Etikettarkiv: Dickson

Clan of magnates, https://gamlagoteborg.se/2014/05/18/robert-dickson/

Kvarteren Vik, Nyköpingshus, Rydboholm, Avenboken, Björken

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Episodes 141 to 145 slog around long and lavishly decorated upper-middle class facades at Vasaplatsen.

Episode 141: kv Vik

District: Vasastaden (formerly Lorensberg)

Photo date: 28 November 2020

The Baptist Tabernacle, the Ladies’ School for Girls, pastry chefs and a celebrated man of letters. This block has it all! Including a full narration about design history.

Episode 142: kv Nyköpingshus and Vasaplatsen

District: Vasastaden (formerly Lorensberg)

Photo date: 5 December 2020

Fredberg and ”Vasaplatsen-Lorensberg” (e.g. page 218) write much about the history and the architecture in this area.

As you venture further from the inner city and further in time from the 1880s, lions on facades start to thin out and eventually peter out entirely. In Vasastaden they look very similar, probably because many of the decorations were mass-produced elements that could be added onto any new house. So the facades look unique and spectacular but really they are all much the same. Like teenagers…

One of the victims of the terrible tram crash of 1992 was Åsa Walldén, who had just finished writing a 16-page pamphlet about architecture in Kungsladugård. I’ve made heavy use of it in part 384 ff of this series.

Episode 143: kv Rydboholm

District: Vasastaden (formerly Lorensberg)

Photo date: 1 November 2020

On the south edge of Kungsparken is a string of smaller blocks meant to resemble the so-called patrician villas that dotted the park before the stone city of Vasastaden-Lorensberg was planned and realised. Most of these small blocks are designed as one entity, but some consist of two properties. In this block, the western half was built by the H Börjesson company in 1897 and the eastern half by O A Burman. But the facades for both halves were designed by Carl Crispin Peterson, son of Adrian. The style is described as Tudor Neo-Gothic.

Episode 144: kv Avenboken

District: Vasastaden

Photo date: 19 December 2020

On page 269 of ”Vasastaden-Lorensberg”, Staffan Sedenmalm writes about the so-called park blocks and the general design history of the area:

Under 1890-talets senare hälft fylldes äntligen den gapande luckan i stenstadsfronten mot parkbältet. Tio år efter tillkomsten av Wijkska villan – den enda privatbostaden i denna märkliga svit av nio kvarter – blev nämligen de fyra sista parkkvarteren, två på vardera sidan av Vasaplatsen, uppförda. Tre kvarter bebyggdes med två samgestaltade bostadshus vardera, två av kvarteren för olika byggherrar. Det blev en skarp kontrast mellan de äldre kvarterens aristokratiska arkitektur och de nya med ett borgerligare kynne. Mot 1870- och 80-talens nyrenässans, formad av mått- och formprinciper som övertagits från de gamla mästarnas läroböcker och översatt från två à tre palatsvåningar i naturlig sten till hyrespalatsens fyra våningar i stenimiterande putsornering, ställdes nu de fem våningar höga tegelborgarna med sin enklare vertikala indelning och en fasadbehandling som likställde våningarna i rang. Stil- och formmässigt fick liksom tidigare varje parkkvarter sin egen karaktär. Till detta bidrog tegelsorternas rikt varierade profilprogram och kulörer med möjligheter att kombinera samstämda toner. Ett verksamt uttrycksmedel i dessa tegelfasader, rikare på kulör än plastisk form, utgjorde järnbalkongernas organiskt sirliga konstsmide. Karaktäristiskt för 1890-talets parkkvarter blev de isärdragna fasaderna på kvarterens baksida – således exponerades bakgårdarnas påvra fasader mot Storgatan ovanför en stängselmur i fasadens arkitektur med en port till respektive gård. Såväl gårdsfasader som brandgavlar fick – med undantag av ett kvarter tillhörigt en inflytelserik organisation – en enkel beklädnad av grov spritputs.

Staffan Sedenmalm, ”Vasastaden-Lorensberg. KULTURMILJÖ AV RIKSINTRESSE I GÖTEBORG. Planering och byggande utanför vallgraven 1850-1900”, Länsstyrelsen Västra Götaland 2016:43

Episode 145: kv Björken

District: Vasastaden

Photo date: 23 January 2021

Opposite city block Rydboholm is another equally long block that takes a very long time to explore and document. Several big-name architects and builders contributed to the splendid facades towards Vasaplatsen and Vasagatan, as listed in the narration and the block’s entry in the blog about Old Gothenburg.

In the very early 1980s I went to yoga classes in a flat at Vasaplatsen 3. It was really big, some six rooms (and a tiny bathroom) with plaster decorations around the ceilings and all. It must have been really expensive even at that time. Since then, almost all flats around Vasaplatsen seem to have been converted to offices and clinics and dentists’.

Kvarteren Beryllen, Smaragden, Diamanten, Malakiten and Exercisheden

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Episodes 119 to 122 survey the north part of district Heden, with private and public building styles spanning a century and more.

Episode 119: kv Beryllen

District: Heden

Photo date: 19 September 2020

During Gothenburg’s 400th anniversary celebrations last year, one event was the fact that the ”utility-historical collections” in Elyseum, Hans Hedlund’s Art Nouveau fortress of electricity, were open at a time when others than OPAs could visit. I jumped at the opportunity – and it was fabulous! Gas works, electricity production, district heating, cables and pipes, and a recreation of the first exhibition of electrical gadgets that you might use as a pioneering electricity consumer. Wow. If you want to go, the opening hours are 1000-1400 on Wednesdays. Or book a private showing.

Episode 120: kv Smaragden

District: Heden

Photo date: 19 September 2020

The architect Johan August Westerberg designed the splendid tenenment buildings for employees at the state railroads, while the 1892 house with the tower was designed by K Johansson. And you can read all about the 1891 industrial exhibition in CRA Fredberg’s third volume of stories about Gothenburg of yore.

Episode 121: kv Diamanten

District: Heden

Photo date: 6 September 2020

Oscar Dickson’s ”palace” at the west end of The Diamond was designed by William Allen Boulnois and built by local building firm P J Rapp, with imported English workers. Boulnois also designed Villa Överås in Örgryte, which we might visit in several years’ time if I continue with this architectural hobby.

It’s rather unusual to have two churches in one block. The Methodist church was designed by Karl Magnus Bengtsson, in a mixed Swedish-English 1920s style. And the 20 years older house it was added onto was designed by Oswald Westerberg, son of Johan August. The Roman Catholic church was built ten years later, from designs by Carl Rosell. It was adequate at the time but today it is always packed full on Sundays, many attendants have to stand throughout the 90-minute service.

Parkgatan 6 was built at the same time as church and designed by Gotthard Gillermo. The G D Kennedy house, by Gotthard Åhlander, is one of the last examples of charitable housing made possible by donations to the city by wealthy merchants and financiers. For a hundred years, that was a common and commendable practice, to share wealth and be remembered. From the 1930s, Sweden became a socialist state with the aim of lowering class barriers and sharing wealth, the so-called People’s Home, and donations were no longer needed to aid poor people. I guess it is time to take up that old practice again now.

Episode 122: kv Malakiten and Exercisheden

District: Heden

Photo date: 19 September and 11 October 2020

CRA Fredberg writes enthusiastically about the so-called Rifle Movement that flourished in Gothenburg for a few years in the 1860s. They marched about, held gun competitions, and built this sports hut at the edge of the military exercise field, Heden. The movement quickly faded into ancient history, but the house endures, with sports activities almost every week. The architect was Frans Jacob Heilborn.

The Sports House where the farm Katrinetorp (or the Flea Pit as it was apparently called) once stood, was built from scratch for the 1923 Anniversary Exhibition, from designs by the exhibition’s official architect Arvid Fuhre. The Exhibition was located not just at the main area around Korsvägen: here in Heden was the farming section, for instance, and over on Hisingen was ILUG, the first international airshow after the Great War, at a float-plane harbour and airfiled opened in 1923 and only closed when Landvetter Airport was built 50 years later.

Liseberg acquired the hotel at the south end of Heden in 1981, and about that time the bus stop house was built too. There have always been unrealised plans to fill Heden with more houses, preferably tightly clustering highrises which is de rigueur today. But it is a very useful open space, accommodating healthy athletics, events like the horse championships a few years back, and circuses!