Etikettarkiv: Fredberg

Local historian, https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Fredberg

Kvarteren Geväret, Infanteristen, Grenadjären, Artilleristen, Landsknekten

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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.

Episode 233: kv Geväret

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.

Episode 234: kv Infanteristen

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.

Episode 235: kv Grenadjären

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.

Episode 236: kv Artilleristen

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.

Episode 237: kv Landsknekten

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.

Kvarteren Sappören, Dragonen, Sabeln, Bajonetten, Laddstaken

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Episodes 228 to 232 enter the district called Haga, Gothenburg’s first suburb that was burnt down by the Danes in 1676 but made a strong comeback until most of it was demolished 300 years later.

Episode 228: kv Sappören

District: Haga

Photo date: 26 February 2022

Our first block in Haga sums up the architectural history of the district quite well. It was a working class suburb which meant cheap or ancient buildings like the ones at Husargatan 44 and 46 from the mid-1800s. In the 1960s the powers that be decided that all houses in Gothenburg older than 50 years and esepecially every single landshövdingehus needed to be demolished and replaced with concrete machines for living. But the man in the street disagreed and their was much protestation, to deaf ears. In the 1980s, it was again decided that some old houses should be spared and refurbished, while the modern houses being put up should have a less brutal esthetic.

The university building in this block is part of what is now called Campus Haga and is part of the social sciences department. They were very affronted when their new area in Haga was immediately, nay inevitably, dubbed ”Samvetet” by the local wits – ”social sciences” is called ”samhällsvetenskap” in Swedish, and ”samvete” is ”conscience”. Oh ye of little humour… The buildings were designed by Arkitektlaget and the Wallinder bureau and put up in the early 1990s.

Episode 229: kv Dragonen

District: Haga

Photo date: 26 February 2022

The Dragoon is much like The Sapper but instead of a mid-1850s cottage, the preserved houses are two 1880s landshövdingehus, from the first wave of that type of house. For the new university building, the architects strived to retain the monumental backdrop that the old brewery gave to Vasagatan. Well at least it is rather low; today the new house would have been at least ten storeys high and inescapable.

Episode 230: kv Sabeln

District: Haga

Photo date: 12 March 2022

Haga Nygata is the main (the only) shopping street in Haga and it is really quaint. All the cruise ship passengers come here in the summer, and so do many ordinary locals too. The café called Husaren was the first to sell really oversized cinnamon buns which lately have become something of a symbol for all the cafés in Haga.

Of the houses built in the late 1880s, the big stone building and the crinkly landshövdingehus along Haga Nygata and Sprängkullsgatan have been preserved. But the ”back” of the block was completely replaced in the 1980s.

Episode 231: kv Bajonetten

District: Haga

Photo date: 12 March 2022

Sprängkullsgatan once again lives up to its name, what with the blasting works going on for Västlänken right underneath Hagakyrkan. No wait, the work there was halted two years ago and it is just a barricaded area with a busy motorway running through it now. But we had fun trying to determine just how much Spräng had been made in the Kulle, and how much rock was left above the proposed railway tunnel. No drawings or surveys from the time still exist. (Hint: the result was ”almost no rock”.)

Among the elaborate landshövdingehus in this block stands one really ancient house with only two storeys and a somewhat fancier stone house for the Haga parish. The back of the block was completely replaced in the 1980s. The Eckerstein bookshop was one of the best in Gothenburg, which sold academic literature and non-mainstream works. Towards the end of its existence it resided in what is now the Chinese consulate.

Episode 232: kv Laddstaken

District: Haga

Photo date: 12 April 2022

Here is a block that reeks of history – if any block in Haga should be preserved it is this one. Luckily, only three quarters of the houses were demolished and replaced in the late 1980s.

Fredberg has much to write about the Hussars that gave Haga much of its air of… I hesitate to say horse manure. Flair, flamboyance, dash, rambunctiousness? When they were decommissioned in 1875, their barracks became a police station for the mounted police. In 1914 it too was moved, to a fancy new house in Masthugget.

He also has a few things to say about Concert du Boulevard and how weird the Salvation Army was to ordinary Swedes when they took over the premises in the mid-1880s. I find it quite hilarious that socialism didn’t take off in Gothenburg at that time, since our city became a Red Fortress in the 1960s and 70s and still has a hard time shaking off that image all these liberal decades later.

Kvarteren Valnöten, Mandeln, Persikan, Ollonet, Körsbäret, Päronet

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Episodes 224 to 227 trudge through 1970s housing estates to reach the very opposite of that era, a spectacular Jugend confection.

Episode 224: kv Valnöten, kv Mandeln, kv Persikan, kv Ollonet

District: Annedal

Photo date: 23 January 2022

The Annedal House is home to the heritage club Annedalspojkar and to a working class museum. It was built in 1876 as part of the charity housing estate in episode 220. The Annedal School next to it was originally built at the same time but the house we see today was designed by Carl Fahlström in 1883, with additions in 1893 and 1899.

In the early 1970s all the other old houses were replaced with the current buildings. Neither loud and persistent outcries nor de facto listings of valuable houses were heeded. The builders were several: Walter Lundborg Byggnadsaktiebolag, Alexandersson Byggnads AB, Gunnar Zetterberg Byggnads AB, Byggnadsfirma Ernst Rosén and Innerstadsbyggen i Göteborg AB. There is not much else to say.

Episode 225: Kv Körsbäret

District: Annedal

Photo date: 30 January 2022

Before the housing estate designed by Lund & Valentin was put up in the 1970s, Nilssonsberg was a cluster of rickety old buildings along really bad streets. It looked incredibly quaint and it was cheap to live there, but really, the new houses are much better. If also boring.

Last year I visited the fabrics shop housed in the wooden double-villa at Västergatan 1. It was just as fabulous inside as out. The Modernist curved corner house at Lilla Bergsgatan 1 was designed by Sven Steen and Vilhelm Mattson for F O Peterson. The low building was once a bank. On the slope above is a new little park that is not open to the public.

West Coast Trekkers used to rent Bio Capitol a decade or so ago, to meet and watch Star Trek. Like everything else, it has become too expensive for simple clubs. The building was designed by Nils Olsson in 1940. Next to it is another early 1940s house designed by Åke Wahlberg. Skanstorget was regulated in the 1880s, when the first stone houses in Cherry came up. What to make of the market square has long been debated but the current zoning plan is still the one drawn up in 1893.

Episode 226: kv Päronet part 1

District: Annedal

Photo date: 5 February 2022

The 1999 white paper on culturally significant architecture in Gothenburg gives some descriptions of these houses on page 230 and 231. At Västergatan 2 I stumbled across a tiny boutique with lovely fabrics so I had to go in and buy some clothes. Nils Einar Eriksson designed Västergatan 4 which was built in 1942. Strangely, there are some decorations on this Modernist facade.

Episode 227: kv Päronet part 2

District: Annedal

Photo date: 5 February 2022

We conclude district Annedal with shis splendid and well-loved Jugend confection designed by Louis Enders. It can be seen as another conclusion too, of the grand villas along Föreningsgatan.

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 Tre Kronor, Rönnen, Platanen, Kärnan, Bohus

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Episodes 191 to 195 conclude district Vasastaden-Lorensberg with a slew of schools from the early 1900s.

Episode 191: kv Tre Kronor

District: Lorensberg

Photo date: 25 July 2021

For a long time, the two biggest schools in Gothenburg were Schillerska and Hvitfeldtska – at least according to students and alumni. Now, of course, many more schools abound, but few of them have this kind of monumental presence. It was designed at the end of the National Romanticist era, and not quite as oppressive as for instance the Nordhem school. I myself didn’t go to any of these schools as I grew up in Partille just outside Gothenburg.

The nurses’ home was erected at the same time as the school, during raging world war and desperat shortages of food and everything. We will encounter Caroline Wijk again in later episodes of this series. She left monies and memories as far afield as Kungsladugård, and thus made sure the family name Wijk would live on in Gothenburg. But the family itself, like Ekman and so many of the others, is no longer the shining star it once was.

Episode 192: kv Rönnen

District: Lorensberg (formerly Vasastaden)

Photo date: 24 July 2021

This whole area once held several small farms or rural cottages that are now not even a memory. When CRA Fredberg wrote about them over a century ago there were still people alive who had seen them, he included, and there are a few photographs and paintings in books and the City Museum database. In this area there was Götaberg, Leontinedal, Brantdala, Ulricedal, Katrineström, Kristinelund, Lorensberg and a bit further afield the Executioner’s Cottage.

In 1910, Albert Lilienberg created a plan for the area where a new street with trams ran up to the workers’ area in Landala, between imposing modern tenement houses. This block is one of them, built when Jugend was the hottest thing on the architect’s style palette. Some of those architects were Zetterström & Jonsson and D W Stenfelt.

Episode 193: kv Platanen

District: Lorensberg (formerly Vasastaden)

Photo date: 24 July 2021

Landala was a working class district in the 1800s and for a long time had to do without church or school services. In 1892 they finally got the Landala school, designed by Adrian Peterson who was something of a specialist in school buildings at the time. Many of his public buildings look much like this one: red brick, arch-type details and some stonework frames.

Episode 194: kv Kärnan

District: Lorensberg

Photo date: 25 July 2021

The Landala workers must have been very fruitful because only 10 years later they needed another school for their children. Peterson was still active in the school business and quickly pulled the plans for this one out of his hat. For the Götaberg School he has switched to yellow brick but otherwise it looks much like all his other schools.

Episode 195: kv Bohus

District: Lorensberg

Photo date: 25 July 2021

Under these watchful faces my grandparents met and fell in love in the 1920s, a hundred years ago.. Charles Lindholm was one of the many architects educated at Chalmers in the late 1800s but instead of staying he went to Stockholm and made a career there. But first he designed this National Romanticist pile for his home city.

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.

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 Furan, Granen, Linden, Aspen, Sälgen

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Episodes 161 to 165 witness the sprouting of tenement buildings, schools and scandalettes in circa 1890.

Episode 161: kv Furan part 3

District: Vasastaden

Photo date: 18 April 2021

What is a ”tomte”, plural ”tomtar”? In American, it is usually translated as ”elf”, especially for small tomtar that help Santa Claus or Father Christmas. ”Gnome” is another term used, commonly for the garden variety. But the more original type in Sweden is the farm tomte: a small entity looking after the farm and helping the family, if they behave courteously. They were a staple of children’s faritytales. Later, this kind of tomte became conflated with the Christmas character, Jultomten, who is basically Father Christmas/Santa Claus. But before Jultomten, the main yuletide creature was the Christmas Billygoat, still remembered as a Christmas ornament made of straw.

On the house fronting Vasagatan 11, Thorvald Rasmussen, brother of one of the architects, painted several tomtar being industrious, as well as other fairytale creatures. The house is a sort of German Neo-Renaissance Alpen-style, quite at odds with anything else in Gothenburg. When it was built, this was still an area with large villas and it fitted in quite well. Even the taller residential building behind it, built a few years earlier for the whole Hedlund family, didn’t clash as much with the genteel surroundings. But a few years later, the villas gave way to stone colossi…

From my tolkienist friends, I learn that the Odd Fellows are still going strong, as are all the other old orders too. One would have thought the social democratic system that has pervaded Swedish society since the 1930s would have stamped out such activities – but the social democratic party can, if you want to, be seen as a great big lodge itself!

Episode 162: kv Granen

District: Vasastaden

Photo date: 1 May 2021

When I first started on this series in early 2020, it was just for my own personal enjoyment and maybe to show my hometown to some lexxian and tolkienist friends on social media. Just a bit of fun. I added some normal music, without narration. Boom! the youtube copyright algorithms struck! So I decided to make my own soundtracks, it being difficult to schedule recordings with friends who are actually good at making music. And I started narrating more intensely, to mask the bad soundtracks. Of course, the narration soon spiralled out of control, and for this long block I have included pretty much all the text I could find in ”Vasastaden-Lorensberg” and the block entry in the Old Gothenburg blog.

Regarding the farms that many of the new 1800s and 1900s blocks were put up on, there is an informative paper (in Swedish) that can be found in the city museum catalogue, with a map of the general area of this episode on page 29. There are many more potentially interesting papers in the catalogue, with the tag ”kulturmiljörapport”.

Episode 163: kv Linden

District: Vasastaden

Photo date: 24 April 2021

When my grandmother went to school here in the late 1910s and early 1920s, all the big stone houses around it had already been built. She described her walk to school from the family cottage on the edge of town, passing horses, crossing still un-built areas and describing various characters along the way. But in 1889 the area was still semi-rural, with intense exploitation just around the corner.

The girls’ school itself is described by both CRA Fredberg and the Old Gothenburg site (and of course in ”Vasastaden-Lorensberg”, page 174).

Episode 164: kv Aspen

District: Vasastaden

Photo date: 22 May 2021

Water pipes, bowls courts, farms, bandits, shops and tenants – the history of this block is quite rich! Once the farm, the inn and the shacks had gone, stone houses were put up around 1890. At the northern and western sides, the builders/designers were H & J Börjesson, Nathan Persson, Hedström & Svensson and C B Andersson. The rest of the block had to await new planning from Albert Lilienberg in 1910. The eastern part was built up along the steep street in 1912, from designs by Hjalmar Cornilsen and Zetterström & Jonsson. The south end wasn’t completed until the late 1910s. So we can study the architectural fashions over 30 years: French, German and Italian Neo-Renaissance, Neo-Gothic, Jugend, National Romanticism and the precursor to 1920s Classicism.

Episode 165: kv Sälgen

District: Vasastaden

Photo date: 1 May 2021

CRA Fredberg devotes almost a whole chapter to this school. Apparently, there was a scandalette over the architectural contract, involving the Hedlund family: S A made sure his nephew Hans won it. Björner son of Hans designed the extensions that were added in 1912. As Björner also did with Hans’s library building in 1926. What a family saga!

Kvarteren Enen, Idegranen, Lönnen, Furan

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Episodes 156 to 160 contemplate heavy development in the 1890s and the 1960s, around a steep hill.

Episode 156: kv Enen

District: Vasastaden

Photo date: 17 April 2021

There are so many beautiful old houses preserved in this block. They are all described in fine detail in ”Vasastaden-Lorensberg”, page 318ff. One of them, at Haga Kyrkogata 28, has even featured in a major Swedish television series a few years back. Or so I understand, I never watched it myself. The TV show also borrowed 1950s and 60s type radios and television sets from the splendid radio museum on Hisingen.

The narration for this episode is pretty complete but here are some more facts. The farm Anneberg can be seen on an old photo in the City Museum database. The Fogelberg Park was originally called The Viewpoint but was quickly encircled by tall houses and later trees. There is no view to be had anymore, especially in the leafy season. Fogelberg was a sculptor who created the statue of Gustav II Adolf at the main square.

Episode 157: kv Idegranen

District: Vasastaden

Photo date: 25 April 2021

The Old Gothenburg site has an entry on the Society for Schools for Young Children. The rest of the block is also covered in the link for episode 156.

Episode 158: kv Lönnen

District: Vasastaden

Photo date: 25 April 2021

The posh villas along Föreningsgatan and the general history of the area is also covered by the Old Gothenburg site (and of course in ”Vasastaden-Lorensberg”). In the days when they were built, it was considered a rather long slog to reach the inner city where the banks and shops were. A trip to Örgryte was a full day affair!

Since I can’t read maps properly I accidentally included Södra Viktoriagatan 42 which is a separate block called Järneken (The Holly), and part of city block Pilträdet (The Willow) that was redeveloped in the 1960s. Sorry.

Episode 159: kv Furan part 1

District: Vasastaden

Photo date: 18 and 24 April 2021

The Jugend or Art Nouveau villa at Viktoriagatan 17 can be considered a part of the Officials’ area around Föreningsgatan.

Episode 160: kv Furan part 2

District: Vasastaden

Photo date: 18 April 2021

In 2023 I could take a good look at the back of Viktoriagatan 15 A/B, and even the inside! Because the rock-face behind the houses was in dire need of reinforcements, including rope work for scaling off loose stones and boulders, clearing away trees whose roots break away blocks, and installing rock bolts. The housing association representative was very interested and I lectured rather condescendingly at him: he turned out to be professor emeritus of structural geology…

The sad story of Gegerfelt and the speculators is told in full in ”Vasastaden-Lorensberg” and more narration is added at the Old Gothenburg site. CRA Fredberg also writes about the Eduard Magnus memorial that looked much prettier than the current institutional building from the 1950s.

The nude streetlight has recently been discussed in one of the Old Gothenburg fora. It is apparently a completely private light, put up in 1971 by the former owner of Vasagatan 7. And the city allowed it!

Kvarteren Masurbjörken, Asken, Almen, Glasbjörken, Apeln

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Episodes 146 to 150 travel back in time, from the late 1890s to the early 1870s.

Episode 146: kv Masurbjörken

District: Vasastaden

Photo date: 21 February 2021

In this 1880s photo by Aron Jonason we can see the original Church of Bethlehem and part of the slum area called Flygarns Haga. The new church and ancillary buildings take up almost half of this block. It was designed by Johannes Olivegren and put up in 1963. Apart from the church itself, the south end of the block holds a seniors’ housing complex, tenements, shops and a carpark.

Aron Jonason was a prolific photographer and meister punster in the late 1800s. His friends sometimes called him ”the father of the Gothenburg witticism”. One of those friends was CRA Fredberg who wrote his biography, with a large collection of jokes. My grandmother had it and it is now in my bookshelf. But his richest legacy is the large number of excellent photos made public in the Gothenburg city museum’s database.

Episode 147: kv Asken

District: Vasastaden

Photo date: 19 December 2020

The YMCA’s Neo-Gothic castle is one of four park blocks that were put up in the very late 1890s. The Y held an architectural competition that was won by architects Lindvall & Boklund from Malmö – but apparently they had to have a Gothenburg manager and that was Hans Hedlund, who added his own touch to the facade. The contractor was Nathan Persson and the block was built in 1897. The block held gyms, meeting halls, tenements, and even a little cinema! Today, it is of course a highschool.

Episode 148: kv Almen

District: Vasastaden

Photo date: 13 February 2021

As we move west in Vasastaden, we also move back in time: we are now in the 1870s, when French Neo-Renaissance was de rigueur. CRA Fredberg recounts wistfully how this was meadowland until the 1870s, with servant girls and hussars stepping out in the new King’s Park, various shady goings on in the hills and shrubberies nearby, and poor sanitation and building standards.

Episode 149: kv Glasbjörken

District: Vasastaden

Photo date: 21 March 2021

There are 15 properties in this block and all but one of them from the 1870s-1880s. The architects and builders were both well-respected big names, and several who had started out building landshövdingehus in workers’ districts and now took on bigger jobs in stone. It is an all-residential block, along Vasagatan with restaurants at the ground floor. And of course there is a school too, since 1937 at Karl Gustavsgatan 5. The 1938 house was designed by Gunnar Gillermo.

Episode 150: kv Apeln

District: Vasastaden

Photo date: 10 April 2021

Ah, the Heyman Villa. I had never even noticed it before I started these walks. At this house, I was trying to find the best angle for photographing the door handle when two ladies came by and they said the same thing: they had never noticed all the details. One just has to hope that the owners don’t take offence at people staring at their facade and taking pictures of it, sometimes trying to get quite close to it. There certainly are sensitive owners who demand written permission for even looking at their houses!

At the other end of the block is the house built for the Order of Coldinu. In fact, this whole west end of Vasagatan is clustered with houses built for clubs and orders, of which Fredberg writes a lot (he was a member of several). In part 364 of this series, we will find more traces of Coldinu.

Unlike many blocks in this area, this one doesn’t have a highschool. Instead there is a church, in the old Strömman house at the southwest corner. I have, however, found no information about the two 1980s houses at Bellmansgatan.