Architecture in Helsingborg

Helsingborg’s architecture dominates a lot of buildings from the expansive period of the city between 1860 and 1920. Then there were several generous and new houses to manifest the importance of the city. Helsingborg’s cityscape has also been largely influenced by a few architects, who for a while built several buildings, especially the city’s architects. In the late 19th century, Mauritz Frohm was a city architect and contributed to a number of classical-style buildings, such as Tullhuset and Hotell Mollberg. In 1903, the city hall architect Alfred Hellerström passed over and he also gave the city several dominant buildings, including Handelsbanken’s bank building at Stortorget. The dominant figure under modernism wasMogens Mogensen, who, although he was not a city architect, was able to construct several important buildings in the city. The city of Helsingborg was open to architects from the beginning of the 20th century, for example from Stockholm. Therefore, in the city there have been works of elite architects such as Ragnar Östberg, Sigurd Lewerentz, Carl Westman and Sven Markelius

Helsingborg’s development

The historic settlement
The first settlement was built during the Viking Age and lay on the land of shelter in the shelter of the newly built fortress, which later became the castle of Helsingborg. In the 13th century, as the city grew, people began to settle on the narrow coastal strip below the village where fishing and some trade were involved. Traces of this settlement can be seen in the medieval street pattern consisting of irregular quarters. The water line at this time went very close to the country side, about where Kullagatan and Bruksgatan now go.

Here Helsingborg got its first main street – Storgatan, located right at the foot of the citizen. Today the street is divided between Norra and Södra storgatan, bounded by Konsul Trapp’s site. Along this street are many of the city’s most historic buildings, such as the Church of Mary and Helsingborg’s oldest residential building – Jacob Hansen’s house, the only one that passed away before 1670. Storgatan was the dominant commercial street in Helsingborg until the 19th century and was subsequently redone of Kullagatan.

Some more older houses along Storgatan are Gamlegård, Henckelska Farm – with its oldest parts from 1680, and the oldest stone house in the city – formerly Apoteket Kärnan. Several of these houses show that the dominant building style in the city until the mid-19th century was a cross-country house.

Wake up and expansion
As Helsingborg flourished as an industrial and commercial city, much of the old settlement was replaced by a more bulky architecture. The city also began to expand into Öresund in connection with the settlement of the central harbor in 1832 and the inner parts of the current Nordhamnen 1860. On this supplement, Helsingborg’s new main railway station – Drottninggatan / Järnvägsgatan, was replaced by the more modest Storgatan. The streets were inspired by the esplanades and boulevards that dominated European urban construction in the middle of the 19th century. Along these streets new monumental buildings were built and at Stortorget, where the streets crossed each other, in 1897, Helsingborg’s new, magnificent town hall was built in neo-Gothic, whose task was to mark the new significance of the city.

Invid Railroad Street was built in 1865, the central station, whose façades were designed by Helgo Zettervall, where Helsingborg’s railway traffic was from the south. Due to the proximity of the railway line, and the harbor, in the southern part of the city several industries were established. In connection with these industries, there was a rise in working houses in the neighborhood, which eventually became known as Söder. In these parts, Gustav Adolf Church and New Square (later Gustav Adolf’s square, after the church) were set up as a second center. In 1906 the people’s house was builtin connection with the square as one of the first larger-scale houses in the area. This gave rise to a strong segregation between the northern, higher-borne, part of Helsingborg and the labor-oriented Söder. In the northern part of the city, however, extravagant villas were built on Tågaborg and North.

The fortifications that surrounded the castle of Helsingborg in the east were torn in the 1800s, and thus large areas were erected to build on. It was built several institutional buildings along the street Bergaliden: Trade School in 1863, Hospital 1878 Poor Relief Institution in 1888, Castle Vång School in 1892 and Nicolai School in 1898. In connection with these parts were built in the district of Olympia several churchs in Art Nouveau style, the so-called “bird Quarter” because all addresses have bird names. Somewhat southeast of this building, Wilson Park was built, which was originally intended to become a residential area in the style of Tågaborg, but when the interest in this was quite cool, it became more modest villas for craftsmen and workers.

In the early 1900s, an administrative route outside the former Magnus Stenbocksgatan, with sports and education in the form of the Olympia and Olympic Stadium, was set up. This street is now a major thoroughfare around the city center and extends from Högborg to the south to Stattena in the north, divided into Södra, Midt- och Norra Stenbocksgatan.

Modernism
In 1927 Helsingborg was able to announce a contest for a new concert hall with the help of money from the Dunkerfonden. The race was won by Sven Markelius whose final proposal was a stylish functional building in white stucco, completed in 1932 – one of the best examples of functionalist architecture. In connection with the staircase at Magnus Stenbocksgatan, more buildings were also built in a more modernist style, such as Idrottens hus, designed by Mogens Mogenssen, the city’s most dominant modernist architect, and Tycho Braheskolan. In connection with Magnus Stenbocksgatan, many multi-family houses were also built in funk style, for example in the neighborhoodsEneborg and at Slottshöjden.

With its continued expansion, Helsingborg has received examples of most building styles from the novel, jugend, national romance and new classicalism to funk and 50s. But even the million program has left track in the form of the districts of Dalhem, Fredriksdal and Adolfsberg.

Helsingborg was also no surprise for the great demolition of the 1960s and 1970s, and several older buildings in the center allowed room for large new brick pavers, most of them in a brown helsingborg tile. Some examples of such newbuildings are the SEB house, which replaced the otherwise impressive Highquarters, Skandiahuset at Rådhustorget and the current Söderpunkten. Söder was the most converted district, especially around the palace of Mäster Palm, which is surrounded by late modernist and brutalist 70s by just Söderpunkten, the trade unions house, Söderporthuset and Polishuset. The biggest protests were the demolition of the hundred-year-old city theater in 1976 – it was claimed by the municipality that it was in poor condition. Nowadays is the Stadsteaternat Henry Dunkers Place, next to the Concert Hall.

The postmodernist architects also had difficulty in keeping their fingers from the old, with the result that several modernist buildings were rebuilt into unrecognizableness. Among the buildings that have been touched are the HD House, by refilling the old window sills with too little windows and Old Town Hall, which is insulated so that the façade no longer has the elegant smooth character from when it was built.

Latest Projects
In recent decades, major changes in the cityscape have taken place in central Helsingborg. A problem that the city had long had to rail with was the location of the railroad in the city. There were two stations, Helsingborg C, which was a train station to Malmö and Åstorp and Helsingborg F (Ångfärjestationen) train station, which was the train ferry terminal for the train ferries to Helsingör and the station for all distances to Stockholm and Gothenburg.

Between these stations there was a street lane where almost freight trains ran at 10 km / h, performed by a man with a red flag warning the other traffic for the approaching train that came. It was an impractical traffic situation that was solved in the 1980s when you dug down the street path through the city in a tunnel, tore Helsingborg C, and built the new railway station and the ferry terminal Knutpunkten in the same place.

At the Knutpunkts inauguration in 1991, the entire ferry terminal was simultaneously moved to Helsingborg F, and the city got a real railway station. Today, former Helsingborg F is hosting the popular rock club The Tivoli.

On the surfaces that were released after the street pass through the city, there were, among other things, built homes in the North Harbor, which were ready for the 1999 H99 exhibition and Dunkers Cultural House, inaugurated 2002. Since the 19th century, it is being discussed to build a train tunnel under the Sound to Helsingør, the so-called HH tunnel, as well as digging down the existing railways in the city to carry out this project. This includes the railroad through the Pålsjö Forest Nature Reserve, as well as the railway bridge at Liatorpsplatsen. After the Öresund Bridgebetween Malmö and Copenhagen opened in 2000, the train ferries to Helsingør disappeared as well as many other traffic as a direct train to Stockholm.

Helsingborg City Council has also decided that all railway tracks south of Knutpunkten, more specifically between Knutpunkten and Östra and Västra Sandgatan, will be buried in a tunnel called the Södertunneln. The project will be financed entirely through the sale of the land being released and through capital injection from Helsingborgs Hamn AB and Öresundskraft AB. The construction of the tunnel is part of the extensive regeneration planned for southern Helsingborg in the coming years, called the H + project. H + includes, apart from the construction of Södertunneln, also the demolition of Gåsebäcken industrial area and Malmö motorway. For the detached land areas, dense urbanization is planned with a new scheduled road network connecting to the inner city building in the Söder district.

The city has also decided to work for Banverket to build a tunnel in the northern districts, more precisely in the district of Tågaborg. (Hence the work name Tågaborgtunneln) The tunnel is included in the idea that the last stretch of the west coast (Ängelholm – Helsingborg) should also consist of double tracks.

Immediately connected to the newly planned areas of southern Helsingborg lies Mindpark (formerly SHIP) in the old Tretorn factory. Mindpark is a meeting place for creativity, students and entrepreneurship and consists of a unique combination of showroom, café, business hotel and conference facilities. The Tretorn factory also houses Campus Helsingborg, a satellite to Lund University. Through the extensive new construction, Campus will have good opportunities for future expansion in the southern parts of the city. Lund University has previously established successful branches, developed into independent colleges and universities, including Växjö University(founded by Lund University in 1967, founded as the independent university college Växjö University 1977, accredited university status in 1999).

The district of Söder, adjacent to Campus Helsingborg and the newly planned areas of southern Helsingborg, has historically been drawn with social problems, segregation, abuse, a higher proportion of unemployment and dependency than other districts. The regeneration of the harbor and industrial areas surrounding Söder is seen as an opportunity to reduce the economic differences between northern and southern Helsingborg.

Buildings

Older settlement
The core
St. Mary’s Church
Raus church
Pålsjö Castle
Jacob Hansen’s house
Gamlegård
Henckelska farm
Fredriksdals mansion

19th century buildings
Apoteket Kärnan
Brunius house
Essenska villa
Konsul Olsson’s magazine
trade School
Continental Palace
Sofiero Castle
Vikingsberg
Hotels Mollberg
Customs house
Sockerbruket
Gustav Adolfs Church
Town Hall
Goss Läroverket
Ångfärjestationen
Ramlösa brunnshotell

The early 20th century
Gustav Adolfsskolan
Gamla Elverket
terrace stairs
Villa Thalassa
Handelsbanken
Ringstorp water tower
the community House
Villa Hevea
English row houses
Grand Hotel
St. Mary’s Hospital
crematorium

modernism
concert Hall
Olympia School
Simhallsbadet
Tretorn factory
Restaurant Parapeten
H55 pavilion
Sports house
Elineberg Housing
city Library
Hamilton House
hospital
city Theater

Sentida buildings
Knutpunkten
North Harbor
Mariastaden
The castle district
“Eo”
Dunkers Cultural Center
Rivna buildings
Old Town Hall
Old City Theater
central Palace
central Station
Old lasaret
Sundstorget’s market hall
port Pavilion

Source from Wikipedia