Etikettarkiv: Westerberg J A

Arkitekt, länk i Engelska kyrkan

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 Rubinen, Opalen, Bergkristallen, Onyxen, Granaten

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Episodes 123 to 126 take a tour through architectural fashions from the 1890s to the 1990s.

Episode 123: kv Rubinen, kv Opalen

District: Heden

Photo date: 25 December 2020

As you can see by my WordPress signature, my alias in the Gothenburg Tolkien society is Ruby Gamgee. So city block Ruby feels right at home! It’s a little bit weird but also nice how much my alias has become part of my overall personality: before, my favourite colour was blue and now it’s ruby red. When I could create a coat of arms, my life suddenly filled with penguins. And above all: the many and very good friends I have made.

In city block Opal, the 1880s landshövdingehus were torn down in the 1960s to make way for modern buildings – a story that is true for every other district in Gothenburg too. The hotel by Henning Orlando was in perfect 1960s style until the topside extension was added in 2007. Now it just looks wonky. The other buildings in the block were designed by Lennart Kvarnström, and the Lund & Valentin bureau.

Episode 124: kv Bergkristallen

District: Heden

Photo date: 13 March 2021

Now we enter the area south of Heden, where tall stone houses sprang up in a tight cluster from the 1890s to the 1920s. The old farms, tobacco plantations and shacks had to go, to make way for the demands of a modern city – words that are still true today and probably were true even for the old Greeks.

My main source for this area, and indeed the next 50 or more episodes of this series, is an in-depth study of planning and architecture in Vasastaden-Lorensberg, made by Staffan Sedenmalm in 2016. Chock full of information! My other source is of course CRA Fredberg, and my grandmother’s memoirs; she grew up just south of here in the early 1900s.

Along Hedåsgatan, the middle part of the block has been pulled back a bit from the street, creating a more open space. This is a hallmark of the city plans drawn up by Albert Lilienberg, who was planning director in Gothenburg between 1907 and 1927. Lots more will be said about him in episodes 389ff of this series. Berzeliigatan 22 is a very light type of Jugend, almost Rococo, designed by Robert Andersson in 1903.

Episode 125: kv Onyxen

District: Heden

Photo date: 13 March 2021

The area south of Heden was mostly developed by builders who had worked their way up from wooden landshövdingehus. They included August Westerlind, Johan August Frise, Johan Peter A Rydgren, Hans A Kilander, C A Lund, J A Westerberg, Nathan Persson and Abraham Pehrsson. They mostly drew their buildings in-house and only the posher houses along the main thouroughfares were designed by proper architects, like Hjalmar Cornilsen, Frans Frise, Zetterstöm & Jonsson and Olof Holmén.

Sten Sturegatan 21 was built in 1905 by Carl Axel Gillberg. It is a Jugend-type house but a bit heavier than usual, almost Baroque.

Episode 126: kv Granaten

District: Heden

Photo date: 20 March 2021

The stone desert continues, as Fredberg would have put it. The houses along Skånegatan were built as the noughties Jugend had turned into the 1910s National Romanticism, and even into the 1920s Classicism. They are too humble to be worthy of separate comments in my sources, though. The odd fire or too-severe subsidence damage has caused some old buildings to be replaced in the 1990s. Some of the houses along Södra Vägen were designed by Olof Holmén and built in the noughties.

Kvarteren Beryllen, Smaragden, Diamanten, Malakiten and Exercisheden

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Episodes 119 to 122 survey the north part of district Heden, with private and public building styles spanning a century and more.

Episode 119: kv Beryllen

District: Heden

Photo date: 19 September 2020

During Gothenburg’s 400th anniversary celebrations last year, one event was the fact that the ”utility-historical collections” in Elyseum, Hans Hedlund’s Art Nouveau fortress of electricity, were open at a time when others than OPAs could visit. I jumped at the opportunity – and it was fabulous! Gas works, electricity production, district heating, cables and pipes, and a recreation of the first exhibition of electrical gadgets that you might use as a pioneering electricity consumer. Wow. If you want to go, the opening hours are 1000-1400 on Wednesdays. Or book a private showing.

Episode 120: kv Smaragden

District: Heden

Photo date: 19 September 2020

The architect Johan August Westerberg designed the splendid tenenment buildings for employees at the state railroads, while the 1892 house with the tower was designed by K Johansson. And you can read all about the 1891 industrial exhibition in CRA Fredberg’s third volume of stories about Gothenburg of yore.

Episode 121: kv Diamanten

District: Heden

Photo date: 6 September 2020

Oscar Dickson’s ”palace” at the west end of The Diamond was designed by William Allen Boulnois and built by local building firm P J Rapp, with imported English workers. Boulnois also designed Villa Överås in Örgryte, which we might visit in several years’ time if I continue with this architectural hobby.

It’s rather unusual to have two churches in one block. The Methodist church was designed by Karl Magnus Bengtsson, in a mixed Swedish-English 1920s style. And the 20 years older house it was added onto was designed by Oswald Westerberg, son of Johan August. The Roman Catholic church was built ten years later, from designs by Carl Rosell. It was adequate at the time but today it is always packed full on Sundays, many attendants have to stand throughout the 90-minute service.

Parkgatan 6 was built at the same time as church and designed by Gotthard Gillermo. The G D Kennedy house, by Gotthard Åhlander, is one of the last examples of charitable housing made possible by donations to the city by wealthy merchants and financiers. For a hundred years, that was a common and commendable practice, to share wealth and be remembered. From the 1930s, Sweden became a socialist state with the aim of lowering class barriers and sharing wealth, the so-called People’s Home, and donations were no longer needed to aid poor people. I guess it is time to take up that old practice again now.

Episode 122: kv Malakiten and Exercisheden

District: Heden

Photo date: 19 September and 11 October 2020

CRA Fredberg writes enthusiastically about the so-called Rifle Movement that flourished in Gothenburg for a few years in the 1860s. They marched about, held gun competitions, and built this sports hut at the edge of the military exercise field, Heden. The movement quickly faded into ancient history, but the house endures, with sports activities almost every week. The architect was Frans Jacob Heilborn.

The Sports House where the farm Katrinetorp (or the Flea Pit as it was apparently called) once stood, was built from scratch for the 1923 Anniversary Exhibition, from designs by the exhibition’s official architect Arvid Fuhre. The Exhibition was located not just at the main area around Korsvägen: here in Heden was the farming section, for instance, and over on Hisingen was ILUG, the first international airshow after the Great War, at a float-plane harbour and airfiled opened in 1923 and only closed when Landvetter Airport was built 50 years later.

Liseberg acquired the hotel at the south end of Heden in 1981, and about that time the bus stop house was built too. There have always been unrealised plans to fill Heden with more houses, preferably tightly clustering highrises which is de rigueur today. But it is a very useful open space, accommodating healthy athletics, events like the horse championships a few years back, and circuses!

Vasabron, kvarteren Jungfrustigen, Gamla Latin, Engelska Kyrkan, Spruthuset

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Episodes 57 to 61 present various styles and architects that gave the city its look from the 1860s to the 1900s: neo-romanesque, neo-gothic and Jugend styles, by Gegerfelt, Edelsvärd, Peterson and Rasmussen. There is even a street here called Arkitektgatan.

Episode 57: Vasabron

District: Inom Vallgraven, from Västra Hamngatan to Ekelundsgatan

Photo date: 9 May and 16 August 2020

When new plans were drawn up for the city’s expansion south, it was decreed that Magasinsgatan should be extended over the moat and up the hills to the newly established villa town there. The new district south of the moat was to be called Vasastaden and then, naturally, the bridge for the new road was named the Vasa Bridge.

It was finally built in 1907 and Yngve Rasmussen designed it, with fantastic beasts in the currently fashionable style Jugend (Art Nouveau).

Episode 58: kv Jungfrustigen and the Victoria Bridge

District: Inom Vallgraven, from Västra Hamngatan to Ekelundsgatan

Photo date: 11 August 2020

The Social House was originally meant to be twice as big, in a full ellipse. Like many other ventures, though, it became far too expensive and only the one half was actually built. Perhaps the old Sahlgren Hospital would have stayed there longer if it had been bigger but probably not; the inner city is less conducive to care and recovery than the fresh winds of the countryside.

The building was designed by renowned architect Victor von Gegerfelt, who also built himself a house next door. The new addition for the university’s educational sciences department was built in 2004 and was designed by the Nyréns firm.

During the riots in 2001, when protests against the visiting George W Bush went violent, I was out looking at the proceedings (away from the flying stones and bullets). The police effectively protected the inner city from the rioters outside by barring all the bridges across the moat, like the Victoria Bridge here. The old methods are still relevant in our connected times. The day before, protesters had gathered at Drottningtorget because Bush was housed in the red hotel in Slusskvarnen. When my bus passed, I saw one guy on top of a car mooning Bush!

Episode 59: kv Gamla Latin and the Rosenlund Bridge

District: Inom Vallgraven, from Västra Hamngatan to Ekelundsgatan

Photo date: 11 August 2020

The Old Latin Highschool is now part of the Educational Sciences complex. It was built in 1857 in a style called neo-romanesque which became very popular with architects in the next decade. Many old public and residential buildings look just like it: yellow brick, rounded windows, lesenes dividing the facade into sections, brick crenelations under the roof… It was designed by city architect Hans Jakob Strömberg.

The building is still used as a school but it almost suffered the same fate as the old houses across the street, at least twice. There is a jazz club in the basement, Nefertiti, that is still in business despite the corona crisis and everything else. It is more than 50 years old now.

Episode 60: kv Engelska Kyrkan

District: Inom Vallgraven, from Västra Hamngatan to Ekelundsgatan

Photo date: 11 August 2020

Across from the Old Latin is the contemporary English Church, designed by Adolf Wilhelm Edelsvärd in almost the exact same style, only he preferred the angled windows of the neo-gothics to the rounded romanesques. I once got a guided tour of the interior and it is quite cramped. The style is much the same indoors with many dark-brown wooden details.

Next to the church is the Melin House which looks like an annexe but is in fact a private property unaffiliated with the church. It was built in 1872 and designed by J A Westerberg. A member of the St Andrews congregation bought it in 1900 and donated it to the YWCA.

And here is the house Victor von Gegerfelt built for himself, just before building himself another and prettier house on the hill to the south. Unlike that one, which was sacrificed to rampant development in the 1890s, this house still stands, a villa right in the middle of a busy city centre. It was built in 1874 and remained a private residence for a series of magnates until 2001 when the city finally bought it. The Educational Dept might be using it for management or representation but when you pass it by it still looks like a private residence.

Episode 61: kv Spruthuset

District: Inom Vallgraven, from Västra Hamngatan to Ekelundsgatan

Photo date: 11 August 2020

For a city deliberately founded as a trading post to bring in revenue for the Crown, it must have been natural to set up a school to train the future generations of merchants. So the trade school that was set up in Gothenburg in 1826 was the first one in Sweden. However, Fredberg points out that it was a foreigner who pushed for it, not a Swede. Oh the poor national pride…

After moving from one rented venue to the other for decades, in 1881 the boys moved to this new splendid building designed by Adrian Peterson. It was partially fincanced by monies from the Renström foundation, set up by magnate Sven Renström to support work in trade, health, education etc. His name lives on in many houses and institutions still extant today.

Apart from the school and the hose-house, there is also a preschool at this site today. Little do the toddlers and their keepers know that it is built on the ruins of a porno cinema…

Kvarteren Bråvalla, Fyrisvallen, Nyeport samt Centralstationen, Drottningtorget

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Episodes 24 to 28 document decorations on buildings around the Central Station and the Queen’s Square. The area lies just outside the old city wall and moat, of which you can see hardly a trace today.

Episode 25: kv Bråvalla

District: Stampen

Photo date: 17 November 2019

Gothenburg’s first post office was situated at Gustav Adolf’s Square but got a new splendid house by the river-front in 1873. In 1925, however, new and larger premises were needed and a magnificent Art Deco house was put up on the site of the old poor-house next to the central railway station — an altogether more pleasing sight for new arrivals!

Ernst Torulf designed the building which still proudly displays its heritage, despite having been turned into a hotel. A new tall building was put up in the old courtyard some ten years ago, and it certainly contrasts wildly with the older style.

Episode 26: kv Fyrisvallen and nearby

District: Stampen

Photo date: 12 December 2019, 7 March 2020 and 12 July 2020

Outside the city moat lay fields and further east factories and breweries and small farms. Later came the railway station and this area was a sort of middle-ground with some office buildings, a freight service and a gas station. The station house for the narrow-gauge railway to Skaraborg was moved here in 1932, from a quaint wooden building that stood where the new bridge to Hisingen and the tunnel under Mill-hill now run. The railway was closed in 1967 but a section is still in use as a museum railway. It even has its own tiny tunnel!

Episode 27: Centralstationen

District: Stampen

Photo date: 7 March and 21 July 2020

One of the first bits of railway in Sweden was opened in 1856 and ran from Gothenburg to Jonsered in Partille some 13 km away. Several other railways opened from Gothenburg in the next 50 years: Bergslagsbanan, Boråsbanan, Västkustbanan, Bohusbanan, the narrow-gauge Västgötabanan and Säröbanan. Steam-trains ran all along the river-front to service the loading of ships and Hamnbanan on Hisingen still serves the same purpose. Some were private companies with their own station houses, like Bergslagsbanan, Västgötabanan and Säröbanan, but the state railway company terminated in this central station.

If you read old railway books you soon realise that over a hundred years ago it was debated whether the station should be a terminus or if the lines should be extended through the city somehow, connecting the southern and northern lines. That very decision has now been taken and a massive project is underway to build the tunnel Västlänken. The plan was to open it in 2026 but it is already several years behind schedule and costs are soaring. Our new conservative government are not keen on railways and seem quite willing to cancel it…

Episode 28: kv Nyeport and Drottningtorget

District: Stampen

Photo date: 7 March and 7 July 2020

Outside Hotel Eggers stand two granite pillars. They mark the spot where one of the three city gates stood, in the old city wall. And the street along the west side of the hotel runs more or less along the old moat that was filled in to make way for the station, the hotel and the square. There has been a hotel here since 1859, first in old buildings from 1814 and then in this opulent re-build from 1894, designed by Johan August Westerberg.

The square itself was long fronted by not only the station but also an increasingly decrepit poor-house. Fairs and markets were held here, until the trams and buses took over. Today it is incredibly crowded with public transport!