Central Post Office Building, Stockholm
Central Post Office Building | |
---|---|
Centralposthuset | |
Postverket | |
Owner | National Property Board of Sweden |
Technical details | |
Structural system | Masonry |
Design and construction | |
Architect(s) | Ferdinand Boberg |
Engineer | F. G. A. Dahl |
The Central Post Office Building (
History
The Swedish post services dates back to the 17th century, and its headquarters were during the first 300 years found in various small buildings in Stockholm Old Town. The last building there to accommodate the department was the present Postmuseum, 6 Lilla Nygatan, rebuilt a last time in 1820. However, with the introduction of rail transportation and steamships, increasing quantity of post quickly made the building insufficient. A new central post building was therefore built at Rödbotorget (near today's Sheraton Hotel) to the design of Albert Törnqvist (1819–1898). On its inauguration in the mid-1870s, the new building was well-dimensioned for its purpose, but before the end of the century explosive volumes of postcards had made the headquarters outdated again and in 1896 a decision was taken to move into a larger building.[2]
In the mid-19th century, the neighbourhood where the post office now stands, was a rather peripheral district in the centre of Stockholm, a situation which gradually changed with the inauguration of the Stockholm Central Station in 1871. The department's expert advisor, architect F. G. A. Dahl (1885–1927), studied modern post offices in Germany and Belgium and produced plans for a new post office on the site. In late 1897 five Swedish architects — Carl Möller, Ludvig Peterson, Ernst Stenhammar, Eugen thorburn, and Ferdinand Boberg — were invited to participate in a competition for the façades, a competition which Boberg eventually won.[2][3]
The building was inaugurated by King
Posten relocated its headquarters to
Architecture
To give prominence to the building, Boberg chose to counter the limited building site with a system of massive volumes and elaborate carvings — or using his own words: "release some suitable mass out of the building and more or less let it go up in the air".
Boberg favoured a kind of
The cross-vaulted central portion of the five nave central hall is two stories tall and enlightened by skylights. Under the marble arcades surrounding the hall where once the oak counters. The plastered walls, originally intended to be dressed in stone, are covered with postal emblems; the coats of arms of the nation, its provinces, and the city; and a pine-cone border characteristic for its time. The large mural above the stairs, completed in 1907, is by Carl Wilhelmsson and displays a steamship delivering post to a post carriage at Skeppsbron.[2] The flat dome of the central hall was built in a traditional technique without using iron constructions.[1]
Boberg's use of ornamentation accumulated criticism which described it as to naturalistic and falling short of monumentality — "almost as modelled in clay rather than carved in sandstone". While Boberg, as a direct result of his work on this post office, was immediately appointed to design the post office in Malmö, the critique continued to grow in strength and a decade later finally caused Boberg to give up his architectural career.[2]
See also
Notes
References
- Johansson, Bengt O H (1999). "Norra innerstaden". Guide till Stockholms arkitektur (2nd ed.). Stockholm: Arkitektur Förlag AB. p. 38. ISBN 91-86050-41-9.
- Nilsson, Staffan (2005). "Brevborgen vid Vasagatan" (PDF). Kulturvärden. No. 3. Stockholm: SFV, National Property Board of Sweden. pp. 22–31. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-06-12. Retrieved 2008-02-03.
- "Centralposthuset i Stockholm" (in Swedish). SFV, National Property Board of Sweden. Archived from the original on 2007-11-07. Retrieved 2008-02-02.
- "Ombyggnad av Centralposthuset, kv Blåmannen 21" (in Swedish). SFV. Archived from the original on 2007-10-27. Retrieved 2008-02-02.
- "Imports" (in Swedish). Arkitekturmuseet. 2006-07-07. Archived from the original on 2008-02-04. Retrieved 2008-02-02.