Etikettarkiv: Gegerfelt

Architect, link in Engelska kyrkan

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 Boken, Alen, Husaren samt Hagakyrkan och Gamla Stadsbiblioteket

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Episodes 151 to 155 explore some of the many schools located in the west part of Vasastaden.

Episode 151: kv Boken

District: Vasastaden

Photo date: 28 March 2021

Here is a block devoted to mind and spirit: two schools, two orders, a place of worship and a charitable foundation. The Hertz and Kjellberg houses, the oldest ones, were designed by Frans Jacob Heilborn and built by P J Rapp. Storgatan 1 was built by J J Lundström soon after. Along Bellmansgatan, the middle properties were bought up by Nils Andersson’s building company and the subsequent houses, including the Rudebeck school, were designed by Adrian Peterson in the early 1870s.

My cousin went to the Rudebeck school and it is still going strong. Back in the 1980s, so-called free schools were unusual and only for the very posh. In the 1990s and especially the noughties, Sweden decided to totally overhaul its education system and let the market forces run schools: freedom and competition should make everything better for everyone. So today free schools is the new norm and can be found in almost every block, especially in Vasastaden.

Episode 152: kv Alen

District: Vasastaden

Photo date: 28 March 2021

This was once a two-in-one park block like the ones to the east of it. Adrian Peterson designed the western half in 1872 for A E Broddelius, and Victor von Gegerfelt copied the designs for the eastern half seven years later for builder Anders Johanson. The style was lavishly Neo-Renaissance, as the times dictated.

The western half of the block was demolished in 1939, to make way for the evangelical Smyrna church. They moved out in 2019, to a brand new building in Frihamnen.

Episode 153: Hagakyrkan

District: Vasastaden

Photo date: 10 April 2021

For centuries, the inhabitants of district Haga had been fed up with not having a nearby church. Finally in the mid-1800s, monies were supplied by donations from wealthy magnates. One of them was director David Carnegie who had just hired architect Adolf Edelswärd to design a replica Scottish church at his factory community in Klippan west of Gothenburg. So he got the job of redesigning the Neo-Gothic Haga Church too, more or less simultaneously. Which came first, the Klippan or the Haga church?

Almost two years after this episode was made, work was stopped on the railway and station under the church. Everyone involved knew that a Turkish-Italian-Norwegian consortium was not ideal for major infrastructure construction in the west of Sweden, with thixotropic clays overlying crystalline bedrock. It’s not the normal soft sedimentary rocks and hard soils that the rest of the continent is used to! So Trafikverket cancelled their contract in January 2023 and has since tried to find new contractors. Maybe work will resume in the next few years? Meanwhile, design work for the station is ongoing and to say it is challenging would be a huge understatement.

Episode 154: Gamla Stadsbiblioteket

District: Vasastaden

Photo date: 10 April 2021

The Social Sciences Library has been closed for several years because of the Västlänken works. It is unclear what will happen to the building in the future, as the works will continue for several years ahead, see above.

Episode 155: kv Husaren

District: Haga

Photo date: 17 April 2021

Until the early to mid 1900s, Gothenburg was primarily a trading city and it was important to have skilled merchants and financiers. Lower and middle economic schools existed (my grandparents met at one) but not higher education, at academic levels. Only in the late 1940s was this School of Economics realised, after substantial donations had been made.

The tall building along Vasagatan was designed by Sture Ljungqvist and Carl Nyrén and put up by Byggnads AB Olle Engkvist in 1950. East of this marble-clad body lay an L-shaped building with red-brick facade – but it was razed for Västlänken soon after having been pre-listed. The rest of the remaining buildings were put up in 1994 and 2009 from designs by the Erséus, Frenning & Sjögren bureau. Since 2020, the northeastern part of the block has been a building site and will continue to be so for the foreseeable future, due to Västlänken.

Kvarteren Borganäs, Kalmarehus, Kronoberg, Fågelvik, Ulvåsa

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Episodes 136 to 140 continue the tour along the north edge of district Lorensberg – or is it Vasastaden?

Episode 136: kv Borganäs

District: Vasastaden (formerly Lorensberg)

Photo date: 21 October 2020

Abraham Pehrsson was one of the big builders that operated in Gothenburg in the late 1800s. His company built many of the houses south of Heden, for example, but this fabulous house he built for himself. It was designed by Hjalmar Cornilsen in 1882, together with Fahlström’s house across the street making a striking Neo-Renaissance portal towards the south and the rest of Avenyn.

Episode 137: kv Kalmarehus

District: Vasastaden (formerly Lorensberg)

Photo date: 14 November 2020

The English quarter was designed as an English terraced row of the late 1860s, to satisfy the aesthetics of its English-born owners. The John Scott name lives on as a franchise of local pubs – what would the Reverend have said about that? JA Westerberg designed Avenyn 3 and August Krüger the rest of the houses along Avenyn. But all the houses were remodelled or replaced in the mid-1940s, from designs by Nils Olsson, Erik Holmdal, Herbert Kockum and C Hedin. Number 5 got a makeover in 1985 by architects Stjernberg & Hultén.

The Pripp villa at Vasagatan 52 was designed by Adrian Peterson in 1877 (”Vasastaden-Lorensberg” page 229). Unlike much that was built at that time, this house isn’t French, Viennese or Florentine Neo-Renaissance but solid German so-called Rohbau. Meaning, as well as I can understand the term, that the brick facade is left exposed rather than hidden by artistic plaster, and decorations are mainly in the form of coloured or glazed tiles.

Episode 138: kv Kronoberg

District: Vasastaden (formerly Lorensberg)

Photo date: 28 November 2020

Gothenburg is famous for three things: bad jokes, socialism during the now-defunct industrial era, and Chalmers. The latter is still very important and unlike the jokes appreciated by non-Gothenburgers too. We will return to it in part 210 of this series. The first Chalmers school was situated at the north end of Nordstan, where it is commemorated by a very small plaque in the current mall. And the Arts & Crafts school on Vasagatan moved to city block Oppensten, just south of here.

Episode 139: kv Fågelvik

District: Vasastaden (formerly Lorensberg)

Photo date: 21 February 2021

Well, the video narration is pretty complete as far as the design and building history is concerned. The refurbishment in progress in the photos was led by the White bureau, mostly renowned for daring ultra-modern designs completely at odds with lavish Neo-Renaissance.

Episode 140: kv Ulvåsa

District: Vasastaden (formerly Lorensberg)

Photo date:1 November 2020

The twin highrises in this block were put up by builder Janne Johansson in 1897, from designs by Hjalmar Cornilsen. The architectural fashion has now moved on to Rohbau, in this block described as Moorish or Crusader-like.

Kvarteren Luntantu, Carolus Rex, Arsenalen, Kasernen, Boktryckeriet, Fiskaren, Fiskhallen

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Episodes 80 to 84 explore Kungshöjd with its military history, both hidden and erased. Various styles are presented: national romanticism, 1920s classicism, brutalism and 18th century masonry.

Episode 80: kv Luntantu

District: Inom Vallgraven, from Ekelundsgatan to the river

Photo date: 20 August 2020

After the artillery garrison moved out to Kviberg in 1895, the top of the hill here was open for exploitation. Most of the houses were built around 1910, and so it was with this block too. The buildings were partly residential, partly businesses and workshops. Today, almost all of them are converted to housing associations. The house at Hvitfeldtsgatan 14 was built and possibly designed by A Westerlind in 1903. Hjalmar Zetterström designed the corner house at Kungsgatan-Luntantugatan which was built in 1908. When I passed it today I noticed the carpet seller who has resided there for maybe 50 years is gone, it’s just an ordinary interior design shop now.

Episode 81: kv Carolus Rex

District: Inom Vallgraven, from Ekelundsgatan to the river

Photo date: 20 August 2020

The inn Luntantu was situated at the corner house Kungsgatan 7, whatever the name might have meant. On the page where Fredberg discusses this, there is also a picture of the old optical telegraph on Otterhällan. I guess the inhabitants of Ankh-Morpork would call it ”clacks”. Kungsgatan 7 once housed a cinema — and today one of the tenants in the old Gårda Textiles shop is the regional film board!

The houses along Hvitfeldtsgatan were designed by Nils Olsson and Sten Branzell. Gudrun Lönnroth has much more to say about the terraced houses here. As for the bastion, it is again open to sightseeing tours, I passed one group today about to enter the old gunpowder room.

Episode 82: kv Arsenalen

District: Inom Vallgraven, from Ekelundsgatan to the river

Photo date: 20 August 2020

When seen from afar, this block looks a bit like a castle or a fortress, which is the effect Eugen Thorburn, the main architect, strived for. The individual buildings were then designed by architects like Hans Hedlund, Arvid Bjerke and Gustaf Elliot. The current buildings stand on the site of the old arsenal belonging to the Göta Artillery Regiment whose barracks stood nearby. The old arsenal looked very much like the current buildings on top of the hill, if old pictures are truthful.

Episode 83: kv Kasernen

District: Inom Vallgraven, from Ekelundsgatan to the river

Photo date: 16 August 2020

The chocolate house was built in 1903 and designed by G O Johansson. Today it is of course a housing association. Until the 1970s the whole block consisted of old houses like this, but then the south part was razed to make way for office boxes. The southernmost corner house is curently being rebuilt, possibly as a consequence of the Västlänken railway tunnel which is being constructed right underneath it.

Episode 84: kv Boktryckeriet, kv Fiskaren, kv Fiskhallen

District: Inom Vallgraven, from Ekelundsgatan to the river

Photo date: 16 August 2020

In the mid 1800s there was a printing business here, run by Anders Lindgren. When the old house was razed in the 1970s, the new construction became one of the first assignments for the company I worked for: to inspect the new blasted rockface and design reinforcements to secure it from rockfalls. That is a description of pretty much everything we do as engineering geologists. Here is rock. Here is the cavern/slope/pit we want to excavate for our road/railway/utility/house. What’s the best way to go about it? And here is a completed construction: how do we maintain it safely?

The fish market area used to be bigger. East of the tiny block Fisherman was a little house for the old navigation school, torn down in 1913. Since then it has been an open space with nothing much going on. The Fish Church was designed by Victor von Gegerfelt, but for all its conspicuousness it is surprisingly spare when it comes to decorations. There are no decorations at all inside. In fact there is nothing inside since it is no longer in use. It was listed in 2013 and in 2019 closed indefinitely for extensive refurbishment. Also, again: Västlänken righ underneath…

Kvarteren Residenset, Stora Bommen m.fl., Merkurius m.fl., Rosenlund m.fl., Surbrunnen

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Episodes 70 to 74 document decorations on the oldest house in Gothenburg and waxes nostalgic over no longer extant buildings, while looking forward to constructions not yet built.

Episode 70: kv Residenset

District: Inom Vallgraven, from Ekelundsgatan to the river

Photo date: 25 July 2020

Here is a block chock-full of history. The Residence was first put up in 1648 by builder Casper Wolter for governor Torstensson, who died before it was completed. The latest rebuild in the 1850s was designed by Victor von Gegerfelt. The blasting operations for the railway tunnel Västlänken hasn’t destroyed the house yet but it has caused considerable annoyance to the tenants in the residential building behind it!

The county administrative house was built in 1734 but burned down in the fire of 1804. It was restored but torn down again in 1923 to make way for the current house, in time for the city’s 300th anniversary. The architect was Sigge Cronstedt.

The Wijk House was also designed by Gegerfelt, with additions by Adolf von Edelsvärd. It used to have a cupola on top of the tower but it was removed when the house was sold to the Svea Insurance Co in 1925. The Atlantica House was built after the 1804 fire and completely remodelled in 1917 from designs by Oswald Westerberg. The Atlantica and Wijk Houses were converted to hyper-expensive condos in 2010.

Episode 71: kv Stora Bommen, kv Stenpiren, kv Verkstaden, kv Redaren

District: Inom Vallgraven, from Ekelundsgatan to the river

Photo date: 25 July 2020

The river-front used to be bustling with activity: on- and off-loading ships and passenger ferries, trains transporting goods along the docks, cheap labour trying to earn a buck… Technological progress has thankfully put an end to all that, moving shipping activities and factories to the outer harbour. This area is now full of ghosts of long-gone buildings, like Göteborgs Mekaniska Verkstad, the round bath house, the shipping and banking offices… The land itself was reclaimed in the 1850s, replacing a reedy river-bank under an almost sheer cliff.

The Skeppsbrohuset in Big Boom was built in 1934. It was designed by Vilhelm Mattson and Sven Steen and built by F O Peterson & Sons. The western half of the block was designed by Lundin & Valentin and put up 30 years later. The whole shebang was re-clad in 2015, when the new Stone Pier and tram tracks were built too. The area and terminal were designed by Sweco.

In the 1960s it was decreed that motorways should be built around and through the city centre. This meant that the railway that ran along the river-front was replaced with two major thouroughfares and the blocks in their way were torn down, like The Workshop which is completely gone and The Shipowner with only one remaining house. It was built in 1911 and designed by Hans Hedlund and his son Björner who used the exciting new material called concrete. Sweden’s first Chinese restaurant opened here in 1959 and only closed in 2016 when the house was condemned. The marshlands and dredged silt making up the underground is not good for stability and the building was listing visibly.

Episode 72: kv Merkurius, kv Elektricitetsverket

District: Inom Vallgraven, from Ekelundsgatan to the river

Photo date: 16 August 2020

Behind the Mercury House, the new building has now been completed. It is, however, completely devoid of decorations. The rest of the block is still empty. The Mercury House itself was built on the ruins of the old Oscarsdal Brewery which operated here from 1815 to 1856. In 1897, the new house designed by Ernst Krüger was put up, as an office block for shipping businesses. It too was condemned in 2016, in need of foundation reinforcements.

The Electricity Plant was first built in 1902 to supply power to the tram network. The current plant was built in the 1950s. It is still in use to generate power and district heating but it is currently debated not if but when it is to be dismantled, amid all the exploitation going on in the immediate area. The Weigh House Bridge is for example closed due to construction work.

Episode 73: kv Karlsport, kv Esperantoplatsen, kv Rosenlund

District: Inom Vallgraven, from Ekelundsgatan to the river

Photo date: 16 August 2020

Fredberg describes the activities around the Charles or Hållgård Gate in the 1700s and early 1800s, when the customs officials tried to curb the residents’ enthusiasm for smuggling. This whole area was at that time occupied by the Hållgård Bastion and associated defence works, later ruins. In the 1850s it was turned into an industrial estate, with steam-powererd textile mills, bakeries and gasworks.

Episode 74: kv Surbrunnen

District: Inom Vallgraven, from Ekelundsgatan to the river

Photo date: 25 July 2020

Would you believe it, a mineral well suddenly sprang up on the hillside north of the Charles Gate in the 1700s and immediately became the centre of a spa. It didn’t last long but gave its name to this nearby block. Before these Jugend tenements were put up in the 1890s, there were villas in leafy gardens opposite the run-down old customs house and bastion, and the rowdy barracks up the hill.

The Salinia house was built for the salt traders Hanson & Möhring, whose company still exists today (but not here). Stora Badhusgatan used to be a motorway until the Göta tunnel was built, and since then hotels have sprung up along it. Other details about the houses in this block can be found in Gudrun Lönnroth’s ”Hus för hus”.

Kvarteren Hyrkusken, Tre Remmare, Neptunus, Stadsmäklaren, Sparbanken, Alströmer

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Episodes 66 to 69 explore more banks along Västra Hamngatan as well as some of the older remaining houses in Gothenburg. When I studied Arabic at the Svea House, we were a very small class, sometimes it was just me and the teacher. One lesson, we went up to the roof right next to Mother Svea and her outstretched arm!

Episode 66: kv Hyrkusken, kv Tre Remmare, kv Neptunus

District: Inom Vallgraven, from Västra Hamngatan to Ekelundsgatan

Photo date: 1 August 2020

Bengt Lidner was a poet in the late 1700s, most famous for the expression ”Lidnersk knäpp” which means suddenly becoming much cleverer than before. Apart from that, he is completely unfamiliar to me. He obviously wasn’t born in this very house, from the 1970s, and not even in the one before since his house burned down in the fire of 1804. It also destroyed the Auffort Hired Coaches business.

Fredberg has a lot to say about the original Three Jugs in the 1700s, and George Tod’s inn in the newbuilt house after the 1804 fire.

That fire also destroyed the army store house but a new house was built on the remaining foundations in 1850, from designs by Victor von Gegerfelt. In 1860 it was turned into an inn and a hotel called Christiania, which later moved to Nyeport and became Hotel Eggers. The hotel was extensively refurbished again in 1900, this time by F O Peterson, and the corner entrance with its decorations added in the 1920s. It must have been a popular place with so much building work going on, but in 1966 it was closed, almost demolished, and today contains offices.

Episode 67: kv Stadsmäklaren

District: Inom Vallgraven, from Västra Hamngatan to Ekelundsgatan

Photo date: 1 August 2020

The apothecary shop Unicorn was first established at Södra Hamngatan 13 in 1642 and moved to this address at Kungsgatan in 1915. It was closed in 1975 and is today a coffee-shop with only the canopy above the entrance as a memory of the former business.

The Royal Bachelors Club was founded by Brits in 1769 and given royal patronage by king Gustaf III. They moved around a lot in the beginning: the Dahlgren House at Kungsgatan 41, this house at Västra Hamngatan, the Mühlenbock or Wilson house in Östra Nordstaden and finally their current bespoke building behind the Art Museum.

The Renström House has an informative article at the Old Gothenburg blog, except the block name in the first sentence is wrong. Fredberg describes the man himself as ” ugly as a monkey”. Lucky he was dead by then and couldn’t sue for defamation!

Episode 68: kv Sparbanken

District: Inom Vallgraven, from Västra Hamngatan to Ekelundsgatan

Photo date: 1 August and 3 October 2020

The Savings Bank has contained banking and similar businesses for at least 200 years. The Leffler family ran brokerage firms here and eventually consolidated into banking. The current building was a bank from 1907 to some time in the 1980s when the gym moved in. Ernst Krüger designed parts of the building.

The White Architects bureau designed many of the prominent 1960s and 70s buildings in Gothenburg. But they have their offices in an old house, at Magasinsgatan 10. One of their recent projects was the Vesta skyscraper in Gårda.

Episode 69: kv Alströmer

District: Inom Vallgraven, from Västra Hamngatan to Ekelundsgatan

Photo date: 1 August 2020

This block contains several listed buildings and is generously covered in Wikipedia, including sources. One of the Krüger sons, Georg, designed the corner house at Västra Hamngatan 1 and Nils Einar Eriksson redesigned it when the decorations started falling down!

The whole block, like most of this part of the city, was completely destroyed in the fire of 1804. Of all the new houses put up in the 1810s, only the two at the west end of Lilla Torget remain, and they were listed in 1980. James Dicksons decorations from 1864 were designed by Johan August Westerberg while the house at no 3 was designed by Michael Bälkow in 1811. Several re-builds have been made, including one designed by Gegerfelt.

The Svea House was designed by Adolf Emil Melander with additional designs by Hans Hedlund and Yngve Rasmussen. The offices were built in three stages: the front along Västra Hamngatan in the 1880s, the middle section along Drottninggatan in the 1890s and finally the back at Magasinsgatan 6 in the 1920s. This latter part was designed by Valdemar Bäckman.

Vasabron, kvarteren Jungfrustigen, Gamla Latin, Engelska Kyrkan, Spruthuset

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Episodes 57 to 61 present various styles and architects that gave the city its look from the 1860s to the 1900s: neo-romanesque, neo-gothic and Jugend styles, by Gegerfelt, Edelsvärd, Peterson and Rasmussen. There is even a street here called Arkitektgatan.

Episode 57: Vasabron

District: Inom Vallgraven, from Västra Hamngatan to Ekelundsgatan

Photo date: 9 May and 16 August 2020

When new plans were drawn up for the city’s expansion south, it was decreed that Magasinsgatan should be extended over the moat and up the hills to the newly established villa town there. The new district south of the moat was to be called Vasastaden and then, naturally, the bridge for the new road was named the Vasa Bridge.

It was finally built in 1907 and Yngve Rasmussen designed it, with fantastic beasts in the currently fashionable style Jugend (Art Nouveau).

Episode 58: kv Jungfrustigen and the Victoria Bridge

District: Inom Vallgraven, from Västra Hamngatan to Ekelundsgatan

Photo date: 11 August 2020

The Social House was originally meant to be twice as big, in a full ellipse. Like many other ventures, though, it became far too expensive and only the one half was actually built. Perhaps the old Sahlgren Hospital would have stayed there longer if it had been bigger but probably not; the inner city is less conducive to care and recovery than the fresh winds of the countryside.

The building was designed by renowned architect Victor von Gegerfelt, who also built himself a house next door. The new addition for the university’s educational sciences department was built in 2004 and was designed by the Nyréns firm.

During the riots in 2001, when protests against the visiting George W Bush went violent, I was out looking at the proceedings (away from the flying stones and bullets). The police effectively protected the inner city from the rioters outside by barring all the bridges across the moat, like the Victoria Bridge here. The old methods are still relevant in our connected times. The day before, protesters had gathered at Drottningtorget because Bush was housed in the red hotel in Slusskvarnen. When my bus passed, I saw one guy on top of a car mooning Bush!

Episode 59: kv Gamla Latin and the Rosenlund Bridge

District: Inom Vallgraven, from Västra Hamngatan to Ekelundsgatan

Photo date: 11 August 2020

The Old Latin Highschool is now part of the Educational Sciences complex. It was built in 1857 in a style called neo-romanesque which became very popular with architects in the next decade. Many old public and residential buildings look just like it: yellow brick, rounded windows, lesenes dividing the facade into sections, brick crenelations under the roof… It was designed by city architect Hans Jakob Strömberg.

The building is still used as a school but it almost suffered the same fate as the old houses across the street, at least twice. There is a jazz club in the basement, Nefertiti, that is still in business despite the corona crisis and everything else. It is more than 50 years old now.

Episode 60: kv Engelska Kyrkan

District: Inom Vallgraven, from Västra Hamngatan to Ekelundsgatan

Photo date: 11 August 2020

Across from the Old Latin is the contemporary English Church, designed by Adolf Wilhelm Edelsvärd in almost the exact same style, only he preferred the angled windows of the neo-gothics to the rounded romanesques. I once got a guided tour of the interior and it is quite cramped. The style is much the same indoors with many dark-brown wooden details.

Next to the church is the Melin House which looks like an annexe but is in fact a private property unaffiliated with the church. It was built in 1872 and designed by J A Westerberg. A member of the St Andrews congregation bought it in 1900 and donated it to the YWCA.

And here is the house Victor von Gegerfelt built for himself, just before building himself another and prettier house on the hill to the south. Unlike that one, which was sacrificed to rampant development in the 1890s, this house still stands, a villa right in the middle of a busy city centre. It was built in 1874 and remained a private residence for a series of magnates until 2001 when the city finally bought it. The Educational Dept might be using it for management or representation but when you pass it by it still looks like a private residence.

Episode 61: kv Spruthuset

District: Inom Vallgraven, from Västra Hamngatan to Ekelundsgatan

Photo date: 11 August 2020

For a city deliberately founded as a trading post to bring in revenue for the Crown, it must have been natural to set up a school to train the future generations of merchants. So the trade school that was set up in Gothenburg in 1826 was the first one in Sweden. However, Fredberg points out that it was a foreigner who pushed for it, not a Swede. Oh the poor national pride…

After moving from one rented venue to the other for decades, in 1881 the boys moved to this new splendid building designed by Adrian Peterson. It was partially fincanced by monies from the Renström foundation, set up by magnate Sven Renström to support work in trade, health, education etc. His name lives on in many houses and institutions still extant today.

Apart from the school and the hose-house, there is also a preschool at this site today. Little do the toddlers and their keepers know that it is built on the ruins of a porno cinema…