Most of what is today Central Stockholm was rural in character well into the 19th century, but that rural character was quickly evaporating as block after block of five-story apartment houses were erected firewall to firewall. The quick and relentless march of urbanity was a natural response to Stockholm’s growing population, its housing crisis, the poverty of the majority of its citizens, and the steepening land prices. Building densely was quite simply the only way to build given the financial constraints of both the builders and the renters. Density was also the only convenient way to build—one’s feet were generally the only option for transportation, and density meant that everything you needed for your daily existence was within walking distance.
Five-story apartment buildings built out to the lot line at the street and abutting the adjacent buildings was also the only legal way to build in the city as specified in the Stockholm Building Code of 1876. While the building code did allow for the occasional narrow garden between the street and the building line, this practice had never been tested because of market demands to maximize building area on expensive lots.
From the very beginning, the relentless, growing grid of apartment buildings had its detractors. These blocks were denigrated as “stone deserts” because of the lack of greenspace, and probably also because this degree of urbanity was in sharp contrast to the small-scale farms, barns, cottages, and kitchen gardens which had recently inhabited these lots. Even so, Stockholmers seemed generally content to live in the apartment buildings, and even the exceptionally wealthy resided in apartment buildings, albeit ones designed to look like French chateaux.
To escape the urban grid, poor Stockholmers had to make do with daytrips to nearby, generous greenspaces like Djurgården and Gärdet while wealthy Stockholmers retreated to their nearby suburban farms or malmgårdar or to their summer cottages.
Malmgårdar and summer cottages were never designed to be lived in year round and were impractical to heat. I’m sure that the occasional eccentric made do with living in a summer cottage through the winter, but just like in London, Stockholm’s seasons were well defined. In the summer, one retreated to one’s summer “cottage.” In the winter, one lived in one’s apartment in town and participated in the social season.
Villastaden, or “Villa City,” was Sweden’s first challenge to this norm. Villastaden was designed to combine the best of both worlds—the greenery, the light and airiness, and the freedom and independence of the free-standing single-family cottage was to be combined with the convenience of the city and the year-round standard of an apartment building. Villastaden, like its precedents in Berlin and Vienna, was a reaction to the growing, dense cityscape. But unlike later leafy suburbs, Villastaden’s creators did not want to leave the city. Instead, they wanted to create a green oasis within it.
Establishment, Planning, and Easements
Villastaden was conceived of by Henrik Palme and it was financed through the company AB Stockholms Byggnadsförening which bought several parcels of tobacco-growing land at the northern edge of the Östermalm area so recently planned (but not yet ratified) in 1874. Villastaden was never meant to be a large area—originally, it was confined to a six block area with only 100ish lots. The layout of the right-angled blocks had already been determined by the 1874 plan for Östermalm and are hardly the winding, romantic streets that we associate with contemporary single-family housing developments like Olmstead’s Riverside outside of Chicago. Instead, Villastaden can be more closely compared to Millionaires’ Row in Chicago or the Gilded Age mansions of Fifth Avenue in New York. Again, these right-angled blocks serve to remind that unlike Riverside, Villastaden was conceived to be within the city, not outside of it.
When AB Stockholms Byggnadsförening bought the tobacco fields in 1874, the area was hardly an attractive environment to attract the wealthy. Humlegården park was known for its prostitutes and thieves, and the city’s rapid urbanization had not yet reached so far. Yet buying up the land was a pretty safe bet as it was clear after the Plan for Östermalm was drawn up in 1874 that the area would be soon built up, and the ongoing construction of the Royal Library in Humlegården ensured that the park would soon be cleaned up.
Villastaden would never had been able to get a head start on development before the rest of “Upper Östermalm” if it weren’t for AB Stockholms Byggnadsförening’s connections with the city council—several of the owners of the real estate investment company just happened to sit on the city council in leadership positions. While the plan for the rest of Östermalm languished through an eighteen year process of debates, proposals, and counterproposals and wasn’t ratified until 1884, a tiny, six-block “part plan” for Villastaden was broken out of the larger Östermalm plan in 1874 and ratified in 1875. This plan seems to only have specified the location of streets and not much else, and the connection to the future Valhallagatan was only dashed in since Valhallagatan wouldn’t be decided until 1884.
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| The Plan for Villastaden, ratified in 1875 * |
I have not found any documentation as to why the part plan for Villastaden did not contain any requirements other street locations and widths when the reason for the part plan’s existence in the first place was that the landowner wished to create an enclave of single-family homes. Why not write in zoning for single-family homes and setbacks from the street into the plan? My educated guess is that there were two main reasons. First, zoning and setbacks were completely foreign ideas to the Swedish planning process. Planning in general was in its infancy, and there simply wasn’t a legal framework for writing such requirements into the part plan. Additionally, the plan for larger Östermalm was clearly controversial—it has been debated and re-debated for more than ten years already—and AB Stockholms Byggnadsförening wouldn’t have wanted to cause any controversy. It was probably a strategic decision to let the part plan remain as simple as possible in order to ensure as speedy of a ratification as possible. Without ratification, AB Stockholms Byggnadsförening would have been stuck with a sizeable parcel of land that was impossible to develop in the near future.
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| Architect Axel Kumlien's vision of Villastaden's character, 1875 * |
While Villastaden’s grid blocks were predetermined by the plan for Östermalm, how the lots were to be parceled was not. Immediately after the part plan was ratified in 1875, AB Stockholms Byggnadsförening began to sell lots. The lots were relatively small given their purpose, but that made them a bit more affordable. Because the plan for Villastaden hadn’t specified much other than the location of streets, the lots were sold with easements requiring that they be built with buildings “in villa style” and with necessary outbuildings (stables, outhouses, etc). The easement also stated that buildings could not be built out to the lot line but were to be at least 20 feet (6 meters) from the street and freestanding from the neighboring buildings. It is important to note that while two-family houses were specifically allowed by the easement, the easement did not specifically require single-family houses. Only single-family house “style” buildings were required. This was not an intentional loophole, and it was just a matter of time before it would be exercised.
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| One of Villastaden's original duplexes |
AB Stockholms Byggnadsförening had no sooner sold the lots on fivish of the six blocks when the real estate company was closed. It wasn’t a matter of bankruptcy, rather, the economy was slowing down and the company owners wanted to get out while ahead. This meant that there was no longer any overarching body regulating how Villastaden was developed, and it was left up to the regular city permitting process to make sure that new buildings met the easement requirements.
Even so, Villastaden was a successful and exclusive single-family enclave in the beginning. Large, single-family villas were built, often on plinths above the street due to topography. The houses’ physical height over the street gave them an even more imposing and impressive character. In the gardens, the lots were planted with greenery, creating a distinctly different atmosphere than the “stone desert” of apartment buildings built shoulder to shoulder and out to the lot line at the street just a few blocks away. The houses were designed by the period’s starchitects and many of the houses were inhabited by the city’s intellectual and cultural elite, including several of the starchitects themselves.
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| This photograph from somewhere between 1881-1885 shows the original single-family house nature of Villastaden * |
Buying into and building in Villastaden wasn’t something that one could do on a professor’s or architect’s or musician’s salary. Instead, these intellectual and cultural personalities came from established families and had sizeable personal fortunes that allowed for more extravagant lifestyles than would otherwise had been possible. And while the houses built in Villastaden were unprecedentedly luxurious for Stockholm (aside from the royal palaces of course), they are tiny in comparison to the mansions of Millionaires’ Row in Chicago or Fifth Avenue in New York. Contrary to the likes of the Fields and the Vanderbilts, the families in Villastaden had no need to flaunt and proclaim their wealth because they had been a part of the establishment since the 1700’s. Villastaden’s early villas were generally inspired by Italian Renaissance villas which had been built for the patrons of the arts who wanted to live the good life while out in the countryside. Mansions on Millionaires’ Row and on Fifth Avenue were generally inspired by French Chateau which were a show of power and strength. The houses in Villastaden and the mansions in Chicago and New York had entirely different social objectives and therefore took on entirely different architectonic expressions.
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| Architect Ernst Jacobsson's 1877 drawings for an Italian Renaissance-inspired villa in Villastaden * |
Villastaden was more segregated than the rest of Stockholm. Even other fancy parts of Östermalm including Strandvägen were relatively integrated as the wealthy lived in the buildings along the street and the working class lived in the courtyard buildings. But in Villastaden, the very nature of the district with its single-family houses meant that there was no housing available of the working class (if you don’t count servants who lived in the attics—in 1920, more than half of the population of Villastaden was maids, butlers, cooks, scullery maids, laundresses, stable boys, chauffeurs, ladies’ maids, and the like.)
Changing Times and Legal Tests
The two blocks to the east of Biblioteksgatan (today Floragatan) had originally been meant to be a part of Villastaden, but AB Stockholms Byggnadsförening closed for business before they were developed. These blocks ended up having a significantly different character than the other four blocks. In this map from 1885, Villastaden’s high point as an enclave of single-family houses, it is already clear that the blocks east of Biblioteksgatan (Floragatan) were developed more like the rest of Stockholm with apartment buildings built out to the lot lines.
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| This
map from 1885 shows the original six blocks of Villastaden. The first
four blocks were built out as villas, but the eastern two blocks deviate
sharply. * |
As lot prices in Villastaden grew higher and higher, the circle of people able to buy villas in the area became smaller and smaller, and apartment buildings grew more and more tempting. The earliest apartment buildings in Villastaden were respectful of the original intent of the area. For example, Zettervall’s apartment building on the corner of Biblioteksgatan (Floragatan) and Karlavägen is only three stories and is only slightly larger in scale than its neighbors and according to outward appearances could have been a single-family dwelling. It was set back from the street and freestanding.
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| The building on the left is one of Villastaden's first apartment buildings. The scale could still be interpreted as fitting a villa. * |
The same could more-or-less be said for Kumliens’ apartment buildings on Villagatan.
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| The apartment building on the right was originally the same height as the apartment building on the left--both were well within the scale of a large villa. |
But as development pressures grew, new apartment buildings in the area grew taller, larger, and less respectful of the original single-family intent.
Debates raged between architects and owners and the city permitting office – did the easements for setbacks and “villa-style” buildings still apply after AB Stockholms Byggnadsförening closed for business? Did “villa-style” encompass a limitation in building height? In 1881, the King stepped in and declared that the easements for setbacks still applied but that the city building code applied regarding the building’s height. Apartment buildings in Villastaden still had to be set back from the street and freestanding from neighboring buildings, but they could be five stories tall.
Because AB Stockholms Byggnadsförening had not sold the lots east of Biblioteksgatan (Floragatan) with easements, in 1883, the City Architect successfully carried out a change in the city plan to require that all buildings along Biblioteksgatan (Floragatan) were to be built with a setback from the street. However, buildings along this street were not required to be freestanding from their neighbors.
Another real estate investor fought the easement by submitting permit drawings for an apartment building built out to the street. The permit was denied several times until the case was taken before various courts. Eventually, the Supreme Court heard the case and found in favor of the real estate developer. Construction began but was stopped by the King in 1892 who decided that the easements were still valid and that the real estate investor must abide by them.
In 1889, another small change in the city plan was driven through, despite protests from the property owners. Now even Villagatan had compulsory set backs according to the city plan. I am curious why the plan didn’t encompass Villastaden’s cross streets or the east side of Engelbrektsgatan.
In 1902, two more lot owners tried to have their easements terminated. Based on precedent, the request was denied, but now the King stepped in yet again and slightly reversed his previous dictates, deciding that only the easement requiring a set back from the street was valid. The easement requiring freestanding buildings was no longer valid. This resulted in several apartment buildings at the northern end of Villagatan that are set back from the street but that abut the neighboring buildings with firewalls. It is unclear to me why the King was stepping into these relatively insignificant matters at all, much less why the same king would change his mind on the validity of certain easements within a relatively short timespan. Yes, these easements had a significant impact on tiny Villastaden, but they had no impact on Stockholm as a whole.
Yet another case in 1902 demonstrates how the King’s meddling changed Villastaden’s character. Another permit application for an apartment building built out to the street on Östermalmsgatan and to the lot lines on both sides was denied by the city. In response, the city tried to make yet another change to the city plan to require setbacks along Östermalmsgatan. The King refused to ratify the change and instead determined that the apartment building should be allowed to be built out to the lot line at the street. Even today, this is one of the only buildings in Villastaden that doesn’t have a setback.
Stureparken
This pocket park isn’t really in the area today encompassed by Villastaden, but it serves as Villastaden’s almost private park, much more so than Humlegården which is used by the city at large. Since the 1600’s, the park had been a graveyard for Östermalm’s poor who couldn’t afford burial at a church. In the 1700’s and 1800’s, the graveyard was used to contain cholera victims, keeping the dangerous corpses out of the city center. In the late 1800’s, the church intended to build upon the land, but those plans were put aside when it was found that the church didn’t actually own the land—it was actually the city’s property. In the early 1900’s, the city removed the cemetery and created a park instead.
Villastaden Today
The demolition of villas and the building of apartment buildings in Villastaden continued into the post-war years, but real estate prices remained high and the new buildings were almost without exception designed by the day’s leading architects. Eventually, the sky-high real estate prices meant that office buildings began to replace even the apartment buildings. Even so, the slightly suburban character of Villastaden remains. Even the office buildings are set back from the street and are freestanding from their neighbors and a few remaining villas are still standing, reducing the overall scale of the neighborhood.
However, the villas are almost without exception not residences in this day in age. After the First World War, the financial world’s elite replaced the intelligentsia in Villastaden, and they hired the leading architects of the day to renovate the aging villas and to give them a more modern face lift. And after the Second World War, most of the villas and even several of the apartment buildings were bought by various countries to be used as embassies. Today, Villastaden hosts the embassies of Bulgaria, Romania, the Czech Republic, Poland, Malaysia, Thailand, and Colombia.
While most of the apartment buildings are still residential in function, they hardly cater to a more mixed clientele now than in the past. Villastaden claims Stockholm’s (and therefore Sweden’s) second-highest real estate prices, second only to Strandvägen.
This air of exclusivity is reinforced by the neighborhood’s greenery. Not only is it close to the giant Humlegården and smaller Stureparken parks, but the streets are lined with well-tended street gardens which separate the buildings from the street and sidewalk. These street gardens are generally slightly raised above the sidewalk level and they are all fenced off from the street, reinforcing the psychological distance between those who may walk on the sidewalk (everyone) and those who may enter the buildings (a select few).
A general observation about street-side gardens at buildings with setbacks from the street: First, the street gardens are only successful if they are enclosed with a fence or wall. When not enclosed, they become strange no-mans-lands between the public and private realms, and even when in very exclusive areas, these street-side gardens tend to be filled with bicycle parking or are generally a bit neglected. Unenclosed street-side gardens are also less successful at establishing a psychological distance between sidewalk and apartment building, and do a much poorer job of psychologically shielding ground-floor apartments from the street.
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| A less successful street-side garden in another part of the city |
Another contributing factor to the exclusive air of the neighborhood is that while it is surrounded by destinations and thoroughfares (Humlegården, Karlavägen, Valhallavägen), the neighborhood itself is little bit “off.” One has no reason to pass through the neighborhood, public transportation is relegated to the neighborhood’s periphery, and street connections to Valhallavägen are physically cut off, decreasing the amount of car traffic through the area.
Conclusion
With its greenery, Villastaden has its appealing aspects, but it is a small and relatively insignificant corner of Central Stockholm or even of Östermalm. With its setbacks and freestanding buildings, Villastaden’s pattern of development deviates dramatically from the rest of Stockholm. Yet it isn’t the development pattern that seems significant here. Instead, it is the question of how a deviating development pattern can be legally enforced. Clearly, easements were not the answer as they were challenged again and again and sometimes set aside. Royal verdicts notwithstanding, the only reliable way to provide for and to enforce a development pattern that deviated from the city building code was to enshrine it in the city plan. In other words, to legally zone it.
Villastaden was Stockholm’s first experiment with zoning that didn’t strictly adhere to the city building code. It wasn’t a very successful experiment. But it did teach the city how to more successfully do it in the future. It wouldn’t be long until the city planning office tried again to create a neighborhood that deviated from the norm, and this time, the deviations would be enforceable and lasting.
Sources:
Fredric Bedoire, Villastan: En sluten värld för Stockholms ekonomiska och kulturella elit (2017)
Bengt Edlund, Vårt gröna Stockholm: Parker, parklekar, promenader och konst (2018)
Alla Tiders Stockholm (2014)
Images:
All of the images are my own except for
*Fredric Bedoire, Villastan: En sluten värld för Stockholms ekonomiska och kulturella elit (2017)
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