Etikettarkiv: shelter

Kvarteren Hästbacken, Otterhällan m.fl., Branten, Bergväggen, Käppslängaren, Telegrafen

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Episodes 75 to 79 take a look at decorations from the times of Art Nouveau and Art Deco, as well as more non-existent decorations of our modern era. Also a whole bunch of ghost buildings that once stood on Otterhällan and its slopes.

Episode 75: kv Hästbacken

District: Inom Vallgraven, from Ekelundsgatan to the river

Photo date: 19 August 2020

The red-brick building for the Melin paper factory was designed by Arvid Bjerke, who was very popular at the time with his national romanticism. His brick and granite houses recur again and again in this series. And Fredberg mentions that nearby there was a champagne factory in deep cellar vaults!

Episode 76: kv Otterhällan, kv Telegrafisten, kv Kraftstationen, kv Ekelunden, kv Hästkvarnen

District: Inom Vallgraven, from Ekelundsgatan to the river

Photo date: 16 August 2020

The old power station was actually situated on the property where the paper factory was later built. Electricity manufacture in Gothenburg started in the mid 1880s, to supply shops and the Grand Opry with fashionable light. The first electricity factories were located smack in the middle of downtown, with steam engines driving turbines and belching smoke from tall chimneys. It looks quite remarkable on old photos.

Otterhällan was once a jumble of wooden houses and shacks, all destroyed in the fire of 1804. The newer houses weren’t much better but in the early 1830s an optical telegraph station was built on top of the hill, and in the early 1900s there was a movie studio as well as a tall school among the low houses. You can see them too on old photos.

The hill was covered with an oak forest in the 1600s but it was soon cut down, or burned down in one of the many fires. Just imagine, inside the walled city the houses only went up to about Ekelundsgatan and above that was a forest, where pigs could roam. And a windmill or two on top plus a horse-powered mill below. One old thing that remains is the big fallout shelter (and parking garage) dug into the hill in the 1950s. In preliminary investigations for Västlänken, I got to inspect the rock caverns and see the innards of the shelter — very exciting, you don’t see things like that very often!

Episode 77: kv Branten, kv Bergväggen

District: Inom Vallgraven, from Ekelundsgatan to the river

Photo date: 16 August 2020

The fabulous 1920s skyscraper Otterhall was designed by Harald Ericson and built by Karl Alberts. In the early days it had a restaurant at the top, and a bowling alley on the 8th floor. Amazing. North of the Otterhall complex is the relatively new extension for the city archives. The actual stacks are situated in a cavern that is connected to the fallout shelter. And underneath these caverns is the Göta road tunnel and the railway tunnel Västlänken currently being built.

The Ahlberg House at the north end of the cliff was first built in 1783 and then again after the 1804 fire destroyed all the houses here except the Residence. I had actually never been up here before I set out on this project, and there are many other houses and structures and areas I’ve never visited before. It’s a project that keeps on giving!

Episode 78: kv Käppslängaren

District: Inom Vallgraven, from Ekelundsgatan to the river

Photo date: 19 August 2020

The garrison hospital was built in 1755 but discontinued in 1895 when the garrison moved out from the city centre. It had room for 72 patients. In 1907 it was razed and this new residential building put up instead, designed by Hjalmar Zetterström. The ”old school” in this block was also razed, in 1934, and it had apparently hosed Gothenburg’s first radio station in 1923 or therabouts. Radio was one of the ultra-modern inventions showcased at the 1923 anniversary exhibition, along with Albert Einstein who gave his long-delayed Nobel lecture here.

When the old school was gone, the building called Queen Kristina’s hunting lodge was moved to this site, where it still remains. I’ve been to a couple of tolkienist parties here, it is full of atmosphere.

Episode 79: kv Telegrafen

District: Inom Vallgraven, from Ekelundsgatan to the river

Photo date: 19 August 2020

The city has put up these informative plaques on buildings of especial interest. There are also private initiatives, for instance around Fredsgatan, in Haga or on a few houses owned by proud condo associations. The official plaques, with extra information, have been collected in a book called ”100 utmärkta hus i Göteborg”. The word utmärkt means both ”marked” and ”excellent” so it is a pun, for which Gothenburg is famous, nay notorious.

The telegraph or telephone station is a very prominent building, designed as it says on the plaque by Hans Hedlund (his son Björner designed the 1940s and 50s additions) and built by F O Peterson. Its predecessor on the site was the Burghers’ Barracks, so called because after the 1792 fires there were no more private houses for the soldiers to be lodged in and the private citizens really didn’t want to put up with housing them any longer: a barracks must be provided! This building was payed for by the burghers, designed by Carl Wilhelm Carlberg and finally put up in 1793 by soldiers and convicts from Fortress Älvsborg.

Kvarteren Vindragaren, Enigheten, Gamla Teatern, Kronhuset, Wadman, Kruthuset, Franska Tomten, Gamla Tullen

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Episodes 10 to 15 document splendid old houses and boring new ones. Behind the rich facades along the water-fronts, the backstreets in the old days were full of emigrants setting out for America, and of the lodgings and merchants taking their last money before they left the old country. It still looks rather cramped, despite massive re-devlopment in the early 1980s.

Episode 11: kv Vindragaren, kv Enigheten, kv Gamla Teatern

District: Västra Nordstaden

Photo date: 7 March 2020

The block names reflect businesses once active in this area: Wine-puller (self-explanatory), Unity (a gentlemen’s club) and The Old Theatre (not actually in this block but nearby).

However, two of these blocks were re-developed in the 1980s and almost nothing of the old remains. One can possibly understand why: when the number of emigrants lessened, the cheap lodgings and eateries became full of drunks and disorderlies instead.

It’s rather typical that the city administration has commandeered an old building for its offices. Maybe the modern concrete boxes they advocated weren’t satisfactory after all? By the way, the silhouettes on the windows can also be found on the cylindrical lamp-shades at some of our bus and tram stops!

Episode 12: kv Kronhuset, kv Wadman

District: Västra Nordstaden

Photo date: 19 December 2019 and 8 March 2020

Kronhuset is one of the oldest houses in Gothenburg, along with the so-called Residence, a warehouse behind it, and of course the fortresses. The reason it remains is, being made of stone, it escaped the many devastating fires (unlike the first city hall) and housed a church for so many years it survived until it was fashionable to have old houses to show tourists.

It is surrounded by former workshops now full of tourist-friendly boutiques. Lerverk sells glass and ceramic art. When they first started in the early 1980s we bought several small animal figurines, very funny. Their shop has moved around a bit before ending up here — in one of them they used to have an amazingly detailed winter wonderland every December.

The block named after a now-forgotten poet, Wadman, runs along the foot of the steep hill. The shack the destitute poet briefly lived in was destroyed in the 1980s re-development and the site now holds a tiny playground, as seen in Intermission.

Episode 13: kv Kruthuset

District: Västra Nordstaden

Photo date: 8 March 2020

Gothenburg was first built as a fortified trading post, with massive defence works. Half the population or more were soldiers, housed with the civilians. One of the affiliated services was manufacturing and storing gun-powder, preferably somehwere off in case an accident occurred. Here under the hill, on the other side of a harbour basin full of masts, was suitably off and so this block was named the Powder House.

When the city expanded, the harbour basin was filled in, the quays extended, and a fabulous trading house erected in this block. The merchants JA Hertz & Co commissioned it and the German architect Louis Enders designed it. The style is called Jugend in Sweden and Art Nouveau in English-speaking countries.

The house is a bit inaccessible now, due to works for Västlänken all round and under it. It is very important to maintain groundwater levels when constructing in clays: lower the water table and subsidence will set in and crash goes your lovingly preserved 1901 masterpiece!

Episode 14: kv Franska Tomten

District: Västra Nordstaden

Photo date: 8 March 2020

The French Plot sounds like a movie script for a costume drama — and it might well be! When Sweden wanted a lucrative slave colony in the Caribbean in the 1780s, the king made a deal with the French: they got a free-trade agreement and depot area on this plot, and Sweden got St Barthélemy to make money for the Crown. The island was unsuitable for plantations, though, so the island became a free-port for the slave trade instead. The French depot ceased operations in the early 1800s, when the new king fell out with Napoleon. Instead, Gothenburg became a depot for the British.

Anyway, the French memory stuck and the area around the old mast-harbour was dubbed the French plot, and there was a French inn too, apparently. When the new quays were laid out in the 1860-70s, fancy stone buildings were erected along the water-front. In this block, the old post house was torn down in 1942 to make way for a modern HQ för shipping company Transatlatic. In the list here, I know my father served on numbers 202, 211 (which he helped to build) and 217 (I accompanied him on a voyage across the Atlantic in 1989).

The slave trade is reflected in the art adorning the facade and the lamp-post next to the house. I’m surprised it has been allowed to remain, in this era of cancel-culture.

Episode 15: kv Gamla Tullen

District: Västra Nordstaden

Photo date: 8 March 2020

The French Plot extended to this site too but in the other corner of the block was the old custums house so that’s what the city planners used for its name. The river-side is however dominated by the HQ for one of the biggest shipping companies in Gothenburg at the time, Broströms. The facade is richly decorated with nautical and martime reliefs, and the glass doors have etchings of the zodiac. Today the building holds law courts so it is rather iffy to photograph it. I managed to sneak by one day and catch some of the zodiac, as seen in Intermission.

The canal-side is also full of impressive trade-houses and residences for the major trading families of the time. CRA Fredberg relates the story of the Björnberg liquor riots, and other facts and rumours about the area. He was a journalist and published a 3-volume collection of articles about the old Gothenburg, as seen from the year 1920. It is full of photos and drawings and a rich source of material for this project. As long as you don’t quote verbatim: somewhat purple prose and not entirely fact-checked stories. And as long as you steer clear of the theatre which he spends far too much text on.

Kvarteren Lilla Bommen, Ljusstöparen, Mätaren, Mjölnaren, Kvarnberget, Navigationsskolan, Stadskvarnen

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Episodes 6 to 10 continue in the old city. When it was first built, it was surrounded by a high wall with several bastions and an outer moat. The city itself was criss-crossed by Dutch-type canals with bars at the outlets into the river. The walls were torn down in the early 1800s and all but one canal were filled in in the early years of the 20th century.

Episode 6: kv Lilla Bommen

District: Västra Nordstaden

Photo date: 2 January 2020

What do you call the obstacle placed over the outlet of a canal, moat or river? Boom or bar? And don’t confuse this block with the sub-district just north of here, also called Little Boom/Bar.

The main feature in this block is the old Hasselblad headquarters. The camera company expanded until it owned the whole block. They became world famous when they made some of the cameras used in the Apollo program. The brand name still exists but the company itself has been bought and merged a couple of times. When they finally switched to digital they were way behind most of the other camera companies and also made some bad financial decisions. Their fancy new premises on Hisingen were immediately sold and now the Swedish State Television resides there.

This block reflects the company’s various stages of expansion and re-development.

Episode 7: kv Ljusstöparen, kv Mätaren

District: Västra Nordstaden

Photo date: 7 March 2020

The city within the walls was built around two hills, Kvarnberget and Otterhällan. The Mill-hill is the one north of the main canal and in this episode we look at two blocks along its north side.

The Candle-Maker and The Measurer front the St Erik Street, named after one of the old bastions. The area is currently under heavy construction, to make a new subterranean railroad link. The Gothenburg underground is characterised by hard crystalline rock and very thick layers of glacial clay, overlain by marine clays and riverine sediments. No soft rock or hard soil. This makes building work very ”interesting”, geotechnically speaking. The Turkish-Norwegian-Spanish consortium building part of the tunnel has their work cut out for them, trying to understand our sub-soil.

Episode 8: kv Mjölnaren, kv Kvarnberget

District: Västra Nordstaden

Photo date: 8 March 2020

The Mill-hill is quite steep and it has two blocks commemorating the wind-mills that once stood here: Mill-hill and The Miller. Apart from the steepness there isn’t much to tell about these residential buildings.

But underneath the hill it gets more interesting. After the bombing of Guernica, the fire-bombing of London, all German cities and almost all of Japan, and not least the advent of atomic weapons, the city council decided to make civil defence shelters in Kvarnberget and Otterhällan. After the Castle Bravo test in 1954 and the subsequent mad themonuclear arms race, it was felt pointless to build more shelters. But these days, with renewed conventional shelling of city centres, they might come into their own again.

In early geologic investigations for Västlänken, I got to visit the shelter under Kvarnberget in 2012. Awesome! in a chilling sort of way.

Episode 9: kv Navigationsskolan

District: Västra Nordstaden

Photo date: 8 March 2020

On top of Mill-hill is the old School of Navigation, where my father once studied to become a captain in the merchant navy.

The leading men in the city long wanted a school to train boys for a life at sea, but an official school was only opened in the 1840s. The current big building on top of Mill-hill was first built in 1862 and re-developed in 1915. An extension was added in 1952.

In 1994 the school was taken over by the Chalmers University of Technology and moved to new premises on Hisingen. The old building has since housed various civil engineering companies like ÅF (later Afry) and Serneke (current owners).

Episode 10: kv Stadskvarnen

District: Västra Nordstaden

Photo date: 7-8 March 2020

Until the 1970s it was possible to rent cheap accomodation in the old houses in Gothenburg. In this block, The City Mill, we often visited one of my father’s colleagues when I was a kid. It was a very steep climp up the cobbled street, into a courtyard and up rickety stairs to a tiny garret. In the 1970s, much of the city was razed to make way for modern office blocks and housing estates made of concrete. Good-bye cheap garrets!

Ironically, those very concrete housing estate turned out to have been made very shoddily and are now the cheap lodgings decried by the current city planners. Not because they are mouldy and sub-standard but because they are cheap, meaning that they are the only flats immigrants and people on welfare can afford, further meaning that segregation increases and crime erupts. The solution: build new expensive condos and/or refurbish the old flats and raise rents two- to ten-fold, and force the segregated people to move. Or something, I don’t quite follow the reasoning here.