Architecture

Sep

2015

Kolingsborg, Slussen, Stockholm – soon gone

Kolingsborg, Slussen. Image from the Internet.

There is this round building in the middle of the traffic system at Slussen, Stockholm, called Kolingsborg. Kolingsborg was built 1953–54, from drawings by architect Arthur von Schmalensee. The building had to begin with offices for the port authorities of Stockholm. The building has also been housing a nightclub, architect offices, and the Bobbadilla club.

The building was shut down in December 2013. More about Kolingsborg can be found on this Swedish Wikipedia page where I’ve borrowed some of the pictures. That page is in Swedish.

The location is close to the Old Town, overlooking it and with a view out to the sea. Trains and the subway passing through Stockholm, pass under it.

Slussen traffic system. “Slussen modell 1930-tal” av Okänd – Stockholms stadsmuseum. Licensierad under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons – https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/

The building has murals inside picturing the work of port workers. Those have been hidden under boards during the years the building was offices and nightclub.

Kolingsborg murals. “Kolingsborg interiör sept 2015c” av Holger.Ellgaard – Eget arbete. Licensierad under CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons – https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/

Kolingsborg murals. Picture from the Wikipedia page.

After the building was closed it was at first painted all white.

White Kolingsborg. Picture from the Wikipedia page on the internet.

It was then turned into an art project. It has during the summer been painted by nine invited graffiti artists. The art project is being finished today September 27th 2015. Watch a YouTube film about the art project here.

Kolingsborg from above. Photo: Henrik Jensen

I grew up in the neighborhood and have seen this building most of my life. Passed it the other day on my way from the Southern parts of Stockholm to the City. The following are my own pictures of Kolingsborg from September 21st 2015.

Kolingsborg 2015-09-21. Photo: ©nini.tjader.2015

The graffiti paintings are connected one to the other, but the painters have otherwise been free to paint what they wanted.

Kolingsborg 2015-09-21. Photo: ©nini.tjader.2015

The building will be taken down in October 2015 in connection with the building of the new Slussen (whenever that starts, it was decided on only this week).

The murals inside will not be saved. They will be documented though for posterity.

Below Slussen as seen from the street on the way down to the Old Town from Kolingsborg and the Slussen area. This is the only way to pass Stockholm by boat from Mälaren to the East Sea.

Slussen 2015-09-21. Photo: ©nini.tjader.2015

Addition 2016-02-08

Kolingsborg gone 2016-02-08. Photo: ©nini.tjader.2016

And now it is gone. Just a hole in the ground…

Oct

2014

Deceptive photos

Photo: Fastighetsbyrån

I recently accompanied a friend to view a flat on sale in the neighborhood. Prior to the visit I looked at the pictures published for the sale. Just looking at the pictures the flat looked really nice and fresh. Particularly the kitchen-livingroom area. Requested price SEK 1.595.000. Sold for SEK 1.985.000. Sold immediately after the viewing actually. There were lots of people there during the viewing. Presently anything sells really fast in our area and to much higher prices than just a couple of years ago.

Flat was a semi-detached house in one story, 62 square-meters with a garden of 350 square-meters, kitchen, bedroom, livingroom and bathroom. Semi-covered patio. No neighbors on one side, just nature. One to the other side.

But the pictures lie a lot about the state of the flat.

Photo: Fastighetsbyrån

Sunny west-turning patio with a sloping grass on two sides. No bushes or flowers or other decorations in the garden. A larger tree. The garden was really neglected. But easy to care of in this state. Just mowing. The wooden fence and the decking of the patio had not seen any care at all for many years as I could judge. Looked really neglected. Apart from that a nice space you could do a lot with.

Photo: Fastighetsbyrån

Shower, WC and separated laundry part. Really needs an entire re-make of everything. Very tired and broken units… And why they didn’t have any partition between the shower and the WC I don’t understand. It also did not smell nice… Looking at flats use your nose… and your eyes of course …

Photo: Fastighetsbyrån

The entrance seen from inside. Nice floor. White painted walls. Bedroom to the left in the picture. Bathroom to the right. In the ceiling a flap up to a storage area under the ceiling. There was also a storage shed outside.

Photo: Fastighetsbyrån

This is the entrance. Looks neglected. Fences hadn’t seen any care in years. Window to the left is to the bathroom/laundry area. Window to the right is to the bedroom.

Photo: Fastighetsbyrån

The bedroom was of a good size and had six (6) wardrobes on the wall to the left. Floors OK. White-painted walls and white wardrobes. Have no idea how the state of the wardrobes were inside. If I had been interested in buying, I would have looked at that too.

Photo: Fastighetsbyrån

The livingroom-area. Nice floors and white-painted walls. One wall with black-and-white wallpaper to the left. Very light because of all the windows.

Photo: Fastighetsbyrån

Livingroom-area + kitchen-area + door to the patio. Laminat floors that looked nice. But notice the corner there to the left of the door to the patio. Someone had mended the corner with a wooden board. Why didn’t they paint that white like the walls? First thing your eyes fall on in this area. Perfect corner windows for flowers with view out to the garden. Makes the rooms very light.

Photo: Fastighetsbyrån

The kitchen area. Lots of windows and light BUT, very tired units. Didn’t look inside the fridge-freezer, but the stove needed changing and was in really bad condition, and so did all the other units in the kitchen. You don’t see on the picture how tired they were in real life. Ceiling lamp also had no cover. Could become a handsome kitchen if you tore out all the cupboards and replaced them with new ones. The realtor thought that a remake of the kitchen units including stove etc. would cost around SEK 100.000. At least.

Photo: Fastighetsbyrån

Here you see the entire flat except the bathroom. Small but well-planned. Open and light. I like the layout of the flat and the location at the end of the area with only the woods as closest neighbor. And only one neighbor to the other side.

Photo: Fastighetsbyrån

The sloping lawn with the big trees to the right. Fence needed urgent care.

Floorplan: Fastighetsbyrån

Looking at housings always need a visit in person. Pictures lie big time of the state of the places.

Jul

2014

TBT I used to live here

Rondovägen 30, Skogås. 1992-07. Photo:©nini.tjader

(TBT Throw Back Thursday) I used to live in this three floors, four rooms, corner-rowhouse. This is how it looked from the front in the summer of 1992. Below is the backside, which you went out to from the middle floor of the house. The door was from the living-room.

This was the plan of the house and its three floors. In addition to that there was a large storageroom under the roof which you reached from a ladder on the top floor.

The bottom floor housed the guest-room/third bedroom, entrance, walk-in-closet and a 19m2 space without windows which was built sub-terranean. Good for storage of all kinds of things, like garden-furniture and bicycles in the winter… We also had an outside shed for everything for the garden etc. at the entrance, but that was not isolated so not good for the bicycles over winter.

The middle floor contained the kitchen, a shower-WC room, a small hall-way and the livingroom.

The top-floor contained the bathroom, the master bedroom with walk-in-closet and a smaller bedroom which we used as an office.

I lived there with Janne and Josefina (my female cat) for seven years or there around until we separated and Janne moved out. Josefina, who became 15 years of age, died in the spring of 1992, just half a year before I moved to the flat in Vårby Gård.

Above our bedroom at the topfloor. Just to the right of the bottom picture is the door to a walk-in-closet.

A corner of the office-room/small bed-room at the top-floor.

Above three pictures from the living-room with the exit to the backside garden.

Another corner of the living-room.

Above three pictures from the kitchen. It was quite big, but really unpractical when it came to placement of the cupboards and work-areas. There were almost no work-areas…The kitchen had a door out to a balcony which we rarely used as we had the backside garden.

Above two pictures from our guestroom/third bed-room at the bottom of the house. When Janne was still living in the house, we had a second TV in here. When he moved out, so did the second TV… I loved that horizontally striped wall-paper. It was hard to put up though I remember as you had to get the lines really straight.

This is the entrance at the bottom-floor. Quite dark as it had no windows. The only natural lgiht that entered here came from the door of the guest-room.

I used the walk-in-closet at the bottom floor as a sewing-room. I know some of the neighbors used it as an extra bedroom… don’t know how though as it had no real ventilation.

The extra sub-terranean space we used for storage of garden-furniture over the winter and for the bicycles. We also used it as a room to watch pictures in as it was really dark. On and off we thought of getting proper furniture for it but never got around to it.

Rondovägen 30, Skogås. 2014-07-02. Photo:©nini.tjader.2014

This is the same house 22 years later… I went back to have a look yesterday. Looks much the same except that it has a new roof, the fence of the balconies are brown instead of white, the fence is changed as is the postbox, and the people living there now, or before them, have demolished most of the plants and the garden. The front part is now covered by cement- slabs and all the bushes and other greenery is gone. I couldn’t see the backside, but I noticed there were hedges all over the place and fences and not a glimpse of the huge lilacs we used to have on the backside at the corner. I don’t understand people who do not want greenery around them…

Rondovägen 30, Skogås. 2014-07-02. Photo:©nini.tjader.2014

It felt totally odd to see the house again and I didn’t feel one bit at home in the area. House was familiar but… I almost got lost on my way from the train-station and had to use the GPS of my iPhone to get there… No, I have never regretted leaving this house though I always missed having a garden until I moved to my present place. There was a 17 year long pause without a garden in between.

May

2014

Why did they keep that color?

In Skärholmen, just outside Stockholm, there are those quite old houses that are getting their outer walls redone and the balconies are getting new fences. The houses are getting a much needed facelift.

Below is how they looked before the remake (very bad photo from the housing cooperative):

Now they will look like this (my photos):

What I don’t understand is WHY they choose to keep that really ugly brownish-yellow color at the insides of the balconies and along the exterior corridors? It is really ugly when the houses are now getting so fresh otherwise.

Another thing this housing company is also doing is creating really nice flowerbeds outside and around the houses and in between each house. In addition to that they have also created a perennial park with the help of a famous garden designer, Piet Oudolf. Very nice place.

Nbr 88/100

Apr

2014

Tall Modern Buildings

Tall modern buildings (skyscrapers) fascinate me. I visited one yesterday when I went to the garden fair i Kista. For once it did not rain or snow or being extremely windy and cold as the previous times I’ve been there. Weather conditions then didn’t invite taking any photos. Yesterday I finally could do so.

Photo: ©nini.tjader.2014

Photo: ©nini.tjader.2014

Photo: ©nini.tjader.2014

Photo: ©nini.tjader.2014

According to Wikipedia:
The Scandic Victoria Tower is a skyscraper hotel in the Kista district of Stockholm, Sweden. It is also known as the Victoria Tower, however the Scandic name is used to distinguish it from the Victoria Tower that forms the southwest end of the Palace of Westminster. The 117 metre hotel is the tallest building in Stockholm, as well as the tallest hotel in Scandinavia.^[3] It is named for the Princess Victoria, the heiress-apparent to the Swedish throne.

Other interesting towers that I’ve shot, are the Azrieli Towers in Tel Aviv, Israel, which I visited in September, 2006.

Nbr 56/100

Mar

2014

Occasional Beauty

Sometimes I just happen to take notice of objects and buildings and other things around me. Usually when waiting for a commuter train, or walking along a path from point A to point B. We can call it seeing the occasional beauty of objects and buildings around you. Here are some examples.

This is the wall of the bike parking at Älvsjö Station towards the rails and the railway platform which you see when standing there waiting for the trains. The house itself is actually interesting for how you park bicycles inside it.

Then there is the northern building at Tumba Station. I kind of like the form of the building. It is something with the arc above the rails… Building is presently closed for renovation but… The southern, main station building, is equally imposing but not as beautiful. I don’t have a picture of it at the moment.

And this beauty… It is a lid over one of the many communal water well and pipes in the Stockholm area. This particular one is along the path between Heron City and City Gross in Kungens Kurva. Iron. Beautiful design and typography, very iconic logo of the city… yeah, I’m a nerd. I admit.

Nbr 12/100

Feb

2014

Happy Birthday Globen

Globen, the Globe, Ericsson Globe ©nini.tjader

The Globe, or Stockholm Globe Arena until 2009, and then Ericsson Globe, had its 25th birthday this week. Or “Globen” which we all call it. It is an interesting building. I’ve always loved its form. And I’ve worked in the building just beside it for years. First at DD Data Distribution AB, which moved into the office buildings as the 2nd tenant in the beginning of November, 25 years ago. The first tenant was Aftonbladet which moved in about the same time as DD, in its own building just beside Globen. DD moved to Medborgarplatsen when it went bankrupt and re-emerged there. I was away from Globen for a couple of years. When I later got employed at Aftonbladet I was back again.

In 2006, long before it became the Ericsson Globe, and before the Skyview was built onto the Globe, I took some series of pictures of the Globe. Most of them were taken at nights – summer nights in June most of them, that is why it is so light – when I worked nights.

Skyview goes on rails upon the Globe all up to the top and provides a breathtaking view of Stockholm – they say. I still haven’t used it. Will though one of these days… The Globe already then on and off got lighted with different colored lights at night, depending on what activity was going on inside it and/or if something else was celebrated, like Xmas or so.

Here are my pictures from 2006. Click on them to see bigger versions.