Etikettarkiv: Jewish

Jewish presences in Gothenburg

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 Jankowitz, Warschava, Stora Bält, Lilla Bält, Halmstad, Lund samt Mosaiska begravningsplatsen

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Episodes 99 to 102 explore an area with a long history of public transport, and death. Plus school-children!

Episode 99: kv Jankowitz, kv Warschava

District: Stampen

Photo date: 6 September 2020

Polish names are confusing to other languages. Warzaw, Warschau, Varschawa… all kinds of spellings are supplied over the years. Anyway, one of my sources is a book celebrating 50 years of Gothenburg’s tram services, a delightful history describing the first private English company, the little tram-cars drawn by poor suffering horses up the hills (hats were supplied in the summer), ground and cable works during electrification in 1902, the city taking over the service, and the various lines which you had to buy separate tickets for. Most of lines are still in operation today, two have been dismantled due to cars and several new ones have been added.

And the trams needed servicing at depots: the first one was situated here, in a richly decorated building that included offices and workshops as well as the car shed itself. As the services and cars grew, so did the depot, adding a bus garage across the creek, and another depot out in Majorna. After the publication of the book in 1929, even more depots have been built and of course this first one was dismantled when it moved across the creek in 1986 to where it still is today.

Next to the tram shed the city built a rather large school. Yngve Rasmussen designed both houses and judging by old photographs they looked very similar. The school still stands even though it too has become too small and the kids are spread out in nearby buildings. Bergab operates in the building next door and we have a fine view of their study halls. At graduation, the noise can be quite deafening.

Episode 100: kv Stora Bält and Mosaiska begravningsplatsen

District: Stampen

Photo date: 6 September 2020

Stampgatan 15 is the home of Bergab. The company first started in a small office at Odinsgatan 22, spent some years up on the hill at St Pauligatan 33 and moved to the current address in 1994. Twenty years ago, a branch in Stockholm opened and it has since grown bigger than the Gothenburg head office. We work with engineering geology and groundwater. The house itself is not much to talk about: it was built in the 1960s for the tram service employees, has no decorations, and has quite poor foundations next to the flood-prone creek.

The Jewish cemetery is more interesting. It was located right next to the cemetery for the artillery garrison and for prisoners. This latter cemetery was later built over by round train sheds and roads. The Jewish cemetery was recently given an arboreal make-over so you can see it again. I have a fine view of it from my office window and in 2008-2009 took a picture of the view every morning. The moorish-style chapel was designed by P J Rapp and built in 1864.

Episode 101: kv Lilla Bält

District: Stampen

Photo date: 6 September 2020

The name of this property has changed a lot over the centuries, reflecting ownership and businesses. Before Stampen was built up the district used to be called Åkareheden (Drover’s Field) and the area around this block has long been called Svingeln, whatever that means (consensus on etymology has yet to be reached). The property itself has been called Sahlefelt’s Land in the early 1600s, Burggrevelyckan when a magistrate with this title rented it, Director Bauer’s Land in the early 1700s and Fredriksdal in the late 1700s, before the Fürstenbergs changed it to Oscarsdal. Funnily enough, a sports bar at Ranängsgatan calls itself ”Olivedal” which is the name of a completely different district!

Episode 102: kv Halmstad, kv Lund

District: Stampen

Photo date: 6 September 2020

Before public transport and the off-ramps from the nearby motorway demanded space, the street here was rather idyllic, with a women’s prison and small industries on the east side and train sheds, a farm and a public bath on the west side, two whole blocks called Narva and Klissow. At the end of the street, a little bridge ran over a reed-filled riverlet to district Olskroken. It’s really difiicult to picture nowadays. The big motorway connecting Malmö and Stockholm was built in the late 1960s, just where the little bridge was, and the whole area was given over to streets. The river itself was led into a culvert and disappeared under the motorway. Curious factoid: the motorway and its ramps and flyovers were designed in the early 1960s. In the middle of building work, there was a referendum that changed Sweden from a left-driving to a right-driving country. Meaning all the flyovers and ramps now seem wrongly designed!

Until a few years ago, the bus and tram stop called Svingeln was distributed all over the area here, because of the old road layout and the narrow section between the remaining buildings and the railway. But then the officials had a brain-wave and decided to make one unified stop, for easy and safe access when changing lines. So now, buses, trams, bikes, cars and pedestrians have to cross one another’s lanes several times and just a year after the re-development there was a fatal accident… Sheesh.

Neither of the houses in these blocks are decorated, so there isn’t much narration in the video. Both are managed by Higab which is the city’s property company. Their website lists information about the properties too: Gullbergsbrohemmet and Hantverkshuset. The former was originally designed by Bengt Wilhelm Carlberg, the city engineer, and consisted of two square buildings, still extant but with several additions over the centuries. The latter was built in the late 1960s, on land that consisted of an old river bed overlying marine and glacial clays. Not the best sort of foundation!

Kvarteren Arkaden, Värnamo, Perukmakaren, Vallen, Synagogan

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Episodes 33 to 36 explore the mercantile history of downtown Gothenburg, and encounter the builders and architects that will be name-checked again and again in the series. There is also a tiny bit of Jewish history.

Episode 33: kv Arkaden

District: Inom Vallgraven, from Vallgraven to Östra Hamngatan

Photo date: 3 May 2020

We talk about destruction of the inner city and megalomaniac plans to put up hideous constructions where once stood quaint and pretty houses. It must have been just the same in 1898 when the 100-year-old houses in this block were torn down to make way for a fabulous new shopping centre, the Arcade.

The consul Gustaf Bolander together with some wealthy cronies had this wild idea and put it into action: to build a private street through a block with tall buildings and towering… well towers at the entrance. In the buildings should be shops and businesses, and a hotel. Being wealthy, they could put up the capital and hire architect Louis Enders to design the block.

In 1899 the eastern half was put up but the venture foundered and the western part was moved to Packhuskajen, with some modifications, and put up as the Hertzia House. And there we can still see what the former Arcade might have looked like, since the whole shebang was razed in 1972 and the current bland building put up instead. It does have an indoor street, though, and the clock pillar is supposed to echo the old towers. Sic transit gloria mundi.

Episode 34: kv Värnamo, kv Perukmakaren

District: Inom Vallgraven, from Vallgraven to Östra Hamngatan

Photo date: 3 May 2020

These were originally one block but after the devastating fire of 1792 it was decided to lay out a new street, Fredsgatan, as a future fire-break. Thus the block was split into two, Värnamo in the west and The Wig Maker in the east. All original buildings — well, original after 1792 — were destroyed in the blitz of the 1970s, for which no breaks had been emplaced.

Nordiska Kompaniet is a stupendous shopping mall in central Stockholm and this house here is the Gothenburg branch. But there was a department store in this block before NK moved in: Ferdinand Lundquist & Co. Mr Ferdinand started the shop in 1863 and in 1911 his sons took over. It started as a sort of interior design shop and expanded into a regular department store, taking over the whole block in the process. In 1967 it was sold to NK and then this box, typical of its time, was put up.

It is still the poshest and most expensive department store in Gothenburg. When I was a kid, I used to accompany my mother there and I remember there was a piano bar and a small stage in the restaurant on the top floor. The old vaults in the basement were more interesting but we didn’t go there often; I guess the clientele was less suitable for small children.

Episode 35: kv Vallen

District: Inom Vallgraven, from Vallgraven to Östra Hamngatan

Photo date: 1 May 2020

Gothenburg was built as a fortified city, to protect the lucrative trade inside from the marauding Danes. So the city was surrounded by a wall, itself surrounded by a moat (still extant), plus an outer glacis and other defence works. The wall, originally earthen but later made of proper stone, was reinforced with several bastions. All sorts of 17th century defensive works were constructed too, ravelin, caponnier and submarine obstacles in the river.

In the first decade of the 19th century all this was hopelessly obsolete and an impediment to the city’s progress. The Crown allowed the city to tear down the walls and bastions, thus opening up the cramped city to lovely vistas and untrammeled expansion. It took some decades but here along the moat were finally put up these fine residential buildings.

The block name still recalls the old fortifications. Unlike many of the neighbouring blocks, houses here were mostly designed by P J Rapp or Gustaf Jährig. For the inner city, I used the excellent source ”Hus för hus i Göteborgs stadskärna” by Gudrun Lönnroth. It gives a short presentation of the buildings and historical tidbits associated with them.

Episode 36: kv Synagogan

District: Inom Vallgraven, from Vallgraven to Östra Hamngatan

Photo date: 1 May 2020

The posh houses along the moat continue, again designed by August Krüger. He was one of the biggest builders at the time, along with e.g. Rapp and Dähn, and then F O Peterson whose company is still very much active in Gothenburg. In Krüger’s time, many of the builders were also architects and designed their own constructions. But there were also regular architects, for example Carlberg, Gegerfeldt, Enders, Peterson and Hedlund. These names crop up all the time in my sources.

Until the end of the 18th century, pretty much everyone who wasn’t Lutheran was forbidden to live in Sweden. But then Jews were allowed to settle, officially, and they soon became an important and exuberant part of city life in Gothenburg. Not only as businessmen but as bringers of culture and wit to the lugubrious Swedes (and English, Scots and Germans).

In the 1850s, August Abrahamson bought this strech of waterfront with a mind to build a proper synagogue. The block was built as one design entity and is pretty much unchanged since those days. The synagogue is still in use but with an increasingly tight security perimeter around. We might have escaped Hitler but in these latter days, anti-semitism is on the rise again.