Etikettarkiv: Lorensberg

District

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 Torpa, Aranäs, Axevall, Karlsten, Tidö, Vasakyrkan

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Episodes 186 to 190 visit some public and residential buildings from the early 1900s and a couple of Modernist blocks near Götaplatsen.

Episode 186: kv Torpa

District: Lorensberg

Photo date: 27 June 2021

The ”front” of Torpa is dominated by a cinema built in 1936, with a facade in yellow brick that was popular at the time. Göta was one of several cinemas along Avenyn, all of them closed and converted to clothes stores or eateries – except this one which was converted back to a cinema recently, and Roy in Aranäs. In Sweden, only one chain of cinemas remains, Filmstaden formerly known as SF, and they decided they wanted an art house too, just like Roy. Thus the miraculous resurrection, coupled with an eatery.

The ”back” of Torpa is 20 years older and built in National Romanticist red brick. The architect was Hjalmar Zetterström and Gustaf Larsson built it.

Episode 187: kv Aranäs

District: Lorensberg

Photo date: 27 June 2021

Royal was a cinema that was closed, and then resurrected under the name Roy (to make use of the neon sign without infringing on the copyright of the former name; clever). It used to be a normal cinema but after the resurrection it became an art house, with narrower productions, live transmissions from the Met and other places, and a cinema space that could be rented. The Star Trek association used it for several years, to show episodes on a big screen and hang out with likeminded people. But then the cinema wanted to use all available time for their own screenings and we found other premises. Not entirely easy though, all meeting venues have become prohibitively expensive.

The Royal block was built between 1932 and 1939 and the architects were Erik Holmdal, D Pehrson and Nils Olsson. It is completely Modernist with minimal decorations. The yellow bricks are typical of the time and can be seen in full glory in the south end of Olivedal.

Episode 188: kv Axevall

District: Lorensberg

Photo date: 27 June 2021

Axevall was built along with Torpa in the mid nineteen noughties, and designed by Zetterström, K S Hansson and Anders Persson. My father’s aunt lived in a large flat here for a while and we visited in circa 1990. It was big and National Romanticist inside too.

Episode 189: kv Karlsten, kv Tidö

District: Lorensberg

Photo date: 27 June and 17 July 2021

The Regional Archives are a lot of fun to visit. For my work, I have sometimes searched for drawings and other information about tunnels etc, which you can look at at the annex on Hisingen. The original house here at Karlsten is far too small to house all the material in Gothenburg, but I once visited with my father when he was much into genealogy in the 1980s. At that time, you had to search by hand and eye, in actual physical ledgers or on spools of microfilm that could be lent to your local library. Nowadays I understand everything is digitised and interpreted by AI. No challenges anymore! The extension from 2010 was designed by the White bureau and among other things it houses a temporary exhibition area.

The Students’ Union house can be rented for events like weddings or science fiction conventions – if you are a student or academic, and if you can afford it.

Episode 190: kv Vasakyrkan

District: Lorensberg

Photo date: 17 July 2021

Until the late 1800s, early 1900s, the area around this church held several farms. Then new plans were laid out and several big public buildings were erected. A few forlorn outbuildings can be seen on old photos from the time but they too are long gone. One of the big buildings was this church, which is quite stupendous both inside and out. But I can’t find any information about the parish house. Can you?

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 Ulriksdal, Hörningsholm, Tullgarn, Drottningholm, Sparreholm, Gripsholm, Nääs, Visingsborg

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Episodes 176 to 180 enter the area of the 1923 Anniversary Exhibition and Lilienberg-land.

Episode 176: kv Ulriksdal

District: Lorensberg

Photo date: 13 June 2021

No architectural historian has devoted time and grants to this area yet so there is not much to add to the narration. The architects for this block and Drottningholm are given as Ernst Torulf, Hjalmar Zetterström, Tor Zetterström, Karl M Bengtsson, Arvid Bjerke, Ragnar Ossian Swensson, Nils Olsson and Erik Holmdal.

Episode 177: kv Hörningsholm, kv Tullgarn

District: Lorensberg

Photo date: 6 June 2021

In the 1980s my mother studied art history at university and she wrote a paper on the City Theatre. I can’t remember much of it because at that time I was not at all interested in architecture or local history – so boring! Then suddenly, overnight almost, I became fascinated by both subjects. Maybe it’s an age thing.

Soon after this episode was completed, the old girls’ school and adjoining car park were razed and something else will be put up there. The zoning document suggests more performing arts space, and an entrance to the new train station at Korsvägen. Something for a later Intermission…

Episode 178: kv Drottningholm

District: Lorensberg

Photo date: 13 June 2021

This block was only half-built when my grandmother passed it on her way to school, or to the family shop at Kungsportsplatsen. The south end of the block abutted the 1923 exhibition area.

Episode 179: kv Sparreholm, kv Gripsholm

District: Vasastaden (formerly Lorensberg)

Photo date: 20 and 22 June 2021

And now we enter the area where the city decided to hold its 300th anniversary exhibition, two years late in 1923. Johanneberg was built in the 1700s and had until recently been a working farm with big gardens and greenhouses but its time was up – and now the last vestiges of the grounds have been excavated away for a new train station. At least this part of Västlänken is still being built, unlike the middle station at Haga.

On the hill was the historical part of the exhibition, with wooden halls built for archeology, design, sports, crematoria (sic), crafts and victualling history, and lots of restaurants. In the middle was a big plaza topped by a strange memorial building. On this site now stands the 1984 part of the university building, and the university library stands on the former main restaurant. The original part of the library building was designed by Ärland Noreen in 1939 but it wasn’t built until 1951. The Coordinator bureau designed the 1982 extension. The yellow high-rise was designed by Jaan Allpere and Claes Melin. For the newest extension to the university building, designed by the KUB bureau, a new zoning plan was drawn up where you can read some of the text I wrote about the rock slopes in the area.

Episode 180: kv Nääs, kv Visingsborg

District: Lorensberg

Photo date: 20 June 2021

With Nääs and Visingsborg we enter the Lorensberg villa area. Albert Lilienberg planned it in 1913 and it was realised by the up and coming set of architects that put their mark on Gothenburg in this and the next couple of decades. The houses were built for the poshest members of the bourgeoisie, and certainly not for plebes and commoners.

Axel Carlander was a very big man in Gothenburg at the time. He made lots of money but also worked tirelessly for the public good. Apart from this National Romanticist gem, he has left his name on a hospital overlooking the funfair Liseberg. The lodge in Nääs is still active and even has a well-designed web page.

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 Vik, Nyköpingshus, Rydboholm, Avenboken, Björken

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

Episode 141: kv Vik

District: Vasastaden (formerly Lorensberg)

Photo date: 28 November 2020

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

Episode 142: kv Nyköpingshus and Vasaplatsen

District: Vasastaden (formerly Lorensberg)

Photo date: 5 December 2020

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

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

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

Episode 143: kv Rydboholm

District: Vasastaden (formerly Lorensberg)

Photo date: 1 November 2020

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

Episode 144: kv Avenboken

District: Vasastaden

Photo date: 19 December 2020

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

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

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

Episode 145: kv Björken

District: Vasastaden

Photo date: 23 January 2021

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

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

Kvarteren 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 Glimmingehus, Sturefors, Örup, Svaneholm, Kastellholm, Visborg

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Episodes 131 to 135 enter the stone house city west of Heden.

Episode 131: kv Glimmingehus, kv Sturefors

District: Vasastaden (formerly Lorensberg)

Photo date: 21 February 2021

What’s in a name? In this part of the city, that is a very valid question. When the area south of the moat was developed in the late-1860s onwards, the western and oldest part was called Vasastaden after our father-king Gustaf. The eastern part, where we are now, was called Lorensberg after a famous entertainment property next to Glimmingehus. These district names are still reflected in the ordnance survey map. But the city has changed its administrative zones several times and now most of the combined districts is called Vasastaden. A clue to the original zoning is the names of the blocks themselves: in Lorensberg they are named after castles, in Vasastaden after trees.

Glimmingehus was first built up in the late 1880s, but only the courthouse remains. It was designed by Hans Hedlund and built in 1887. It was used as a courthouse until 2010 when it was turned into a highschool. To the right of it was a girls’ school that looks fabulous on old photos but it was replaced by offices and parking garage in the 1960s. The paddock to the left of it was replaced in the 1930s. Until I started reading up on local history, I had no idea there had been paddocks in the middle of the city.

In Sturefors, all the grand 1880s houses were torn down in the 1960s, for some reason. Of the new houses from that swinging era, the southern end house from 1960 was designed by Helge Zimdal, Avenyn 32 by Per-Axel Björk was built in 1967, and the rest of the block from 1965 came from the pen of F Löfberg. And by the way, the Sturefors castle is in Östergötland and was built by the noble Sture family around the year 1600, says Wikipedia.

Episode 132: kv Örup

District: Vasastaden (formerly Lorensberg)

Photo date: 21 February 2021

In architectural circles of 130 years ago, this block was nicknamed ”Adrianopel”, after big-name architect Adrian Peterson who designed these houses along Avenyn. The builder was Nils Andersson & Co and the first houses went up in 1881. At that time, the dominant style was Neo-Renaissance with lavish, I mean really lavish, decorations all over the facades. Cartouches, festoons, faces, atlants, lions, cornucopias… It takes a long time to walk around blocks with preserved 1880s facades. And it’s better to have a camera with a proper zoom to capture all the tiny details along the roof.

Only the properties at the north end of the block were replaced in the 1960s razing mania. Lorensbergsgatan 1 was designed by Owe Svärd and built in 1964, and numbers 3-5 were replaced in the 1970s. These properties were first owned by the Malmsjö family, who ran a piano factory at the eastern end of Vasagatan. Johan Gustaf Malmsjö started the factory in 1847 and it ran on until 1962 when it moved to Arvika and production ceased in 1978.

Episode 133: kv Svaneholm

District: Vasastaden (formerly Lorensberg)

Photo date: 19 December 2020

Here is a block with styles spanning a century. The house at Kristinelundsgatan 16 is the oldest, designed by Belfrage & Franck and built in 1879. The house next to it was built four years later. In 1930, part of the vacant lot after the tobacco factory was filled with a house designed by Nernst Hanson, at the tail end of 1920s Classicism. And finally, at the north end of the block a modern office building designed by the Tengbom bureau was put up in 1977. Though the style seems to look towards the 1980s and Post-Modernism.

Episode 134: kv Kastellholm

District: Vasastaden (formerly Lorensberg)

Photo date: 14 November 2020

The winds of change have swept through this block several times. First the farms and plantations along Södra Vägen had to go when Malmsjö’s piano factory was established here in the mid-1800s. Then came the French quarter in 1875, in splendid French Neo-Renaissance style. The houses at Södra Vägen 7-11 were designed by Hanson & Löfmark and put up in 1903. After a respite of some 30 years, it was time for the next redevelopment: on the site of the demolished piano factory, at Södra Vägen 13, a tenement building by Gunnar Hoving was built in 1931, and in 1939 the corner houses along Avenyn were replaced by splendid Modernist buildings, the north one by A M Stark and the south one designed by Nils Olsson. Olsson’s house is the one with the cinema, which is forever imprinted in my memory as where I first saw ”Snow White”.

The northeastern corner house was built in 1956, from designs by Erik Ahlsén, and long held the offices for the insurance company Folksam. Their logo spun on a spiral-shaped sign on the roof until just recently. Finally, the middle of the block along Avenyn was replaced with the current houses in 1969. Numbers 6 and 8 were designed by Johan Tuvert and numbers 10 and 12 by the Contekton bureau. Phew, so much name-checking!

The burger joint changed owners a couple of months after I photographed it, and was immediately repainted. So the winds of change still whistle briskly around the corners of this block.

Episode 135: kv Visborg

District: Vasastaden (formerly Lorensberg)

Photo date:11 October 2020

Until Sweden was pulled out of the dismal poverty that had been our lot until the early 1900s, vermin was a terrible problem. In 1934, just as politicians started flexing their muscles for raising the standard of living that became a mania of urban renewal thirty years later, the anti-vermin company Anticimex was started. Their first enemy was the horrible bed bug, today making an unwelcome comeback in Swedish homes and hotels.

Before city block Visborg was built, this was a farm called Mariefred, and it remained at the east end of the block as the western house was put up in the late 1870s. The western house was designed in elaborate Neo-Renaissance style by Carl Fahlström. The remaining farm was bought in 1910, when the eastern half of the block was built. The basement towards Avenyn has been restaurant premises for a hundred years. In 1971, Gothenburg’s first pizzeria opened here and we sometimes went there when I was a kid. Yum.