.e. the students, uphold the mercantile, engineering and clubs&orders ideals of the city’s past.

Until 1962, Chalmers ran its own architectural bureau, naturally headed by the current professor of architecture. Just after the war, this was Melchior Wernstedt who between 1949 and 1960 designed the Gustaf Dahlén Hall, the power central, the students’ union house, the high energy bunker and the library. He also oversaw the construction of the ship’s trial building in 1940. He was succeeded by Helge Zimdal who in 1968 designed the architecture and civil engineering blocks down in the valley. Jan Wallinder was professor of ”formlära” at the time and he designed the administration building and the Palmstedt hall by the campus entrance in 1961.

There was another growth spurt in the 1990s and again in recent years. The students’ union house received an extension designed by Gert Wingårdh in 2000 and the Johanneberg Science Park was built in the last five years. The northern red house acts as a link to the Zimdal buildings, much like the Park itself is a link between academia and industry. It was designed by the Tengbom bureau who also designed the parking garage next to it. The White bureau didn’t want to be upstaged so they designed the rounded southern buildings.

Episode 211: kv Talltitan – Chalmers part 2

District: Johanneberg

Photo date: 28 August 2021

When Chalmers was still a private vocational school, it held an architectural competition for their new property in Gibraltar. The winners in 1921 were Arvid Fuhre, Hugo Jahnke, Conny Nyquist and Karl Samuelsson. They designed the first big physics building Origo and the smaller temple-like chemistry building next to it, in finest red-brick 1920s Classicism. Along the now-hidden main facade of the Origo building they placed medallions of famous Swedish scientists: Svante Arrhenius, Anders Ångström, Johan Carl Wilcke, Anders Celsius, Torbern Bergman, Carl Wilhelm Scheele, Jöns Jacob Berzelius and Alfred Nobel.

The physics and chemistry departments soon needed a lot more space and Klas Anshelm designed the big brick buildings in 1960, since added to even further. The lecture halls and big red-brick buildings along Gibraltargatan were built in the late 1960s, early 1970s too.

The HSB Living Lab at the south end of the lab buildings is a temporary structure – what it says on the tin, a lab for living in a house. The plans are dated 2016 and the architect is Tengbom. So I guess they will soon pick up their lab and move it somewhere else. The Gibraltar Guest House is also a temporary structure, according the the current zoning plan. The lodgings along the ship’s trial were built in the early 2000s.

As a aside, I can add that my master’s thesis dealt with the gabbro underlying much of Chalmers. It was a lot of fun, mapping outcrops and taking samples, panning for zircons and going to Stockholm to zap them with the ion probe in the basement of the National Natural History Museum. Then I wrestled with Word for a semester and finally boiled down the results in my one academic paper printed in GFF. Where you need a membership to search for it.


Episode 212: kv Talltitan – Vasa Sjukhus

District: Johanneberg

Photo date: 29 July 2021

The Chalmers campus has spread northwards too, down the hill towards the old asylum. In 1925, the only house here was the fantastically designed electrical substation by Conny Nyquist (page 140). Then came further physics and chemistry buildings in the 1970s, a microtech centre built by Skanska in the late 1990s and the student lodgings Chabo that was designed by the Wingårdh bureau and put up in 2005.

The Gibraltar Asylum, later hospital, was long feared and shunned as a final destination for the infirm and destitute. It was, however, a considerable improvement over the first asylums at Smedjegatan and Drottningtorget. The mentally ill were transferred to new premises in the 1930s and the hospital was in operation until 2000 when it was taken over by Chalmers and later various businesses.

Kvarteren Stenskvättan, Sidensvansen, Gärdsmygen, Domherren, Törnskatan

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Episodes 205 to 208 climb the Trollspisen hill from ancient family history, over 1920s Classicism and early to late Modernism, to end at current undefined styles.

Episode 205: kv Stenskvättan part 1

District: Heden (formerly Johanneberg)

Photo date: 15 August 2021

I have still not managed to sneak into the courtyard at Cederbourgsgatan 4, to see if any trees from the family seat still remain. The stone houses that were put up on the old cottages are too tall and impregnable to admit view. At the City Museum catalogue I can find architectural plans for the newer of the two houses on the plot. Also a newspaper clipping with my grandmother’s writing in the margin! Here is a model that her father made, with a possibly-Messman painting of the houses in the background:

No 85
12:e roten nr 85 Fredhem eller Hallekrogen


The original name Hallekrogen marks it as one of the Gallows Inns that once lined the road south towards Halland. The area had a very bad reputation, not just for the people taking a grog or three before an execution but mostly for the unruly farmers heading back south. And apparently the road was miserable too.

Episode 206: kv Stenskvättan – the Carlander Hospital

District: Heden (formerly Johanneberg)

Photo date: 15 August 2021

The Carlander hospital sits grandly at the top of a slope. Let’s hope the rock and joints are sturdy enough to allow all the tunnels that have been built right underneath it… It stands in the grounds of one of the many old farms in the area, of which the garden is a reminder. It has not yet been developed. Since the hospital was built in the 1920s, only an extension has been added at a place where an original wing was never built. The blueprints for the extension are signed by the White bureau.

Episode 207: kv Sidensvansen, kv Gärdsmygen, kv Domherren

District: Johanneberg

Photo date: 13 August 2021

As we climb the street and the hill, we rise up through the architectural stratigraphy. 1920s Classicism gives way to clean Modernism, a 1960s hotel and student lodgings and at the top is late 2010s Neo-Modernism or whatever you want to call it.

The hotel and the adjoining student lodging were designed by Johan Tuvert in 1959. The new lodgings at the bottom of the street were built by Wallenstam. And the pumping station, now offices, was built in 1923 from designs by Eugen Thorburn, with a discreet extension from 1985. The late-2010s highrise called Jarlaplatsen was designed by the Erséus bureau for Skanska.

Episode 208: kv Törnskatan

District: Johanneberg

Photo date: 29 July 2021

On top of the hill is a school, where I was caught by a thunderstorm when photographing it. Luckily there were galleries to hide in – also good for hiding shady businesses! Mandus Mandelius is a wonderful name, he should have designed more houses in Gothenburg just for the pleasure of saying his name.

In the 1920s and 1930s Gothenburg had grown so much it had to renew its critical infrastructure. Several water towers were built on the highest hills, like this one designed by Eugen Thorburn in 1924. There is another one near where I live, from 1930. Some of the water towers were converted to student lodgings in the late 1990s.

Kvarteren vid Trollspisberget och runt Liseberg

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Episodes 201 to 204 cover a suite of architectural styles from the early 1910s to the early 2020s, with a bit of natural design thrown in for good measure.

Episode 201: kv Entitan, kv Koltrasten, kv Blåmesen, kv Munkeboda, Trollspisen

District: Johanneberg (parts formerly in Lorensberg)

Photo date: 13 August 2021

The block called Munkeboda was originally part of district Lorensberg but got chucked into Johanneberg at the latest administrative reshuffle. Based on architecture and population, it really should still be part of Lorensberg, though, with a consulate, a posh villa by Johan Jarlén, now a school, and yet another lodge. It also has a brand new house designed by the Inobi bureau and put up during the last year. For the other blocks in this episode I refer to a general description of the area, page 126ff.

My grandmother wrote in her memoirs how they used to climb up the hill behind their house and in a crevice light a fire to make coffee. This same crevice gave the name to the hill and it still exists today! For the 1923 exhibition a path was cleared to the hill, for those boring persons who didn’t want to travel by funicular.

Some ten years ago I made a rock survey for a new zoning plan that wants to excavate half the Troll Stove hill and put up two tall houses in the new pit. But that would entail 30 metres high rock cuttings and it is placed right on top of sewers which would give inescapable ”aromas” in the new, expensive condos… The houses have yet to be built. The hill consists of mainly gabbro with various grain sizes. Very pretty.

Episode 202: kv Skokloster

District: Johanneberg (formerly Lorensberg)

Photo date: 13 August 2021

Here is another block that is properly part of Lorensberg. The zones, districts and sub-districts are really confused here… Maybe it’s the ghosts of those who were executed here that play havoc with the minds of city officials? The ghosts didn’t seem to bother my grandmother and her ancestors who lived here for a century. But for the 1923 exhibition, a cable-car was drawn right over this block, which was yet to be built, and over their garden – and sometimes the gondolas stopped and the passengers had to be rescued. So she said.

Episode 203: kv Getebergsäng – inside Liseberg

District: Heden

Photo date: 16 August 2021

Liseberg was one of the many small farms that dotted the area until 1923 or thereabouts. A few of the farm buildings still exist but the gardens have long gone – except maybe here, if you count the funfair as a garden. In her memoirs, my grandmother writes how she visited the manor house once, before the funfair had transformed the idyllic park. She was visiting a school friend who was staying with her relative, the architect Eugen Thorburn.

The 1923 Anniversary Exhibition was a temporary affair, almost ephemeral. And it was a riot of design! Sigfrid Ericson and Arvid Bjerke were the main architects and they created something fairytale-like. All photos from the time are black-and-white but written memories all mention how colourful it was. It was a very ambitious undertaking, with a historical section on the Johanneberg hill and a modern technical section at what became Svenska Mässan. And annexed to that part was the Liseberg funfair, the only part of the venture that wasn’t a spectacular financial loss. So it was decided to keep it and it has generated profit ever since.

Structures at Liseberg come and go, either in planned redevelopment or in sudden fires. The Congress Hall went up in flames in 1973, and the brand new adventure lido that was meant to save the entire tourism sector in Gothenburg melted in a horrid fire a month ago. Wikipedia says the two entrance towers were designed by Axel Jonsson and put up in 1940, as a nod to the two towers from the original exhibition. The pink colour permeating the whole park is said to be the original colour from the exhibition.

Episode 204: kv Getebergsäng (outside Liseberg), kv Sandmusslan, kv Pilgrimsmusslan, kv Immeln, kv Spindeln

District: Heden, Krokslätt (parts formerly Bö and Skår)

Photo date: 16 August 2021

Some 30 years ago I had a job just south of Liseberg and used to walk, run and tram along Södra Vägen almost daily. The big wooden villas and small landshövdingehus that my grandmother knew from her childhood were still there – but just a few years later they had to go to make way for the science centre (designed by Gert Wingårdh) and the award-winning culture museum (designed by Cécile Brisac and Edgar Gonzalez). And for the last six years also for Västlänken. Only the modernist house next to the southern entrance to Liseberg remains, for now…

East of the Mölndal creek the funfair has taken over the city block called Pilgrimsmusslan, where there used to be factories and before that very cheap housing for industrial workers. One part of a larger estate was set off as a sports field and named Balders Hage. This is where the ÖIS football club was started. The factories produced everything from sweets to yarn to engines and some of them were closed only 30 years ago. The Wingårdh bureau also designed the Grand Curiosa Hotel and the lido that burned down earlier this year.

Kvarteren Taltrasten, Näktergalen, Tofsmesen, Göken, Grönsiskan, Lappmesen

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Episodes 196 to 200 enter district Johanneberg, a relatively young administrative unit from 1920. The northern or lower part was built up a hundred years ago to an older type of city plan.

Episode 196: kv Taltrasten

District: Johanneberg

Photo date: 31 July 2021

The first plan for this part of the city was drawn up in 1901, revised in 1904 and 1917 and again in 1936. It was built up in the mid-1920s to late-1930s – and by that time the styles visualised in the plans had shifted from Jugend over National Romanticism to 1920s Classicism and finally crowned by glorious Modernism.

The lower or northern part of Johanneberg was built to Albert Lilienberg’s plan of 1917. This means curved streets and large enclosed courtyards without outhouses. So the flats in the tenement buildings, like in this block by Hugo Jahnke, were built with all the mod cons like a WC and a bathroom. Even working class landshövdingehus started to get amenities like this at the time, even though the bourgeoisie decried it as an unnecessary and immoral luxury.

Episode 197: kv Näktergalen

District: Johanneberg

Photo date: 26 July 2021

Taltrasten and Näktergalen were planned as non-identical twins, a portal to the upper parts of the hill. From the lower Viktor Rydbergsgatan, curved driveways lead up to almost Egyptian-type pylons, as to a grand manor house or castle of yore. Along the street are retaining walls and abutments for the overlying slopes – all carefully designed for sober beauty and monumentality. The architects were Harald Ericson and Ragnar Ossian Swensson.

Episode 198: kv Tofsmesen

District: Johanneberg

Photo date: 31 July 2021

When my grandmother’s father suddenly died in 1931, her widowed mother moved to Teknologgatan from the rather pretty little villa in Skår where they were relocated after the city expropriated their century-old family cottage in 1926. During her time here, she would have seen this little block completed in the mid-1930s, and all the radical changes that were soon to come to the Johanneberg area.

Episode 199: kv Göken

District: Johanneberg

Photo date: 1 August 2021

More houses should have informative plaques! That would make it much easier writing these narrations. In Majorna, the city’s management company Familjebostäder has put up several plaques relating the history of the landshövdingehus blocks they have preserved rather than torn down and replaced with concrete boxes.

Until all these stone houses were built, district Johanneberg was forested wilderness on the edge of the farms Gibraltar, Johanneberg and the Executioner’s. A creek ran down towards the west more or less along Vidblicksgatan. There is not much else to say about the Cuckoo, a typical late-1920s Classicism courtyard block. However, it’s rather big, and it has signed reliefs on the main facade. But would famous sculptor Carl Eldh really have stooped to such an insignificant assignment?

Episode 200: kv Grönsiskan, kv Lappmesen

District: Johanneberg

Photo date: 1 August 2021

My possibly-gay great-uncle Helmer was a banker who lived in a long flat at Walleriusgatan 2. We visited him and his possible-partner many times and it was a flat full of beautiful ceramics and modernist paintings. I say full but it was in no way cluttered, the flat was as elegant as he himself. When he died, my uncle Martin sold some of the paintings he inherited to finance building projects at his country house, so it was ”real” art that uncle Helmer collected. Not bad for a lad born to a caretaker for tennis pavillions!

Grönsiskan sits at the edge of the old planning style with big enclosed courtyards and looks out on the open style that followed. The church also straddles the two eras, Classicism and Modernism, with basically no decorations except a few crosses. My great-uncle used to complain about the bells tolling straight into their flat.

Kvarteren Gälakvist, Skaraborg, Läckö, Koberg, Gräfsnäs, Årnäs

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Episodes 181 to 185 ramble around the Lorensberg villa-town and get all arty down by Poseidon, where Lexxians once gathered…

Episode 181: kv Gälakvist

District: Lorensberg

Photo date: 20 June and 25 September 2021

When my mother studied art history in the 1980s, the department was located in one of these houses, probably Bjerke’s studio, my memory is hazy. I do remember the premises felt a bit cramped, though.

Episode 182: kv Skaraborg

District: Lorensberg

Photo date: 20 June 2021

Albert Lilienberg planned the Lorensberg villa-town around a tiny square, Högåsplatsen, and made full use of the terrain contours for laying out the streets and plots. Earlier planning ideals would have laid out as square a grid as possible and instead made full use of dynamite to level the terrain – as is the custom today as well.

Högåsplatsen has a very light and airy feeling to it, also slightly English. Around it are all these lovely century-old houses: the villa where Ågren lived for 40 years before bequeathing it to the university; the only remaining wooden villa, typical of the time; the Mellgren villa that was taken over by medicos; and the rather stupendous Broström house with its nautical associations.

Episode 183: kv Läckö

District: Lorensberg

Photo date: 20 June 2021

The houses in Läckö are a few years older than Gälakvist and Skaraborg, and the shift in styles is very noticeable. National Romanticism gives way to 1920s classicism and Modernism is just beginning to be felt. We add a couple of names to our list of architects: Karl Severin Hansson and Karl Samuelsson.

Two recent houses have been added too, where the architects’ usual crede that new houses should only and totally reflect the dominant contemporary style has been vetoed, either by the city architect (unlikely, that office is utterly insipid) or by the powerful interests operating on this hill (more likely, Gothenburg isn’t nicknamed Graftenburg for nothing). The two new houses are at Bengt Lidnersgatan 7 and Ekmansgatan 5. The latter was designed by Albert Svensson in what must be called a Neo-Neo-Classical style, and can be seen in Intermission IIIb.

One of the big names on the hill was Ekman, a once very influential family of traders and magnates on a par with Dickson and Wijk. Their flame has somewhat gone out these days, though. But the house that bears their name here is quite spectacular, ushering in the 1920s style that would soon be seen in all the landshövdingehus districts springing up around the outskirts of town.

Episode 184: kv Koberg

District: Vasastaden (formerly Lorensberg)

Photo date: 20 June 2021

In Koberg we add another young architect, Ebbe Crone. The houses in this block are variously offices and housing associations. Most houses in the villa-town were residential when built and then turned into offices in the 1950s. Recently, quite a few of the offices have been converted back to residential use. But not the Builders’ Association, which is still very active in its offices in Villa Hertz.

Episode 185: kv Gräfsnäs, kv Årnäs

District: Lorensberg

Photo date: 6 June 2021

Finally, here we are at one of the major landmarks in Gothenburg, the Art Museum. The top of Kungsportsavenyen had long been left undeveloped because the city planners recognized that it had to be rather spectacular and not a whim or half-measure that would make everyone angry over the years. So it wasn’t until the 300th anniversary exhibition that ideas and plans finally gelled: they simply had to produce something for that event! And thus was borne the Gothenburg Art Museum, which together with the Art Hall next to it are the only structures in the area left of the exhibition. (My grandmother tells in her memoirs how she used to walk across the building site to get to school, and one day dropped a bottle of tadpoles in the excavated rubble…)

The museum contains the original Fürstenberg collection from the late 1800s, which is very typical of the time with animals and naked young women, several Dutch masters including a scary painting of the severed head of St John the Baptist, and modern sections including temporary exhibition areas in the extension designed by Rune Falk and the White Bureau. Both the Art Museum and the Art Hall were designed by Ericson and Bjerke, who together with Swensson and Torulf were responsible for the overall design of the anniversary exhibition.

Surrounding Götaplatsen were temporary strucures that were dismantled after the exhibition. It took a decade or more before the area was completed, with the iconic (yes, I use that worn word very consciously) statue of Poseidon, the City Theatre and the Concert Hall. Classicism and finest Modernism surround the open space, where political manifestations happen, music gigs take place and sports stars are given heroes’ welcomes. And Lexxians gather to sing the Brunnen-G song, at least we did a quarter of a century ago…

Kvarteren Ulriksdal, Hörningsholm, Tullgarn, Drottningholm, Sparreholm, Gripsholm, Nääs, Visingsborg

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Episodes 176 to 180 enter the area of the 1923 Anniversary Exhibition and Lilienberg-land.

Episode 176: kv Ulriksdal

District: Lorensberg

Photo date: 13 June 2021

No architectural historian has devoted time and grants to this area yet so there is not much to add to the narration. The architects for this block and Drottningholm are given as Ernst Torulf, Hjalmar Zetterström, Tor Zetterström, Karl M Bengtsson, Arvid Bjerke, Ragnar Ossian Swensson, Nils Olsson and Erik Holmdal.

Episode 177: kv Hörningsholm, kv Tullgarn

District: Lorensberg

Photo date: 6 June 2021

In the 1980s my mother studied art history at university and she wrote a paper on the City Theatre. I can’t remember much of it because at that time I was not at all interested in architecture or local history – so boring! Then suddenly, overnight almost, I became fascinated by both subjects. Maybe it’s an age thing.

Soon after this episode was completed, the old girls’ school and adjoining car park were razed and something else will be put up there. The zoning document suggests more performing arts space, and an entrance to the new train station at Korsvägen. Something for a later Intermission…

Episode 178: kv Drottningholm

District: Lorensberg

Photo date: 13 June 2021

This block was only half-built when my grandmother passed it on her way to school, or to the family shop at Kungsportsplatsen. The south end of the block abutted the 1923 exhibition area.

Episode 179: kv Sparreholm, kv Gripsholm

District: Vasastaden (formerly Lorensberg)

Photo date: 20 and 22 June 2021

And now we enter the area where the city decided to hold its 300th anniversary exhibition, two years late in 1923. Johanneberg was built in the 1700s and had until recently been a working farm with big gardens and greenhouses but its time was up – and now the last vestiges of the grounds have been excavated away for a new train station. At least this part of Västlänken is still being built, unlike the middle station at Haga.

On the hill was the historical part of the exhibition, with wooden halls built for archeology, design, sports, crematoria (sic), crafts and victualling history, and lots of restaurants. In the middle was a big plaza topped by a strange memorial building. On this site now stands the 1984 part of the university building, and the university library stands on the former main restaurant. The original part of the library building was designed by Ärland Noreen in 1939 but it wasn’t built until 1951. The Coordinator bureau designed the 1982 extension. The yellow high-rise was designed by Jaan Allpere and Claes Melin. For the newest extension to the university building, designed by the KUB bureau, a new zoning plan was drawn up where you can read some of the text I wrote about the rock slopes in the area.

Episode 180: kv Nääs, kv Visingsborg

District: Lorensberg

Photo date: 20 June 2021

With Nääs and Visingsborg we enter the Lorensberg villa area. Albert Lilienberg planned it in 1913 and it was realised by the up and coming set of architects that put their mark on Gothenburg in this and the next couple of decades. The houses were built for the poshest members of the bourgeoisie, and certainly not for plebes and commoners.

Axel Carlander was a very big man in Gothenburg at the time. He made lots of money but also worked tirelessly for the public good. Apart from this National Romanticist gem, he has left his name on a hospital overlooking the funfair Liseberg. The lodge in Nääs is still active and even has a well-designed web page.

Kvarteren Häggen, Hasseln, Högskolan, Örebrohus, Trollenäs

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Episodes 166 to 170 stroll around the Vasa Park.

Episode 166: kv Häggen

District: Vasastaden

Photo date: 16 May 2021

Who designed Edvard Svensson’s imposing corner house at Aschebergsgatan 1? There is a discussion on page 189 in ”Vasastaden-Lorensberg”. Sedenmalm is rather dismissive of the ”small builders” who had worked their way up constructing landshövdingehus. The styles are variously Neo-Renaissance, as was popular at the time. The Old Gothenburg site also collates the entries about this block in that paper – quite handy. And CRA Fredberg offers lively vignettes about life and times in the general area.

Episode 167: kv Hasseln

District: Vasastaden

Photo date: 22 May 2021

When the old farm Brantdala, Steep Dale, had to give way to modern development in 1910, the area was planned by Albert Lilienberg. He put his mark on large parts of the then-city and although he was rather reviled by the following modernists, he has in later years become something of a celebrity, it seems. Books and articles mention him often.

As the area is very hilly, it had been too difficult to build on it until now, when dynamite made everything so much easier. The Domesticity house Föreningsgatan 32 was built in 1911, in a sort of Jugend / National Romanticism mix. Björner Hedlund designed it together with his father Hans. The northwest corner of the block was built a few years later and by that time fashions had shifted radically towards 1920s Classicism.

Episode 168: kv Högskolan and Vasaparken

District: Vasastaden (formerly Lorensberg)

Photo date: 27 February 2021

The old university building is listed but still in use, for representation and administrative offices. I’ve attended a couple of public lectures there, one by an adventurer who described his expedition to the Nazca geoglyphs. It was like being transported back in time a hundred years, when explorers toured the lecture circuits to finance their new expeditions! Amundsen, Hedin, Shackleton spring to mind.

The Vasa Park and its convoluted gestation is described in all my sources, a popular subject. Photos of small boys on sleds tobogganing down the steep terrain are obligatory.

Episode 169: kv Örebrohus

District: Vasastaden (formerly Lorensberg)

Photo date: 29 May 2021

The blocks around what became the Vasa Park were built around 1890 to 1900. The posh new inhabitants must have disliked the shanty town between them intensely. Likewise the other shanty town to the north, Flygarns Haga. Luckily, the authorities soon had them ”moved along” and the first wave of gentrification in Gothenburg was completed.

Örebrohus is Neo-Renaissance and Neo-Gothic rohbau, but the younger houses are starting to look at the interesting new style called Jugend.

Episode 170: kv Trollenäs

District: Vasastaden (formerly Lorensberg)

Photo date: 29 May 2021

Here is another block built and designed by firms that had started out making landshövdingehus. By now they had made enough money to spend on lavish decorations for their Neo-Renaissance and Neo-Gothic facades, as described on page 284 in ”Vasastaden-Lorensberg”.

Instead of brick and plaster, they could spend on limestone, granite and sandstone. Two members of SGU, the Swedish Geological Survey, recently wrote an excursion guide to the geology of Gothenburg cladding.

Kvarteren Glimmingehus, Sturefors, Örup, Svaneholm, Kastellholm, Visborg

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Episodes 131 to 135 enter the stone house city west of Heden.

Episode 131: kv Glimmingehus, kv Sturefors

District: Vasastaden (formerly Lorensberg)

Photo date: 21 February 2021

What’s in a name? In this part of the city, that is a very valid question. When the area south of the moat was developed in the late-1860s onwards, the western and oldest part was called Vasastaden after our father-king Gustaf. The eastern part, where we are now, was called Lorensberg after a famous entertainment property next to Glimmingehus. These district names are still reflected in the ordnance survey map. But the city has changed its administrative zones several times and now most of the combined districts is called Vasastaden. A clue to the original zoning is the names of the blocks themselves: in Lorensberg they are named after castles, in Vasastaden after trees.

Glimmingehus was first built up in the late 1880s, but only the courthouse remains. It was designed by Hans Hedlund and built in 1887. It was used as a courthouse until 2010 when it was turned into a highschool. To the right of it was a girls’ school that looks fabulous on old photos but it was replaced by offices and parking garage in the 1960s. The paddock to the left of it was replaced in the 1930s. Until I started reading up on local history, I had no idea there had been paddocks in the middle of the city.

In Sturefors, all the grand 1880s houses were torn down in the 1960s, for some reason. Of the new houses from that swinging era, the southern end house from 1960 was designed by Helge Zimdal, Avenyn 32 by Per-Axel Björk was built in 1967, and the rest of the block from 1965 came from the pen of F Löfberg. And by the way, the Sturefors castle is in Östergötland and was built by the noble Sture family around the year 1600, says Wikipedia.

Episode 132: kv Örup

District: Vasastaden (formerly Lorensberg)

Photo date: 21 February 2021

In architectural circles of 130 years ago, this block was nicknamed ”Adrianopel”, after big-name architect Adrian Peterson who designed these houses along Avenyn. The builder was Nils Andersson & Co and the first houses went up in 1881. At that time, the dominant style was Neo-Renaissance with lavish, I mean really lavish, decorations all over the facades. Cartouches, festoons, faces, atlants, lions, cornucopias… It takes a long time to walk around blocks with preserved 1880s facades. And it’s better to have a camera with a proper zoom to capture all the tiny details along the roof.

Only the properties at the north end of the block were replaced in the 1960s razing mania. Lorensbergsgatan 1 was designed by Owe Svärd and built in 1964, and numbers 3-5 were replaced in the 1970s. These properties were first owned by the Malmsjö family, who ran a piano factory at the eastern end of Vasagatan. Johan Gustaf Malmsjö started the factory in 1847 and it ran on until 1962 when it moved to Arvika and production ceased in 1978.

Episode 133: kv Svaneholm

District: Vasastaden (formerly Lorensberg)

Photo date: 19 December 2020

Here is a block with styles spanning a century. The house at Kristinelundsgatan 16 is the oldest, designed by Belfrage & Franck and built in 1879. The house next to it was built four years later. In 1930, part of the vacant lot after the tobacco factory was filled with a house designed by Nernst Hanson, at the tail end of 1920s Classicism. And finally, at the north end of the block a modern office building designed by the Tengbom bureau was put up in 1977. Though the style seems to look towards the 1980s and Post-Modernism.

Episode 134: kv Kastellholm

District: Vasastaden (formerly Lorensberg)

Photo date: 14 November 2020

The winds of change have swept through this block several times. First the farms and plantations along Södra Vägen had to go when Malmsjö’s piano factory was established here in the mid-1800s. Then came the French quarter in 1875, in splendid French Neo-Renaissance style. The houses at Södra Vägen 7-11 were designed by Hanson & Löfmark and put up in 1903. After a respite of some 30 years, it was time for the next redevelopment: on the site of the demolished piano factory, at Södra Vägen 13, a tenement building by Gunnar Hoving was built in 1931, and in 1939 the corner houses along Avenyn were replaced by splendid Modernist buildings, the north one by A M Stark and the south one designed by Nils Olsson. Olsson’s house is the one with the cinema, which is forever imprinted in my memory as where I first saw ”Snow White”.

The northeastern corner house was built in 1956, from designs by Erik Ahlsén, and long held the offices for the insurance company Folksam. Their logo spun on a spiral-shaped sign on the roof until just recently. Finally, the middle of the block along Avenyn was replaced with the current houses in 1969. Numbers 6 and 8 were designed by Johan Tuvert and numbers 10 and 12 by the Contekton bureau. Phew, so much name-checking!

The burger joint changed owners a couple of months after I photographed it, and was immediately repainted. So the winds of change still whistle briskly around the corners of this block.

Episode 135: kv Visborg

District: Vasastaden (formerly Lorensberg)

Photo date:11 October 2020

Until Sweden was pulled out of the dismal poverty that had been our lot until the early 1900s, vermin was a terrible problem. In 1934, just as politicians started flexing their muscles for raising the standard of living that became a mania of urban renewal thirty years later, the anti-vermin company Anticimex was started. Their first enemy was the horrible bed bug, today making an unwelcome comeback in Swedish homes and hotels.

Before city block Visborg was built, this was a farm called Mariefred, and it remained at the east end of the block as the western house was put up in the late 1870s. The western house was designed in elaborate Neo-Renaissance style by Carl Fahlström. The remaining farm was bought in 1910, when the eastern half of the block was built. The basement towards Avenyn has been restaurant premises for a hundred years. In 1971, Gothenburg’s first pizzeria opened here and we sometimes went there when I was a kid. Yum.

Kvarteren Rubinen, Opalen, Bergkristallen, Onyxen, Granaten

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Episodes 123 to 126 take a tour through architectural fashions from the 1890s to the 1990s.

Episode 123: kv Rubinen, kv Opalen

District: Heden

Photo date: 25 December 2020

As you can see by my WordPress signature, my alias in the Gothenburg Tolkien society is Ruby Gamgee. So city block Ruby feels right at home! It’s a little bit weird but also nice how much my alias has become part of my overall personality: before, my favourite colour was blue and now it’s ruby red. When I could create a coat of arms, my life suddenly filled with penguins. And above all: the many and very good friends I have made.

In city block Opal, the 1880s landshövdingehus were torn down in the 1960s to make way for modern buildings – a story that is true for every other district in Gothenburg too. The hotel by Henning Orlando was in perfect 1960s style until the topside extension was added in 2007. Now it just looks wonky. The other buildings in the block were designed by Lennart Kvarnström, and the Lund & Valentin bureau.

Episode 124: kv Bergkristallen

District: Heden

Photo date: 13 March 2021

Now we enter the area south of Heden, where tall stone houses sprang up in a tight cluster from the 1890s to the 1920s. The old farms, tobacco plantations and shacks had to go, to make way for the demands of a modern city – words that are still true today and probably were true even for the old Greeks.

My main source for this area, and indeed the next 50 or more episodes of this series, is an in-depth study of planning and architecture in Vasastaden-Lorensberg, made by Staffan Sedenmalm in 2016. Chock full of information! My other source is of course CRA Fredberg, and my grandmother’s memoirs; she grew up just south of here in the early 1900s.

Along Hedåsgatan, the middle part of the block has been pulled back a bit from the street, creating a more open space. This is a hallmark of the city plans drawn up by Albert Lilienberg, who was planning director in Gothenburg between 1907 and 1927. Lots more will be said about him in episodes 389ff of this series. Berzeliigatan 22 is a very light type of Jugend, almost Rococo, designed by Robert Andersson in 1903.

Episode 125: kv Onyxen

District: Heden

Photo date: 13 March 2021

The area south of Heden was mostly developed by builders who had worked their way up from wooden landshövdingehus. They included August Westerlind, Johan August Frise, Johan Peter A Rydgren, Hans A Kilander, C A Lund, J A Westerberg, Nathan Persson and Abraham Pehrsson. They mostly drew their buildings in-house and only the posher houses along the main thouroughfares were designed by proper architects, like Hjalmar Cornilsen, Frans Frise, Zetterstöm & Jonsson and Olof Holmén.

Sten Sturegatan 21 was built in 1905 by Carl Axel Gillberg. It is a Jugend-type house but a bit heavier than usual, almost Baroque.

Episode 126: kv Granaten

District: Heden

Photo date: 20 March 2021

The stone desert continues, as Fredberg would have put it. The houses along Skånegatan were built as the noughties Jugend had turned into the 1910s National Romanticism, and even into the 1920s Classicism. They are too humble to be worthy of separate comments in my sources, though. The odd fire or too-severe subsidence damage has caused some old buildings to be replaced in the 1990s. Some of the houses along Södra Vägen were designed by Olof Holmén and built in the noughties.