Etikettarkiv: Svensson

Builder, no link

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 Furan, Granen, Linden, Aspen, Sälgen

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Episodes 161 to 165 witness the sprouting of tenement buildings, schools and scandalettes in circa 1890.

Episode 161: kv Furan part 3

District: Vasastaden

Photo date: 18 April 2021

What is a ”tomte”, plural ”tomtar”? In American, it is usually translated as ”elf”, especially for small tomtar that help Santa Claus or Father Christmas. ”Gnome” is another term used, commonly for the garden variety. But the more original type in Sweden is the farm tomte: a small entity looking after the farm and helping the family, if they behave courteously. They were a staple of children’s faritytales. Later, this kind of tomte became conflated with the Christmas character, Jultomten, who is basically Father Christmas/Santa Claus. But before Jultomten, the main yuletide creature was the Christmas Billygoat, still remembered as a Christmas ornament made of straw.

On the house fronting Vasagatan 11, Thorvald Rasmussen, brother of one of the architects, painted several tomtar being industrious, as well as other fairytale creatures. The house is a sort of German Neo-Renaissance Alpen-style, quite at odds with anything else in Gothenburg. When it was built, this was still an area with large villas and it fitted in quite well. Even the taller residential building behind it, built a few years earlier for the whole Hedlund family, didn’t clash as much with the genteel surroundings. But a few years later, the villas gave way to stone colossi…

From my tolkienist friends, I learn that the Odd Fellows are still going strong, as are all the other old orders too. One would have thought the social democratic system that has pervaded Swedish society since the 1930s would have stamped out such activities – but the social democratic party can, if you want to, be seen as a great big lodge itself!

Episode 162: kv Granen

District: Vasastaden

Photo date: 1 May 2021

When I first started on this series in early 2020, it was just for my own personal enjoyment and maybe to show my hometown to some lexxian and tolkienist friends on social media. Just a bit of fun. I added some normal music, without narration. Boom! the youtube copyright algorithms struck! So I decided to make my own soundtracks, it being difficult to schedule recordings with friends who are actually good at making music. And I started narrating more intensely, to mask the bad soundtracks. Of course, the narration soon spiralled out of control, and for this long block I have included pretty much all the text I could find in ”Vasastaden-Lorensberg” and the block entry in the Old Gothenburg blog.

Regarding the farms that many of the new 1800s and 1900s blocks were put up on, there is an informative paper (in Swedish) that can be found in the city museum catalogue, with a map of the general area of this episode on page 29. There are many more potentially interesting papers in the catalogue, with the tag ”kulturmiljörapport”.

Episode 163: kv Linden

District: Vasastaden

Photo date: 24 April 2021

When my grandmother went to school here in the late 1910s and early 1920s, all the big stone houses around it had already been built. She described her walk to school from the family cottage on the edge of town, passing horses, crossing still un-built areas and describing various characters along the way. But in 1889 the area was still semi-rural, with intense exploitation just around the corner.

The girls’ school itself is described by both CRA Fredberg and the Old Gothenburg site (and of course in ”Vasastaden-Lorensberg”, page 174).

Episode 164: kv Aspen

District: Vasastaden

Photo date: 22 May 2021

Water pipes, bowls courts, farms, bandits, shops and tenants – the history of this block is quite rich! Once the farm, the inn and the shacks had gone, stone houses were put up around 1890. At the northern and western sides, the builders/designers were H & J Börjesson, Nathan Persson, Hedström & Svensson and C B Andersson. The rest of the block had to await new planning from Albert Lilienberg in 1910. The eastern part was built up along the steep street in 1912, from designs by Hjalmar Cornilsen and Zetterström & Jonsson. The south end wasn’t completed until the late 1910s. So we can study the architectural fashions over 30 years: French, German and Italian Neo-Renaissance, Neo-Gothic, Jugend, National Romanticism and the precursor to 1920s Classicism.

Episode 165: kv Sälgen

District: Vasastaden

Photo date: 1 May 2021

CRA Fredberg devotes almost a whole chapter to this school. Apparently, there was a scandalette over the architectural contract, involving the Hedlund family: S A made sure his nephew Hans won it. Björner son of Hans designed the extensions that were added in 1912. As Björner also did with Hans’s library building in 1926. What a family saga!

Kvarteren Masurbjörken, Asken, Almen, Glasbjörken, Apeln

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Episodes 146 to 150 travel back in time, from the late 1890s to the early 1870s.

Episode 146: kv Masurbjörken

District: Vasastaden

Photo date: 21 February 2021

In this 1880s photo by Aron Jonason we can see the original Church of Bethlehem and part of the slum area called Flygarns Haga. The new church and ancillary buildings take up almost half of this block. It was designed by Johannes Olivegren and put up in 1963. Apart from the church itself, the south end of the block holds a seniors’ housing complex, tenements, shops and a carpark.

Aron Jonason was a prolific photographer and meister punster in the late 1800s. His friends sometimes called him ”the father of the Gothenburg witticism”. One of those friends was CRA Fredberg who wrote his biography, with a large collection of jokes. My grandmother had it and it is now in my bookshelf. But his richest legacy is the large number of excellent photos made public in the Gothenburg city museum’s database.

Episode 147: kv Asken

District: Vasastaden

Photo date: 19 December 2020

The YMCA’s Neo-Gothic castle is one of four park blocks that were put up in the very late 1890s. The Y held an architectural competition that was won by architects Lindvall & Boklund from Malmö – but apparently they had to have a Gothenburg manager and that was Hans Hedlund, who added his own touch to the facade. The contractor was Nathan Persson and the block was built in 1897. The block held gyms, meeting halls, tenements, and even a little cinema! Today, it is of course a highschool.

Episode 148: kv Almen

District: Vasastaden

Photo date: 13 February 2021

As we move west in Vasastaden, we also move back in time: we are now in the 1870s, when French Neo-Renaissance was de rigueur. CRA Fredberg recounts wistfully how this was meadowland until the 1870s, with servant girls and hussars stepping out in the new King’s Park, various shady goings on in the hills and shrubberies nearby, and poor sanitation and building standards.

Episode 149: kv Glasbjörken

District: Vasastaden

Photo date: 21 March 2021

There are 15 properties in this block and all but one of them from the 1870s-1880s. The architects and builders were both well-respected big names, and several who had started out building landshövdingehus in workers’ districts and now took on bigger jobs in stone. It is an all-residential block, along Vasagatan with restaurants at the ground floor. And of course there is a school too, since 1937 at Karl Gustavsgatan 5. The 1938 house was designed by Gunnar Gillermo.

Episode 150: kv Apeln

District: Vasastaden

Photo date: 10 April 2021

Ah, the Heyman Villa. I had never even noticed it before I started these walks. At this house, I was trying to find the best angle for photographing the door handle when two ladies came by and they said the same thing: they had never noticed all the details. One just has to hope that the owners don’t take offence at people staring at their facade and taking pictures of it, sometimes trying to get quite close to it. There certainly are sensitive owners who demand written permission for even looking at their houses!

At the other end of the block is the house built for the Order of Coldinu. In fact, this whole west end of Vasagatan is clustered with houses built for clubs and orders, of which Fredberg writes a lot (he was a member of several). In part 364 of this series, we will find more traces of Coldinu.

Unlike many blocks in this area, this one doesn’t have a highschool. Instead there is a church, in the old Strömman house at the southwest corner. I have, however, found no information about the two 1980s houses at Bellmansgatan.