Etikettarkiv: Wingårdh

Architects, link in Borgeby

Kvarteren i Övre Johanneberg och Chalmers

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Episodes 209 to 212 explore two separate bodies of architecture: one seminal Modernist group of buildings on a hill, and one agglomeration of academia in a valley.

Episode 209: Övre Johanneberg

District: Johanneberg

Photo date: 18 August 2021

In this Modernist dreamscape, every house is its own block: Hämplingen, Snöskatan, Strömstaren, Staren, Stjärtmesen, Lövsångaren, Berglärkan, Blåhaken, Sädesärlan, Steglitsan, Tornsvalan, Rödhaken, Flugsnapparen, Rörsångaren, Klippduvan, Ringtrasten, Alsiskan, Pilfinken and Snösparven.

If Albert Lilienberg was the frontman for 1920s Classicism in Gothenburg, his counterpart for Modernism was Uno Åhrén. As soon as he became planning director in 1927 he ushered in the new era, which really took off in the mid-1930s. Upper Johanneberg is one of the finest examples of early Modernism in Gothenburg. A quick search doesn’t say much about the architects themselves but Erik Friberger designed the lower houses west of Gibraltargatan, says the conservation paper on page 141.

Episode 210: kv Talltitan – Chalmers part 1

District: Johanneberg

Photo date: 28 August 2021

If Poseidon and Gustav II Adolf are the physical icons of Gothenburg, Chalmers is their spiritual counterpart. It is a sprawling agglomeration of buildings that in the latest decades also has colonised the northern shore of Göta Älv. Chalmerists, i.e. the students, uphold the mercantile, engineering and clubs&orders ideals of the city’s past.

Until 1962, Chalmers ran its own architectural bureau, naturally headed by the current professor of architecture. Just after the war, this was Melchior Wernstedt who between 1949 and 1960 designed the Gustaf Dahlén Hall, the power central, the students’ union house, the high energy bunker and the library. He also oversaw the construction of the ship’s trial building in 1940. He was succeeded by Helge Zimdal who in 1968 designed the architecture and civil engineering blocks down in the valley. Jan Wallinder was professor of ”formlära” at the time and he designed the administration building and the Palmstedt hall by the campus entrance in 1961.

There was another growth spurt in the 1990s and again in recent years. The students’ union house received an extension designed by Gert Wingårdh in 2000 and the Johanneberg Science Park was built in the last five years. The northern red house acts as a link to the Zimdal buildings, much like the Park itself is a link between academia and industry. It was designed by the Tengbom bureau who also designed the parking garage next to it. The White bureau didn’t want to be upstaged so they designed the rounded southern buildings.

Episode 211: kv Talltitan – Chalmers part 2

District: Johanneberg

Photo date: 28 August 2021

When Chalmers was still a private vocational school, it held an architectural competition for their new property in Gibraltar. The winners in 1921 were Arvid Fuhre, Hugo Jahnke, Conny Nyquist and Karl Samuelsson. They designed the first big physics building Origo and the smaller temple-like chemistry building next to it, in finest red-brick 1920s Classicism. Along the now-hidden main facade of the Origo building they placed medallions of famous Swedish scientists: Svante Arrhenius, Anders Ångström, Johan Carl Wilcke, Anders Celsius, Torbern Bergman, Carl Wilhelm Scheele, Jöns Jacob Berzelius and Alfred Nobel.

The physics and chemistry departments soon needed a lot more space and Klas Anshelm designed the big brick buildings in 1960, since added to even further. The lecture halls and big red-brick buildings along Gibraltargatan were built in the late 1960s, early 1970s too.

The HSB Living Lab at the south end of the lab buildings is a temporary structure – what it says on the tin, a lab for living in a house. The plans are dated 2016 and the architect is Tengbom. So I guess they will soon pick up their lab and move it somewhere else. The Gibraltar Guest House is also a temporary structure, according the the current zoning plan. The lodgings along the ship’s trial were built in the early 2000s.

As a aside, I can add that my master’s thesis dealt with the gabbro underlying much of Chalmers. It was a lot of fun, mapping outcrops and taking samples, panning for zircons and going to Stockholm to zap them with the ion probe in the basement of the National Natural History Museum. Then I wrestled with Word for a semester and finally boiled down the results in my one academic paper printed in GFF. Where you need a membership to search for it.


Episode 212: kv Talltitan – Vasa Sjukhus

District: Johanneberg

Photo date: 29 July 2021

The Chalmers campus has spread northwards too, down the hill towards the old asylum. In 1925, the only house here was the fantastically designed electrical substation by Conny Nyquist (page 140). Then came further physics and chemistry buildings in the 1970s, a microtech centre built by Skanska in the late 1990s and the student lodgings Chabo that was designed by the Wingårdh bureau and put up in 2005.

The Gibraltar Asylum, later hospital, was long feared and shunned as a final destination for the infirm and destitute. It was, however, a considerable improvement over the first asylums at Smedjegatan and Drottningtorget. The mentally ill were transferred to new premises in the 1930s and the hospital was in operation until 2000 when it was taken over by Chalmers and later various businesses.

Kvarteren vid Trollspisberget och runt Liseberg

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Episodes 201 to 204 cover a suite of architectural styles from the early 1910s to the early 2020s, with a bit of natural design thrown in for good measure.

Episode 201: kv Entitan, kv Koltrasten, kv Blåmesen, kv Munkeboda, Trollspisen

District: Johanneberg (parts formerly in Lorensberg)

Photo date: 13 August 2021

The block called Munkeboda was originally part of district Lorensberg but got chucked into Johanneberg at the latest administrative reshuffle. Based on architecture and population, it really should still be part of Lorensberg, though, with a consulate, a posh villa by Johan Jarlén, now a school, and yet another lodge. It also has a brand new house designed by the Inobi bureau and put up during the last year. For the other blocks in this episode I refer to a general description of the area, page 126ff.

My grandmother wrote in her memoirs how they used to climb up the hill behind their house and in a crevice light a fire to make coffee. This same crevice gave the name to the hill and it still exists today! For the 1923 exhibition a path was cleared to the hill, for those boring persons who didn’t want to travel by funicular.

Some ten years ago I made a rock survey for a new zoning plan that wants to excavate half the Troll Stove hill and put up two tall houses in the new pit. But that would entail 30 metres high rock cuttings and it is placed right on top of sewers which would give inescapable ”aromas” in the new, expensive condos… The houses have yet to be built. The hill consists of mainly gabbro with various grain sizes. Very pretty.

Episode 202: kv Skokloster

District: Johanneberg (formerly Lorensberg)

Photo date: 13 August 2021

Here is another block that is properly part of Lorensberg. The zones, districts and sub-districts are really confused here… Maybe it’s the ghosts of those who were executed here that play havoc with the minds of city officials? The ghosts didn’t seem to bother my grandmother and her ancestors who lived here for a century. But for the 1923 exhibition, a cable-car was drawn right over this block, which was yet to be built, and over their garden – and sometimes the gondolas stopped and the passengers had to be rescued. So she said.

Episode 203: kv Getebergsäng – inside Liseberg

District: Heden

Photo date: 16 August 2021

Liseberg was one of the many small farms that dotted the area until 1923 or thereabouts. A few of the farm buildings still exist but the gardens have long gone – except maybe here, if you count the funfair as a garden. In her memoirs, my grandmother writes how she visited the manor house once, before the funfair had transformed the idyllic park. She was visiting a school friend who was staying with her relative, the architect Eugen Thorburn.

The 1923 Anniversary Exhibition was a temporary affair, almost ephemeral. And it was a riot of design! Sigfrid Ericson and Arvid Bjerke were the main architects and they created something fairytale-like. All photos from the time are black-and-white but written memories all mention how colourful it was. It was a very ambitious undertaking, with a historical section on the Johanneberg hill and a modern technical section at what became Svenska Mässan. And annexed to that part was the Liseberg funfair, the only part of the venture that wasn’t a spectacular financial loss. So it was decided to keep it and it has generated profit ever since.

Structures at Liseberg come and go, either in planned redevelopment or in sudden fires. The Congress Hall went up in flames in 1973, and the brand new adventure lido that was meant to save the entire tourism sector in Gothenburg melted in a horrid fire a month ago. Wikipedia says the two entrance towers were designed by Axel Jonsson and put up in 1940, as a nod to the two towers from the original exhibition. The pink colour permeating the whole park is said to be the original colour from the exhibition.

Episode 204: kv Getebergsäng (outside Liseberg), kv Sandmusslan, kv Pilgrimsmusslan, kv Immeln, kv Spindeln

District: Heden, Krokslätt (parts formerly Bö and Skår)

Photo date: 16 August 2021

Some 30 years ago I had a job just south of Liseberg and used to walk, run and tram along Södra Vägen almost daily. The big wooden villas and small landshövdingehus that my grandmother knew from her childhood were still there – but just a few years later they had to go to make way for the science centre (designed by Gert Wingårdh) and the award-winning culture museum (designed by Cécile Brisac and Edgar Gonzalez). And for the last six years also for Västlänken. Only the modernist house next to the southern entrance to Liseberg remains, for now…

East of the Mölndal creek the funfair has taken over the city block called Pilgrimsmusslan, where there used to be factories and before that very cheap housing for industrial workers. One part of a larger estate was set off as a sports field and named Balders Hage. This is where the ÖIS football club was started. The factories produced everything from sweets to yarn to engines and some of them were closed only 30 years ago. The Wingårdh bureau also designed the Grand Curiosa Hotel and the lido that burned down earlier this year.

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.