Etikettarkiv: Falk

Architect, link in Gräfsnäs etc

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 Gestilren, Herrevadsbro, Lena, Åsle, Lützen, Brännkyrka

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In episodes 90 to 94 we leave the original city and its defence works, to look at one of the first industrial districts and suburbs.

Episode 90: kv Gestilren

District: Stampen

Photo date: 23 August 2020

Our first block in the district called Stampen is also one of the most modern, with significant inustrial heritage, as narrated in the video. It needed quite a lot of narration, as these semi-modern houses have a surprising amount of decorations. Actually, given the time of construction (late 1980s), the amount of decoration is quite typical. In a reaction to the austere functionalism and economising of the 1960s and 1970s, some post-modern architects started added extraneous details like tiles, pillars, bay windows, pyramids and outright sculptures to their facades and roofs. There are a handful of these houses in Gothenburg, almost all of them public buildings like a tram deopt, a fire station or a parking garage.

Try as I might, the only information I can find about the modern buildings is an old zoning document that says the property was owned by Kullenbergs. The Old Gothenburg site relates the saga of this company that was very active during the 1970s and 80s and then went bust in the 1990s bubble. But what is this: in Intermission Part 3 is a photo of a hand with the name Lars Spaak! He made some of the railings, and the bronze pillar at Adler Salivus gata 11. On his website he also mentions architect Ylva Ljungström.

That site and Fredberg also have interesting things to say about the orphanage, with illustrations. The current building was designed by Adolf Edelsvärd.

Episode 91: kv Herrevadsbro

District: Stampen

Photo date: 23 August 2020

In high school I studied languages, latin even. But I didn’t know what career I wanted to pursue after graduation so in 1985 and 1986 I took complementary courses in maths, physics and typing at the Odin School. Even then it was old, even if it was modern when it was built. The architect was G A Falk. (The courses turned out to be very useful as I eventually became a geologist, and with the then-unknown internet, typing skillz have become essential.)

The water-course to the south, the Paupers’ Canal, is a man-made canal to supply water to the moat, and to allow barge access to the Mölndal River. Before it was dug, in the mid-1600s, one of the arms of the river ran right through this block. The district was for the most part a reedy marshland in the beginning. The river arm remained as a swampy backwater for almost two centuries. A fitting place for the knacker!

When I went to the school here, the land between it and the canal was un-built. The hotel at the west end of Gestilren had been built, and the rest of Gestilren was a construction site. The buses to Partille, where I lived then, had stopped by the old Pripps plank but had just been moved to the brand new arcade along the north side of the hotel. Now there are no bus stops along Odinsgatan as all bus routes have been moved away from it. Air quality along this road is notoriously bad and this was one of the remedial measures taken, others being outlawing the use of snow tires and restricting access. This latter measure is a direct reversal of policy as compared with the 1950s and 60s when major motorways and universal access for cars ruled!

Episode 92: kv Lena

District: Stampen

Photo date: 23 August 2020

The newspaper house is a fine example of modernism, or functionalism as it is called in Sweden. It was designed in 1933 by Ragnar Ossian Swensson, who some 20 years earlier was heavily into late-national romanticism, and 1920s classicism in that decade. A fashion-conscious gentleman!

Göteborgs-Posten was the city’s biggest newspaper until the internet killed that business some 20 years ago. The house here was built for the presses as well as the editorial offices, but in the 1970s bigger presses were needed and a new industrial building put up across the river. In the archives of the company I work for, Bergab, are documents from the site investigations for this buildings. Half a decade ago or so, that house was torn down as presses are no longer needed. Thousands of trees thank the internet for their lives!

The other house in this block is a formerly functionalist house like the ones around Odinsplatsen. It was completely redesigned some 20 years ago. Neither the 1930s nor the 2000s styles permit decorations.

Episode 93: kv Åsle

District: Stampen

Photo date: 23 August 2020

Before 1900, the north side of this street was un-built; in fact, until the railway was laid out on recently reclaimed land, this was all reedy marshland along a bay of the river. Louis Enders designed this workers’ tenement for the Pripps brewery in 1898. Apart from this block and the Jewish cemetary, all the other houses were built in the 1930s.

Episode 94: kv Lützen, kv Brännkyrka and Odinsplatsen

District: Stampen

Photo date: 23 August 2020

Odinsplatsen was planned in 1866 but the north side was only built up in the late 1930s. It was a centre for car salesmen, mechanics and garages. When the car salesmen moved out in the 1970s, bikers and strip-clubs moved in. Twenty years ago the entire area was rebuilt and/or gentrified.

The current buildings in the Brännkyrka block are from the 1960s and 1990s. The imposing facade along the Canal is completely different from the old paupers’ school that stood here until the 1960s. Johan Willin was a very charitable priest in the 1700s who started a free school for poor children, an institution that later morphed into the compulsory state school system instated in 1842.