Etikettarkiv: police

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 Topasen, Zirkonen, Månstenen, Akvamarinen, Ullevi, Heliotropen, Bärnstenen, Polishuset, Arenan

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Episodes 115 to 119 string a necklace of semi-precious stones from the mid-1900s, and engage in some sports and policing as well.

Episode 115: kv Topasen

District: Heden

Photo date: 27 February 2021

The Gothenburg 300th Anniversary Exhibition in 1923 must have been an amazing event. I wish I could have seen it! My grandmother wrote about it in her memoirs, that she went several times and had a great time. At the Gothenburg Historical Museum site you can look at loads of official photographs from Jubileumsutställningen, and dream of a hundred years ago.

Fifty years later, the city decided to spruce up the old exhibition area with sports facilities and a modern convention centre. And developments are still ongoing! Svenska Mässan is a hundred years old but the buildings on the site have come and gone. The current main building and the first Gothia Tower are from 1984. The Mercury logo is also a hundred years old, first employed during the Anniversary Exhibition and concurrent conventions.

Scandinavium was designed by Poul Hultberg and had a long and expensive gestation period. Controversies still abound: it was ultra-modern fifty years ago but today the city plans to tear it down and replace it with something else. The Valhalla Lido was built in 1956, from designs by Nils Olsson and Gustaf Samuelsson. The main swimming pool has a very zeitgeisty mosaic that you can look at instead of being splashed by the hordes of swimmers that use it daily.

But I still haven’t figured out what the sculpture by the river is…

Episode 116: kv Zirkonen, kv Månstenen, kv Akvamarinen, kv Ullevi

District: Heden

Photo date: 19 September and 24 December 2020

There are no residential buildings between Skånegatan and the Mölndal River, only schools and events centres. All of them are from the 1940s or later – except Katrinelund. The modest kindergarten was built in 1963.

The city’s property company Higab also manages Ullevi, the 75000-seat arena that is mostly used for rock concerts these days. It used to be called New Ullevi, designed by Jaenecke & Samuelsson. The Old Ullevi arena was recently torn down and rebuilt, so it should properly be named New Old Ullevi, right?

Episode 117: kv Heliotropen

District: Heden

Photo date: 24 December 2020

What a warren of schools! Even old Katrinelund has become a school, for gardening and farming. The oldest school building in The Heliotrope is the east wing of Burgården High, originally called the Gothenburg Middle School, that was built in 1938 from designs by Sigfrid Ericson. In 1947 came the Practical Middle School from the pen of Axel Forssén and the girls’ school from 1950 was designed by Erik Ragndal. The latest addition is the west wing from the 1990s, with the striking sculpture by Roland Anderson.

The Norwegian Sailors’ Church was designed by the wonderfully named architects Gudolf Blakstad and Herman Munthe-Kaas. Sailors’ churches are very useful: when my mother and I went on a voyage to Amsterdam in 1971 the ferry took damage in a storm and we were stranded, waiting for my father to arrive on his ship. The Swedish Sailors’ Church took us in and we were very well looked after.

The cineplex under the skate park was originally meant to be built inside the hill behind the Arts Museum. That project was appropriately named the Hall of the Mountain King, but when it was actually realised twenty years later, with the same name, it was as a concrete bunker. It’s functional enough though, even has a mini-IMAX these days.

Episode 118: kv Bärnstenen, kv Polishuset, kv Arenan

District: Heden

Photo date: 16 and 20 September 2020

More public buildings and offices! City block Amber was built ten years ago, filling up an open area that once was a soldiers’ cemetery and a meadow belonging to the old brick works. The new buildings were designed by White Architects, with pre-rusted iron cladding that was a big fad in 2015.

The Police House was built in 1967 and designed by the Backström & Reinius bureau. You can’t see it, though, as it is a classified building and it is forbidden to take photos of it. It was recently extended to a whole judiciary complex, with one building for courtrooms and another for holding cells. But given the current crime wave it would probably need even further extensions – Sweden has become the new Sicily.

Next to the law is sports. The New Old Ullevi arena was built in 2009 and is often used for football matches. The tennis complex harks back to 1901, when my ancestor took up office as caretaker. The 2016 highrise was designed by the Design Bureau (sic).