Landshövdingehus

Landshövdingehus (Swedish: [²landsˌhœvdɪŋɛˌhʉːs]) is a building type unique to the Swedish city of Gothenburg. 19th century city bylaws ruled that houses made of wood could be of maximum of two storeys high, in order to protect against fires. However, one building association tried to circumvent the rule and submitted drawings for a building with the ground storey built of brick and two upper storeys of wood. The city building council did not accept the application, but the county government overruled them and the landshövdingehus—"governor house"—was born.

The very first building of this kind was built 1875 in the city district of Annedal. It was demolished in the redevelopment of the 1970s, but many other examples of these buildings remain today.

A characteristic of all landshövdingehus is the combination of one brick and two wooden storeys. Most landshövdingehus were built for the working class. The apartments generally had a kitchen and one living room. Up to fifteen people could live in one apartment of this kind, due to the extreme shortage of housing at the time. The apartments usually provide a floorplan with light from two directions: a window in the kitchen orientated towards an inner courtyard, and a window in the living room facing the street.

Independent builders constructed the buildings, sometimes using architect drawings. Different owners could separate a courtyard into parcels divided by fences. Nowadays most of the area of Majorna and Kungsladugård is owned by a single entity (Familjebostäder, a municipal housing company), but in some courtyards this separation can still be seen. In Kungsladugård, the city plan by Albert Lilienberg and the original variation in ownership have given a building structure that balances variation and context in a very elegant way.

Because of the comparatively long building period (1875–1950) of the ”landshövdingehus”, they show an interesting variation in style. The districts Majorna and Kungsladugård in western Gothenburg were saved from the demolition in the 1960s due to protest actions. Here you can find a large, contiguous area of houses and explore styles from an almost complete representation of the period, except from the very earliest period of building. In Lunden, the central-eastern part of Gothenburg there is also an area of renovated blocks of Landshövdingahus from the period 1920–1935 who have retained their original style.

The first landshövdingehus in Annedal, built 1875, and others built in the period between 1875–1880 had a strictly classical style with limited decoration.

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