Etikettarkiv: Brolid

Architect, link in Oppensten

Kvarteren Järneken, Falken, Morkullan, Anden, Sångsvanen, Sothönan, Fiskmåsen, Brushanen, Hägern, Spoven, Berget

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Episodes 216 to 219 contemplate the pros and cons of tearing down a whole district of un-modern wooden houses with a strong sense of community, to build modern machines for living where the community spirit has been lost.

Episode 216: kv Järneken, kv Falken, kv Morkullan, kv Anden

District: Landala

Photo date: 22 August 2021

Landala was once a vibrant working class district, with much crime and poverty but a strong sense of community. At least, that is what the inhabitants said in surveys after they had been uprooted in the 1970s ”sanitation” efforts, and sat in their single, lonely flats with all the mod cons. Sure the old landshövdingehus and rustic cottages were picturesque, but cold and draughty with outhouses in the courtyards and only cold water if any. Current inhabitants in the machines for living say they are pleased enough to live there.

The razed area was distributed among seven private entrepreneurs as well as the city’s housing company. The new Landala Torg and the too-brutalist block south of if were designed by Lars Ågren, Ingemar Mattsson and the K-Konsult bureau.

The little chapel that looks forlorn between the Brutalist architecture and the merciless traffic on Aschebergsgatan was built in 1885 from designs by Carl Möller.

Episode 217: kv Sångsvanen

District: Landala

Photo date: 22 August 2021

At the south end of Landala are a couple of blocks that weren’t fully sanitized in the 1970s. The landshövdingehus were some of the last to be built here, in 1915, from designs by O M Holmén and Hjalmar Cornilsen among others. The geology department of the university was located in Sångsvanen until the 1990s: a sign in one of the windows declared this. At that time, I was studying computational linguistics at the Holterman Hospital, then home to the computer science department of Chalmers. The old syphilis hospital has since been further remodelled to become a hostel for Chalmers students.

Episode 218: kv Sothönan

District: Landala

Photo date: 22 August 2021

These eleven disc houses were designed by Sven Brolid – the Brutalism can sometimes be stifling. But the Robert Dickson Foundation always adds some kind of decoration to their facades. The ones in The Coot are quite fun. I work in the same house as the Foundation, maybe I should climb the stairs one day and ask them about their artists?

Episode 219: kv Fiskmåsen, kv Brushanen, kv Hägern, kv Spoven, kv Berget, the water tower castle

District: Landala

Photo date: 22 August 2021

The Brutalist architecture continues up the Landala Hill. These houses were designed by Jaak Lohk who, before joining a private entrepreneur, was one of the architects who developed the new zoning plan for the city in the late 1960s.

The northwest side of Landala is slightly less sanitized than the rest of the district. Here are a few remaining landshövdingehus, a preschool from 2010, and three buildings from earlier expansions of the city’s critical infrastructure. The first water reservoir was constructed in 1871, the little fairy castle (and underground reservoir) came in 1892, a time when Peterson was very busy building water stations and schools, and finally the Jugend pumping station in 1905.

It is now April of 2024 and I can not remember why I didn’t go out to do any photography between September 2021 and January 2022, when the story picks up in district Annedal. How short and fickle the memory is!

Kvarteren Malmöhus, Oppensten, Borgeby, Örbyhus samt Lorensbergsparken

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Episodes 171 to 175 tour the tail-end of Neo-Renaissance and celebrate early and late Modernism.

Episode 171: kv Malmöhus

District: Vasastaden (formerly Lorensberg)

Photo date: 30 May 2021

Wallenstam recently changed its logo from the ant carrying a letter m or W, to a stylised ant drawn with a single looping line. Maybe the ant carrying a pine needle, as seen on Engelbrektsgatan 28, is the original logo from the 1950s?

Trying to find some information about the modern houses in the middle of the block (a real estate agent says they were built in 1943), I came across the current zoning plan for the area. It is dated 1867!

Episode 172: kv Oppensten

District: Vasastaden (formerly Lorensberg)

Photo date: 29 May 2021

Wilhelm Röhss was one of the magnates in the 19th century who donated parts of their estates to the city, to be used for the public good. Since the sums were substantial, the foundations are still operating today. The Röhss monies were used to build this museum to which my mother would drag me quite often (my favourite museum was the ethnographic one, with American Indians). When the museum was built, it was in the then-fashionable National Romanticist style. The two extensions were also designed in then-current fashions: Melchior Wernstedt’s 1930s early-Modernism and the late-Modernist one from circa 1960, by Sven Brolid and Jan Wallinder.

At the other end of the block is the Academy of Craft and Design, or some better equivalent to its many names: Slöjdförenings skola, Konstindustriskolan, Högskolan för design och konsthantverk. Hans Hedlund’s original building has been added to by Sigfrid Ericson in 1915 (the penthouse) and the White design bureau in 1992 (filling up the former courtyard). Today, it is part of the university and offers education in all the fine arts.

Episode 173: kv Borgeby

District: Vasastaden (formerly Lorensberg)

Photo date: 30 May 2021

Here is the original Valand that the current Academy of Fine Arts takes its name from. It was quite an important institution (at least locally), producing several fine artists over the years. The school moved to new premises in 1925 and has led a wandering existence since then. The Par Bricole lodge took over the house at that time and are still very much going strong.

The block is built on land that belonged to the old farm Kristinelund. Nothing remains of it but the street name, and apart from Valand nothing remains of the first stone houses either. At the south end of the block is a beautiful Modernist house designed by Nils Olsson in the late 1930s. The middle of the block was razed in the late 1950s and two new houses designed by Helge Zimdal were put up along Avenyn. Some ten years ago they were given a makeover, and the western side of the block was completely rebuilt from designs by Anna Sunnerö at the Wingårdh bureau. Gert Wingårdh is the current mega-star in Swedish architecture.

Episode 174: kv Örbyhus

District: Vasastaden (formerly Lorensberg)

Photo date: 29 May 2021

In this block, too, the back side along Teatergatan has been redeveloped from designs by Jacek Zalecki at Wingårdhs. Apparently, the previous 1930s and 1960s houses were ”shoddy” and ”disgusting” – the very same words used for the districts that were lamentedly razed in the 1960s and 70s. Plus ça change…

Originally, the whole block was built in intricate Neo-Renaissance in the late 1890s, but only the end houses have been left standing. Of the three middle houses along Avenyn, the northern one was built in 1935 and designed by Nils Olsson in a calm and clean Modernist style. The other two houses were designed by Lund & Valentin in late-Modernist style and built in 1961. As in Borgeby, they were given a makeover by Wingårdhs some ten years ago.

Episode 175: Lorensbergsparken

District: Lorensberg

Photo date: 5 June 2021

When I was a kid, my parents used to go dancing at a place called Sophus, named after the last and famous restaurateur at the Lorensberg entertainment complex, much written about by Fredberg. Almost nothing remains of it today, other than the Lorensberg Theatre and the name of the whole district. And a small play area with circus horses…

The big hotel was designed by Nils Einar Eriksson in 1948, to house visiting industrialists. It still looks much like it did when it opened but the city library has been given a facelift designed by the Erséus bureau. The theatre was designed by Karl M Bengtsson but when it was turned into a cinema in 1934 it was redesigned by R O Swensson and H Widlund. In 1987 it was turned back into a theatre which it still is. For now.