Haga Park, Part II

A while ago, I wrote about King Gustav III’s beautiful Haga Park.  The park that I wrote about is gorgeous, popular, and truly stands out as one of Stockholm’s finest green spaces.  In this post, however, I am going to present the less successful sides of Haga Park.  In many cities even these less impressive areas would be valuable and beautiful green spaces, but compared to Stockholm's other beautiful parks, and especially being adjacent to Gustav III's Haga Park, these areas just can't quite compare.  In this post I'm going to address why I think these other areas don't live up to their full potential and what changes could be made to better integrate them into Stockholm's park system.

   

While Haga Park (map 1) is officially only on the west bank of the Brunnsviken bay, the green space more-or-less wraps around the entire 3.5 km long bay in one long, continuous park.  Certain parts of the park are landscaped and manicured while others are more-or-less naturally wild.  Still other parts are simply just neglected.  A ~10 kilometer-long trail follows the water’s edge all the way around the bay.  This trail varies from gently sloping gravel walks in Haga Park to boardwalks at Bergshamra to cliff climbs at Tivoli to forest paths at Frescati.  While it is possible to circumnavigate the bay, several psychological and physical barriers make circumnavigation seem daunting.  

First, while there are trails on either side of the cliffs at Tivoli, there is no real trail between the waterside trail and the clifftop.  One is either forced to climb up the cliff face or to bushwhack through the steep undergrowth.  

Secondly, the bay’s outlet at Ålkistan canal is bridged, but pedestrians are forced up onto the highway’s bridge in an awkward series of hard-to-find stairs and somewhat murky passages under the bridge.  

Additionally, the green space is completely surrounded by busy and noisy highways.  While one is never out of earshot of the highways, one cannot see the highways for most of the circumnavigation.  However, at the northern end of the bay, the highway skirts the water’s edge and pedestrians are forced onto a sad bit of trail that is hemmed in by the busy highway—hardly a relaxing or beautiful experience.  The southern side of the green ring is also fragmentary with a thin layer of greenspace between the water and the railroad tracks and highway, and the trail in this area is less than obvious and can be difficult to piece together.   

Another strange factor is that while there are posted maps of the various areas around the bay, I have never seen a trail map that shows the entire interconnected network of trails and sights of interest.  I am guessing that this is due to the fact that the green spaces are technically in two different municipalities (Stockholm and Solna) and that the municipalities don’t work together to maintain a connected network of trails, but why is this the case?  Why can’t/don’t the municipalities collaborate to create and maintain a contiguous park around the bay?  It seems that such a large, contiguous green space is especially valuable when it is only two blocks from downtown!

Why are some parts of this green ring so beautiful and some parts so neglected?  What would it take to create and maintain a coherent park all the way around the Brunnsviken bay?

The Vision
The less successful areas of the park stem from a grandiose, 230 year-old scheme that was doomed to failure.  King Gustav III’s first purchase of land at Haga was originally just one farm, but as his visions for the park and palace grew and grew, he purchased several of the adjacent properties.  Eventually, his grand scheme developed to the point that he saw Brunnsviken bay as the center of a wheel of English parks—the ring of parks was envisioned as a green belt around the water.  However, the king didn’t have the means to acquire all of the land around the bay, so he began to encourage his friends and family members to purchase property and to develop it according to his grand plan.

In his watercolor of Gustav III's palace, Desprez shows obelisks and other follies on the properties across the bay. *

While travel overland from one side of the bay to the other was quite far, by water the trip was a matter of minutes.  Even before his friends and followers began to buy the surrounding properties, architect Louis Jean Desprez began to draw imaginative “gondolas” for the king’s romantic vision of visiting friends by boat.  Two boats were actually built, The Dolfin and The Boar. Drawings for several other boats including a temple and  a viking dragon have survived, but these were never built. 

Desprez's drawing for one of the "gondolas" that was never built. *

Needless to say, many people were eager to become the King’s neighbor and to have such intimate access to the King’s ear.  However, the late 1700’s was an economically weak period in Sweden’s history and very few people had the money needed to purchase large tracts of land much less to develop it into English parks.

Bellevue (map 2)
Parliamentarian and Governor of Stockholm Carl Sparre was the first to try.  His purchase of Pasch's Malmgård (suburban farm, see #18 here) was approved by the king.  Unfortunately, the property was saddled with debt and its buildings were in poor repair, but Sparre further indebted himself by building a second large residence on the property.  Due to a steep ridge jutting out into the water, the King named the property Bellevue.

The house on the left was built by Pasch, the house on the right by Sparre.

The year after Sparre purchased the property, the King went on a long grand tour through France and Italy, and Sparre was requested to join.  He was away while the house was built, and upon his return, he turned his focus from the house to the property at large.  In 1784 he hired Fredrik Magnus Piper, the same landscape architect who designed Haga Park for the King, to design an English park for the Bellevue property.  Like Haga, Bellevue’s design is characterized by site lines from one folly to the next, all placed on high points around the property.  The site lines crossed from Bellevue into Haga, and Piper developed both parks together.  One folly that Piper designed was a castle with a salute battery for one high point and he planned to place a round temple (designed earlier by Palmstedt) on the ridge point jutting out into the water facing Haga.  Neither were built but a Chinese parasol was built out on the ridge point instead.  

Left: Palmstedt's drawing of a Greek temple folly from 1784.  Right: Piper's 1786 drawing for a salute battery folly from 1786.  Neither were built. *

In addition to the follies, meandering paths for walking and for riding were designed to navigate the steep pitches up and down the cliffs.  In places, the cliffs were dynamited to allow a more gentle approach.  Earth was moved to provide dirt for grassy fields and hundreds of trees were planted  in clumps around the large lawn to create a park-like setting.  

Piper's drawing for the park at Bellevue. *

Sparre died in 1791 and work on the park halted.  The king bought the debt-riddled property and gifted it to his brother Duke Karl on the condition that the duke pay off the property’s debts and continue to develop the park according to Piper’s plans.  The King even designed a palace to be built (at the Duke’s expense) on the great lawn between Bellevue and Haga.  The duke, however, was strapped for cash and was forced to refuse the gift.  The park was never fully realized.    

King Gustav III's design for his brother's palace at Bellevue. *

Today, the area feels parklike, but it is disconnected from Haga, a park amidst the traffic.  

Left: One of Piper's steep tree-lined paths leading up to the crown of the ridge.  Right: The Chinese parasol marks the view point overlooking Brunnsviken bay.

Tivoli (map 3)
After the King’s trip through Italy, all of the newly acquired areas around Brunnsviken bay were given names inspired by Italy.  Interestingly, though, the landscaping ideals remained inspired by romantic English gardens instead of the more formal Italian gardens.  Tivoli was the first of these properties to be developed.

Court favorite Gustaf Philip Creutz was a successful poet who rented land from the Crown at the bay’s northern end.  He hired Piper in 1784 to create an English park at Tivoli.  Piper’s drawings have unfortunately been lost but a survey from 1786 show that several meandering paths around and up to one of the property’s high points as well as several terraces had already been completed when Creutz suddenly died in 1785.  Paths up to Tivoli's other high point were never completed; a path up the cliff is still lacking today.

1786 Survey showing the paths that had already been built when Creutz died. *

Like Sparre, Creutz was bankrupt and in debt when he died.  The King took over the land and toyed with the idea of moving his palace to the scenic bluff at Tivoli, but he soon abandoned that idea.  The paths and terraces became overgrown and were forgotten.  Today, Tivoli is one of the area’s wilder sections and the King’s abandonment of the area is still felt.  Burned out structures, graffitied foundations, and the lack of a trail up the cliff all speak of neglect.  

Abandoned structures and terraces are either covered in graffiti or completely overgrown and forgotten.

Frescati (map 4)
Like Tivoli, the land at Frescati was owned by the Crown because it was a subsidiary farm under the Royal Palace Ulriksdal.  (See "Ulriksdals Slott")  In 1786, the King rented out Frescati, the area directly across the bay from the site of his palace at Haga, to Gustaf Mauritz Armfelt, a diplomat and military officer and the king’s “favorite.”  It is not clear to me when the King bought Frescati or exactly what his relationship to Armfelt was.  In any case, Desprez was hired in 1787 to design a royal bathing complex at Frescati.  Armfelt had the temple-like main building built in 1791, but it was built as his residence instead of as a bathhouse.  

Desprez's 1787 design for the bathhouse *, and the residence that was actually built.

After the King’s assassination, Armfelt was forced to flee the country, and the land reverted to being property of the Crown. 

North of Haga
In 1791, the King had plans to buy the two farms north of Haga, Annelund (map 5) and Frösundavik (map 6), in order to close the circle around the bay.  However, the King was assassinated just a few months later so the properties were not purchased and no plans were ever drawn up for that part of the park.  These properties are still privately owned.

In the Mean Time...
After Gustav III’s assassination in 1792, the future of Haga Park was assured because the park was already a popular public institution and the palace Pavilion continued to be frequently used and tended by succeeding kings.  The other areas including Annelund, Frösundavik, Bergshamra, Tivoli, Frescati, and Bellevue, however, had a much more uncertain future since they were never fully anchored in either the Royal or the public spheres.

Much has been built in and around the above green spaces in the intervening years between Gustav III’s assassination and the creation of Stockholm’s National City Park which includes Haga and all of the surrounding land surrounding the Brunnsviken bay.  Instead of describing these intrusions chronologically I’ll go clockwise around the water, starting just north of Haga Park.

Frösundavik (map 6)
Like Haga, Frösundavik was historically a farm with relatively modest buildings.  The buildings were renovated in the early 1800’s in the Empire Style inspired by Haga’s palace pavilion.  

The farm's main house and wing.

The farm was sold at the beginning of the 20th century to a developer who thought to capitalize on the area’s beautiful and convenient location on the water just outside of Stockholm and subdivided the property into lots.  The lots were sold and several houses built, but the state bought the entire farm, including the private houses, in 1917 in order to build barracks, 

a mess hall, exercise houses, riding arenas, and houses for officers for the Army Engineers.  

The mess hall on the left and officer's housing on the right.  This villa on the right was actually built before the military base was established.

The area was de-militarized again in the 1970’s and the complex was first used as a rehab center and is now a hotel and conference center.  

Hotel and conference center additions to the older military complex.

Several of the army buildings are in disuse and disrepair.  In contrast, the waterside villas are now extremely attractive housing.  

How is this possible?

Annelund (map 5)
Annelund was yet another farm but starting in the mid 1700’s, its proximity to Stockholm allowed it to be used as a summer residence.  Around 1770, a new main house was built in the classical Empire Style.   An almost barn-looking gymnasium was built in 1825 by the then-current resident who was a gymnastic fanatic.  

The property was bought in the 1980’s by the SAS airline which proceeded to build a gigantic office for 1400 employees in 1985.

Linnéaholm (map 7)  

Further north is the farm Linnéaholm which was sold to the army and was used as officer’s housing when the Army Engineers occupied Frösundavik.  The property was later sold to SAS.

The house at Linneaholm and the view across the bay toward Bergshamra.

Karlshäll (map 8)
North of Linnéaholm, the park narrows into a thin green strip between the water and the highway.  Eventually, a small penninsula juts into the water.  This peninsula is Karlshäll, which technically belongs to the Ulriksdal Palace estate on the other side of the highway.  After Karlshäll, the trail is again a sad strip between the water and the highway.

Bergshamra (map 9)  

Sections of trail at Bergshamra

Bergshamra was a farm dating back at least to the middle ages.  In the 1600’s it was incorporated into the Ulriksdal Palace estate, but it was rented out as a farm until the 1900’s.  The main farm buildings have been since torn down, but the Tivoli Pavilion, built as a summer folly by one of the farmers in 1800, is still used as a private residence today.  

The Tivoli Summer pavilion on the left.  On the right, sheep grazing in an apple orchard.  The farm is still somewhat active today, I believe as a 4H (or similar) program.

In the mid-1800’s, King Karl XV allowed several of his friends to build summer houses in the “Swiss” style on the hill sloping down to the water.  These are now coveted residences.  

A colony garden was laid out in 1919; it is still popular today.

Each little private garden plot has a fence and a tiny little cottage.

In the 1940’s the city of Solna bought Bergshamra from the crown in order to build a new multi-family housing development.  The first apartment buildings in the area and a small commercial center were built in the 50’s and 60’s.  Throughout the 80’s, 90’s, and early 2000’s, additional apartment buildings and row houses were built.    

Some of the more recent building stock at Bergshamra.

  

Tivoli (map 3)
Tivoli was originally part of Bergshamra farm until Creutz rented the property in the late 1700’s.  Once he died, the property was more or less abandoned, and the area still feels quite abandoned today. 

Sections of the "trail" at Tivoli.

Ålkistan Canal (map 10)
One of the most significant changes to Haga park was the lowering of the water in Brunnsviken in 1863.  At one point in time, the bay was navigable from the Baltic, but the continuous rising of the land meant that the bay had become completely closed off from the sea and that the water in the bay was polluted and stagnant.  In 1863, a canal between Brunnsviken and the Baltic was blasted through the granite and the water level in the bay sunk four or five feet.  This drastically changed the park’s waterline which receded far from its original location.  Gustav III’s Pavilion’s and Haga Palace’s close relationship with the water was lost.  Today, there are pedestrian trails along the canal connecting up to the highway bridge above, but this area is definitely a low point on a pedestrian circumnavigation of the bay.

Canal toward the bay, and toward the open water.

 
Institutions Belt
A large portion of the land on the eastern side of the bay was eventually developed at the turn of the 19th century as part of the Institutions Belt that wrapped around a significant part of downtown Stockholm.  The northern part of Frescati became a botanical garden; just east of the garden the Royal Academy of Sciences and the mammoth Natural History Museum were built.  The southern and eastern parts of Frescati and Albano were donated to Stockholm’s University.  In some cases the water’s edge became privately owned while in other cases the water remained under the Crown’s domain.  In both cases, however, public access to the paths along the water have fortunately been maintained. 

I have no argument against public land being used for such noble institutions as museums, botanical gardens, and universities.  (Especially when the museums, gardens, and universities are free!)  However, this division of the land for uses other than the contiguous park that Gustav III originally envisioned has contributed to the scattered feel of the various areas. 

Even so, as I mentioned above, the city of Stockholm has consciously kept the water’s edge accessible to the public.  On the Stockholm side of the canal, one first passes a few summer homes at Sofielund and Fridhem; these were built in the mid 1800’s. (map 11) 

Even though it was built in the 1860's the round temple pavilion at Fridhem would be at home in Gustav III's Haga.

Quickly one enters Bergianska Trädgården, Stockholm’s botanical garden (map 12) which was planted in 1885 (it had previously been in the northern reaches of what is now downtown).  Various greenhouses and houses for the director and the head gardener and such have been added to the site over the last 150 years.  The waterside path as well as all of the botanical gardens and grounds are open to the public to wander.

Beyond the botanical garden, the path becomes a bit more rugged again.  The waterside cliffs and small man-made sand beach are extremely popular with bathers in the summertime and picnickers throughout the other seasons.  (map 13) 

Students are perhaps the most common demographic at the “beach” because the path becomes quite civilized again as it skirts around two university developments at Frescati and at Albano (map 14).  The university buildings don’t address the water in any significant way; instead, they face in toward the university.  While one can sense their presence from the waterside path below, the university buildings are generally more obvious from afar.

Two university boat clubs (at least I assume that they are connected to the university) are the only real university presence at the waterside. 

The paths are very generous and parklike here.

I will cover the Institutions Belt more deeply in a later post.  

Bellvevue (map 2)
After passing by Frescati and Albano, one passes by an extensive boat club with docks out on the water and wintertime boat storage up on the shoreline.  Here, the “park” is again just a thin strip between the water and the highway.  The park soon opens up again at Bellevue.

Left: Highway/trail leading toward Bellevue.  Right: Boat docks along Bellevue's ridge.

Past Bellevue’s ridge, the park is again indefinite as an access road more or less takes up all of the space between the highway and the water.  Eventually, one comes out to the Stallmästaregården which was originally the Stable Master’s house for Karlberg Palace.  Today, it is a hotel and restaurant.  Just beyond the restaurant, Haga Park opens up into a large, grassy lawn. 

Conclusion
The city of Stockholm is obviously aware of the value of a contiguous park system around Brunnsviken bay.  Why would the entire area, even the privately owned properties, have been included in the National City Park?  However, while the city (and the country of Sweden) may understand the intrinsic value of having such a large, contiguous park just at the edge of downtown, it does not seem able or willing to maintain all of the parts with equal enthusiasm.  Certain areas of the park are gorgeously maintained while others are seemingly abandoned.

My argument is not that all areas of the green space need to feel park-like with the romantic and grand, manicured lawns of Haga Park.  I love that some areas around Brunnsviken feel like natural forest with rugged, rutted trails.  The variation between manicured gravel walks, boardwalks, and forest trails is a large part of why I like the area so much. 

My argument is more about the area feeling accessible to the public than about the paths being physically accessible to everyone.  Most of my Swedish friends don’t even know that it is possible to walk all the way around the bay, mostly on parkland.  Because no trail map makes the entire network of paths clear, only the most curious public is incentivized to cobble together a continuous hike or run.  And perhaps most importantly, because the city is obviously absent from some parts of the area, less desirable segments of the population have begun to move in.  Arson, graffiti, and homeless camps all contribute to make some areas feel insecure.  This creates a downward spiral—fewer and fewer “legitimate” visitors use the area which creates a more and more isolated atmosphere where vandalism and perhaps crime can thrive.

Tivoli area

Perhaps its just a matter of time.  The National City Park was only established in 1994 and it is vast, encompassing 27 square kilometers or almost 7000 acres.  Not to mention the twenty museums and hundreds of historic buildings which need to be maintained.  The city's to-do list must be a century long.  Stockholm is currently undergoing a building boom where every possible empty lot is being exploited; the city’s population is exploding which will result in both a bigger tax base and more need for green spaces.  Perhaps revitalization of the park’s forgotten realms is next up on the to-do list.  

And perhaps, just perhaps, the sections of trails which are jammed between the water and the highways will be improved in the future.  It would require taking space away from the cars and giving it to the parks instead, but a green strip of trees and dense bushes shielding the path from the traffic would do so much to improve the whole experience of the park.     

All of the necessary ingredients except for one are already in place: the park already features water, clifftops with wide open views, pine forests, deciduous forests, open meadows, trails, varied landscapes, varied trail conditions, several easy access points from public transportation, and visitors.  All that is lacking is a little extra effort from the city to knit these features into a completed, contiguous fabric.

Sources:
Ingrid Sjöström, editor, Haga: Ett kungligt kulturarv (2009)
Rikard Larsson, Haga: Parken och visionerna (2015)
Johan Rittsél and Johan Engström, Husen i Nationalstadsparken - Stockholmsdelen (2005)
Lars Lagerås, “Byggnader i Nationalstadsparken – Solnadelen” (2006) https://www.solna.se/Global/Stadsbyggnad%20och%20trafik/Styrning/Byggnader%20i%20Nparken%20Solnadelen_.pdf

All of the images are my own unless marked *.  These are taken from 

Ingrid Sjöström, editor, Haga: Ett kungligt kulturarv (2009)

Djurgårdsbrunnskanalen—The Resurrection of an Island

Stockholm is rising, constantly, out of the sea.  As I wrote in my first blog post, Stockholm’s islands have been rising out of the water at a rate of about one centimeter per year since the last ice age ended; the land is springing back after bearing the weight of the ice for so many millennia.  This continual rising of the land has played tricks on Stockholm’s historical landscape—navigational landmarks from the bronze age and seaside castles from the Renaissance are now sometimes miles from the water.  As more and more land rises from the sea, islands become connected and what seems today to be one large island is made up of what was historically several islands; each part of the new mega-island generally retains its own unique island name.  In a similar manner, islands become connected to the mainland.  This is exactly what happened to the island of Djurgården, and this blog post is about the canal that was dug between Djurgården and the mainland in the 1830’s, turning Djurgården back into an island.  

Today, the canal is an iconic part of Stockholm’s recreational landscape, and the 5 kilometer loop at the canal’s edge is one of Stockholm’s most popular walking and jogging paths.  Spring’s first sunny and somewhat warm weekend brings crowds of winter-weary Stockholmers to the canal—the paths are so packed with people that it’s hard to pass a slower walker.  In my research, I learned that recreation and beautification are at the heart of the canal’s existence.      

The beginning of the 5km loop is at the edge of the city at Östermalm, and the far end of the loop is where the canal meets the open water.

Background History
The island of Djurgården was used for agriculture for centuries under its various owners—first the crown from about 1100 or so, then Klara Convent starting in 1288, and then the crown again in 1452.  Today, the island is still owned by the crown, but the crown’s agricultural pursuits ended in 1580 when King Johan III began to use the island as a royal hunting ground, giving the island its modern name of Djurgården or “Animal Park.”  From the mid 1600’s, the hunting park was enclosed with a six foot tall fence, but the public was always allowed to wander through the gates for a small fee, even during hunts.  

One of the Royal Hunting Ground's gates

Gatekeepers were employed by the crown and provided a minimal salary, but their main income came from the gatekeepers’ special right to sell alcohol from their gatehouses.  This resulted in a lively pub culture where Stockholmers have travelled to Djurgården for weekend and holiday entertainments for several centuries.  A few of these pubs are still in business, but even long-closed pubs remain in Stockholm’s consciousness through well-known stories, poems, and songs composed by Sweden’s iconic authors, poets, and songwriters over the centuries.    

Monarchs continued the hunting tradition on Djurgården until King Gustav III at the end of the 18th century; he was much more interested in arts and culture than in hunting.  The last stags were moved away from Djurgården in 1829.  During Gustav III’s time, Djurgården began a transformation from royal hunting ground to recreational area for Stockholm’s public, but it was really King Karl XIV Johan that created today’s park landscape. 

In the public’s eye, Gustav III actually did more to hurt Djurgården than to help it.  He began to give away large parcels of land as estates to politically important allies, and these private estates were fenced off from public access.  Because the island had always been used by the public, Stockholmers were upset about these developments.  Immediately after Gustav III’s death, a public commission was established to regulate and administer the island, and a new law was passed that gifts of crown-owned land only lasted as long as the regent lived; the next regent has the right to take back such gifts.   

King Karl XIV Johan
Just as Haga Park is the result of Gustav III’s epoch, his politics, his interests, and his whims, so is Djurgården a product of Karl XIV Johan’s politics, interests, and efforts.  As I wrote here, Karl XIV Johan was imported from France to be Sweden’s king.  He was chosen due to his successful military career under Napoleon, and much of his focus as regent was on modernizing Sweden’s military.  I am sure that the fact that he was enormously wealthy didn’t hurt his case in being chosen as monarch considering that Sweden was painfully cash poor at the time.  Karl XIV Johan brought his personal wealth to Sweden and proceeded to invest his funds in a variety of projects.  All of the work at Djurgården was privately financed by the king, not through the public treasury. 

Karl XIV Johan bought a modest country estate called Rosendal (map 1) on the island of Djurgården in 1817.  

One of Jeanette Åkerman's many paintings of Rosendal, 1817. (2)

We don’t know exactly why he chose this location, but it seems plausible that the new king felt a need for a fresh start and didn’t want to be associated with the tumultuous events surrounding Gustav III and Haga Park.  Like Haga, Djurgården was an easy commute from the city, but it was in the opposite direction from Haga and had never been the focus of other regents.  The estate is also directly across the water from the military parade field Gärdet.  The military-interested king could watch the military exercises from his new estate, and he even had a pontoon bridge built over the bay in 1828 so that he had direct and easy access.    

View from Rosendal over the water to the militar parade field Gärdet

  

The king was content to live in the modest house at Rosendal, but he immediately began improving the grounds.  His first action was to remove the fence around the estate, giving Stockholmers free access to roam the grounds once again.  This action was a politically shrewd move and gained him much support.  All of his further improvements of the park were twofold, both to create beautiful surroundings for himself and for his family, but also to provide Stockholm with a beautiful park for exercise and leisure.  In this way, the creation of Djurgårdens park landscape was very much a political statement as King Karl XIV Johan professed himself to be both “of the people” and “a servant of the people.”  In this light, it is not too surprising that the Swedish people accepted this random, non-noble person as their leader and king. 

Lithography by Fredrik Blom (2)

Landscape at Rosendal
It is unclear if the park was designed by any one landscape architect or if it just developed over time—there are no known comprehensive proposals or drawings remaining today.  One drawing for the gardens nearest the Palace shows how an earlier proposal for a formal, geometric design was overplayed with a more modern, informal curving design.   

Unsigned garden design proposal (2)

Djurgården’s park is a product of the English Romantic landscape movement.  Even though the park looks natural, it was sculpted and designed by man.  Trees were felled to create sight lines, undergrowth in the forests was cleared to create more open and welcoming woodlands, and new trees were strategically planted to shade the winding paths and to create visual backdrops.  

pine forests and hardwood forests

Existing roads were widened and new walkways were created, and variation was key—sometimes the paths were shaded, sometimes in open sunlight; sometimes they went through forests, sometimes through grassy meadows; sometimes they climbed uphill, sometimes they went downhill; sometimes they passed through formal gardens, sometimes through wildflower meadows.  Bedrock was blasted and low areas filled in to create gentler slopes.  Karl XIV Johan’s efforts lasted 25 years and exceeded Rosendal’s boundaries.  By the time of his death, the park landscape extended across a large part of the island.

Most Stockholmers today would associate the name Rosendal with the estate’s gardens and greenhouses (map 2) before the Palace came to mind.  After King Karl XIV’s death, the new regents King Oscar I and Queen Josephina were very interested in gardens, and their focus lay much more with flowering gardens than with more generalized park landscapes.  In 1850, a large “winter garden” designed by Chiewitz was built on the Rosendal grounds, and a number of more utilitarian greenhouses were built to extend Stockholm’s short growing season. 

After Oscar I’s death, the greenhouses and gardens were rented out to the Swedish Gardening Association Svenska Trädgårdensföreningen for a period of fifty years, but the gardening association never managed to make the enterprise profitable.  When the lease ran out, the gardens and greenhouses were then rented out to private entities, but none of these enterprises were very successful, either.  Starting in 1984, a non-profit public-private initiative was founded.  Stiftelsen Rosendals Trädgård does hands-on research on organic gardening methods; maintains traditional strains of fruits, flowers and vegetables for biological diversity; sells organic fruits, vegetables, breads and other goods which come from the gardens; plants gorgeous pick-yourself flower gardens; and operates a wildly popular garden café and restaurant which specializes in organic and locally grown foods.  Somewhat ironically, this non-profit organization seems to be running a much more profitable garden business than any of the previous for-profit tenants. 

Left: The Winter Garden has long since been converted into rental housing.  Right: One of the cozy garden tables at the Rosendal Café.

The Canal
The canal, Djurgårdsbrunnskanalen (map 3), was a key part of the island’s transformation.  Historically, Djurgården had been an island and the water passage between the island and the mainland was navigable.  In the mid-1600’s wooden poles were driven into the waterway so that ships could no longer avoid the toll station (Stora Sjötullen) on Djurgården’s southern shore.  However, by the mid 1700’s, the land had risen so much that the waterway disappeared and Djurgården was now connected to the mainland.  A swampy area called Isbladsträsket formed because water had no natural way to drain out from this low area.

Map from 1696 showing that a waterway still existed, and map from 1791 showing that the waterway had disappeared. (1)

The popular myth among Stockholmers is that the canal was built in order to keep the deer, moose, stags, and reindeer on the correct side of the royal hunting ground, but this is not true since the hunting ground hadn’t been in use for about 50 years when the canal was dug.  Instead, King Karl XIV Johan had the canal dug for other reasons.  Firstly, malaria was a real problem in Stockholm at the time, and the swamp at Isbladsträsket was dangerously close to Rosendal.  The king wanted to drain the swamp to protect his and his family’s health.  He hired the Göta Canal’s engineer Carl af Forsell to dig the old boundary between Djurgården and the mainland.  

 

Naturally, the canal wasn’t meant to be purely practical; its parallel paths were planted with trees and its romantic curves were incorporated into the park landscape.  The canal ended up being an expensive affair—it took 10 years to build and wasn’t finished until 1834—but the expense was worth it because the canal has been an iconic and popular part of Stockholm’s recreation for almost 200 years.     

Summer Cottages along the Canal
North of the canal, the land had historically been used for military purposes.  Two exceptions were at natural springs where the crown gave permission for private entrepreneurs to build and run health resorts at Djurgårdsbrunn (Djurgården’s well) starting in the 1740’s (map 4)

The health spa's main building burned down in 1988 but the director's villa from 1929 and the warm bathhouse  from 1832 are among the surviving buildings which have been converted into coveted rental housing.

 and at Källhagen (Spring Pasture) in the early 1800’s (map 5).  

Källhagen's original building

However, the swamp’s disappearance and the new canal’s romantic waterway made a lot of real estate newly valuable.  

Today the swamp is back!  In an effort to restore the valuable bird nesting site, the city has stopped pumping water out of the swamp and into the canal.

In thanks for his efforts, the king gave canal engineer Carl af Forsell the use of several estates across the water from Djurgården, and Forsell built himself a summer house at the newly established estate of Rosenhill in 1826 (map 6).  In 1827, Forsell sold the lot next to his house where the Ekmarckska House was designed by Fredrick Blom, the same architect who designed Rosendal Palace (actually, the Ekmarckska House is so like Blom’s first proposal for Rosendal Palace that I wouldn’t be surprised if he had recycled the same drawings for this private villa).  

Rosenhill to the left and Ekmarckska to the right.

Just to the east of Rosenhill, Forsell built two summer villas which he rented to other private people.  One of these rental houses was replaced in 1890 by a new summer cottage, Villa Rosenhill.  Several storage buildings on the estates have been since rebuilt into year-round residences.

Rental cabin to the left and Villa Rosenhill to the right.

Further down the canal, several more summer estates were built in the 1830’s by wealthy private individuals.  Villa Lido was designed by architect Carl Christoffer Gjörwell and Bergshyddan was probably designed by Fredrik Blom.  

Villa Lido to the left and Bergshyddan to the right.

More villas and a tower were also probably designed by Blom at Fridhem, although these buildings have undergone extensive renovations (map 7).  

Fridhem

The tradition of building private summer estates on the north side of the canal continued throughout the 1800’s as evidenced by Johanesdal which was built in 1851 (map 8).  

Johanesdal

Eventually, all of these summer “cottages” were winterized and today they are inhabited year-round.  A more recent addition includes a modern house that has views out over both the canal and the open water beyond.  

These private estates north of the canal are at odds with King Karl XIV Johan’s efforts to open up Djurgården as a public park, and I’m not quite sure how to reconcile their existence with the king’s obvious efforts to ingratiate himself in the public eye by symbolically doing away with private land on Djurgården.  Perhaps he felt that giving “military” land away was not as terrible as giving parkland away. Whatever his reasoning, it is notable that these estates are not actually on the island of Djurgården and that most of them do not interfere with the public walkways at the canal’s edge.  Today, however, they create a strange band of private land separating the public canal walkway and the huge public park at Gärdet. 

These private estates create a very different atmosphere from one side of the canal to the other.  The southern, Djurgården side of the water feels wilder, more natural, and distant from the city.  On the northern, Gärdet side of the water, the paths feel more like a city park and are even partly paved in contrast to the southern side’s gravel paths.  While the focus on the southern side is more on nature, the northern side has a much more social atmosphere.  This social feeling is of course further strengthened by the restaurants at Djurgårdsbrunn and at Källhagen; the row of museums featuring Maritime History, Technology, and Ethnography; and the physical nearness of the neighborhood of Östermalm.   

Maritime History Musuem

There are a smattering of private estates on the Djurgården side of the waterway, but these were all built well after King Karl XIV Johan’s death in 1844.  The one exception is Gröndal (map 9), but it was already in private hands before Karl XIV Johan began his project at Rosendal.  Gröndal had originally been built in the 1700’s and used by one of the royal hunting ground’s employees, but it was completely rebuilt in the 1820’s.

Gröndal

Rosendal Palace
Building a new royal palace at Rosendal was not the king’s priority or intention.  For official functions and entertaining, Stockholm Castle and Drottningholm Palace were already more than sufficient.  Rosendal was a family retreat and the king was content with the relatively rustic farm estate house until it burned to the ground in 1819.

None of the plans for the new palace were overly ostentatious.  While the palace is of course larger than the average middle class home, it is far smaller than many non-royal estate houses in Sweden.  Instead of quantity, the king chose to focus on quality and he set out to prove that Swedish products were every bit as beautiful, luxurious, and worthy as their French counterparts.  Rosendal Palace became a showcase for Swedish industry and craftsmanship.   

The first couple of drawings for a new palace were by Lidströmer, 

Lidströmer's drawing for Rosendal (2)

but he was quickly replaced by architect Fredrik Blom whose drawings are less monumental in character.  

Blom's first drawing for Rosendal (2)

Instead, Blom’s first two proposals are distinctively “summer pavilions” with largely glass facades.

Blom's second proposal for Rosendal Palace (2)

Blom’s third proposal was less decorative and is more climate-realistic with much smaller windows.  It is this third proposal that was built.

Blom's third and final proposal for Rosendal Palace (2)

Although Blom’s palace looks like a stuccoed stone building like just about any other French or Swedish palace, it is actually a log cabin structure covered in stucco.  Log cabin technique had been the main building technique in Sweden for at least a millennia.  Wood is generally abundant in Sweden, solid wood walls are good insulation against the winter cold and wind, the logs last for centuries (there are still log cabin buildings dating from the 1200’s in Sweden), and log cabin buildings are relatively easy to move from one site to another as needed.  Moving log cabins around sounds like a lot of work to us today, but it was in fact a common occurrence through most of Sweden’s history.  In short, King Karl XIV Johan chose to highlight a traditional building technique, showing that it could be just as luxurious as stone.  

Not only was the palace’s construction system uniquely Swedish, but the exterior detailing was also Swedish.  The marble colonnade is from Kålmorden and the amusingly oversized vase in the garden was carved from one piece of Swedish porphyry stone.

Construction of the palace was finished in 1825, but already in 1826 Blom was hired to design an expansion.  The palace’s dining room was beautiful, but it was not functional as many back-of-house functions for storage etc. were never included in the design.  The new addition would house a large dining room as well as all of the necessary back-of-house spaces. 

The dining room addition was a hard assignment given how symmetrical the original palace building was.  Instead of matching the palace, Blom decided to accent the dining room’s differentness.  Instead of a solid, permanent building like the palace, Blom designed a light, pavilion-like dining room which was actually more in keeping with his first proposals for the palace.  This glassed-in dining room became a theatre where the King and his family ate on display before all of the Stockholmers who gathered outside the windows to watch the king eat his meals.  The dining room stage reinforced the King’s political message that he was of and accessible to the people.   

The dining room addition is all closed up for winter in this photograph, but during King Karl XIV's day, the public could peek through the windows to watch the king and his family dine.

Just as the Haga Pavilion was the benchmark for Gustavian interior design, King Karl XIV Johan understood that Rosendal Palace would become the new model for interior design and goods.  Instead of importing French luxury goods, he bought a few example pieces—silk from Lyon, gilded chandeliers from Paris—to be used as models for Swedish production.  Essentially, the king single-handedly set the entire Swedish industry for producing luxury goods in motion.  If the king had imported pieces from France, the copy-cat nobility would have done the same.  But since the king made a point of buying from Swedish producers, the nobility and middle classes followed suit.

Gustavian Neo-Classicism with its delicate forms and pastel colors was replaced by a heavier Empire Style influenced by Napoleonic France.  The Empire Style featured bolder, darker colors and to me seems almost to transition into the Victorian era’s darker tones.  

(2)

Outbuildings at Rosendal             
Several of Rosenda’s outbuildings were already in place before the Palace was built such as the kitchen buildings which were original to the estate.  The Officer’s Pavilion was designed by Lidströmer and built in 1820 to house the King’s guard while he stayed at Rosendal.  

The kitchen and the guardhouse

The so-called Queen’s Pavilion was designed by Lidströmer and quickly built after the Rosendal house burned down as a provisory retreat for the King.  The Queen’s Pavilion was originally only one story but a second story was added just a couple of years later.  The kitchen, the Officer’s Pavilion, and the Queen’s Pavilion are all rented out as private homes today.  

The Queen's Pavilion

Among the outbuildings built after the Palace was finished are the Ice House from 1832 (architect unknown) 

Ice House

and the Horse Stall (map 10) which was designed by Blom and built in 1836.  The horse stall is still used today and many of Djurgården’s trails are specifically maintained for horse-use.   

Plans for an Art Museum
Interestingly, while the King’s vision for his palace was not about grandeur, he did have grand plans for an art museum on the grounds.  Gustav III had also toyed with the idea of a sculpture museum at Haga, but those plans were never realized and Sweden was still embarrassingly art museum-less.  Parliament did not support the idea of building an art museum because museums were seen to be upper class, capitol city diversions that did not improve the conditions of the working class throughout most of Sweden.

Sweden’s castles and palaces were already overflowing with paintings and sculptures when King Karl XIV Johan brought his large personal art collection from France.  Once in Sweden, the king continued to collect and even to commission new works of art, and the need for exhibition space grew acute.  Despite Parliament’s misgivings, Karl XIV Johan commissioned drawings for a sizeable museum.  Blom’s drawings from 1836 are heavily influenced by other European museums such as the Uffizi in Florence and Soane’s Dulwich Picture Gallery and show a long, narrow building with a domed central pavilion.  Sculpture was to be housed in the central pavilion and the long wings were meant for paintings.  

Blom's drawings for an art museum on Djurgården (2)

In 1834, construction work began: the foundation was dug and marble columns (Swedish, of course!) were carved and transported to the site.  However, the king seems to have slowly lost interest in the project, and construction work tapered off.  By 1841, no more orders were signed and the project was forgotten.  Another half century would pass before Stockholm finally got its first national art museum.   

Conclusion  
I originally intended to focus this post on the Djurgården Canal, but it soon became apparent that the canal is a small puzzle piece in a much broader historical, architectural, and political context.  King Karl XIV Johan’s decision to buy Rosendal and to re-open much of Djurgården’s landscape to the public was the key to today’s lovely park landscape on Djurgården; today the entire island is part of the world’s first National City Park.  While the winding canal and its tree-lined paths are only a small part of the island, they symbolically represent the park in the city’s public consciousness.  Other parts of the island get a good bit of use (especially the garden café at Rosendal), but other walking paths on Djurgården are not used at nearly the same level as the canal-side paths.  To my knowledge, the island of Djurgården was the first park in Stockholm that was created specifically for the goal of public use.  

Sources:
Johan Ritsél and Johan Engström, Husen i Nationalstadsparken (2005)
Christian Laine, Editor, Rosendals slott (2003)
Jan Mårtenson, Kungliga Djurgården (2007)
Staffan Tjerneld, En bok om Djurgården under 300 år (1980)
Björn Hallerdt, Editor, Ekoparken (1995)
Henrik Waldenström, Guide till Ekoparken (2001)
Tommy Hammarström and Lennart Utgren, Ekoparken – kunglig mark (2004)

The above images are my own except for images marked with 

(1) Staffan Tjerneld, En bok om Djurgården under 300 år (1980)

(2) Christian Laine, Editor, Rosendals slott (2003)

Archi-dork sidenote: Sigurd Lewerentz designed a boathouse on the canal: