Hans Jakob Strömberg Medeltidsstilar i Göteborg kring 1800-talets mitt

Abstract

The objective of this thesis is to examine the architecture of Hans Jakob Strömberg, whose medieval revival architecture was greatly inspired by his teacher, Carl Georg Brunius. Using architecture analysis and the biographical method, the thesis explores to what extent the architecture of the pupil is inspired by the master, and if the commonly spread conception that Strömberg brought his masters architectural idiom to Gothenburg, is true. The medieval revivalist architecture started out as a romantic motive in English parks during the 18th century, but it didn’t spread widely until the architecture became a part of various religious and political movements in the beginning of the 19th century. Carl Georg Brunius was a Greek professor and self taught architect in Lund who became the main medieval architecture advocate in Sweden. His only pupil, Hans Jakob Strömberg, went, after some initial success and major commissions in Lund and it’s vicinity, to Gothenburg to eventually become the official city architect. His buildings in Gothenburg all bear the mark that his teacher made, but some slight differences to his master’s almost religious architectural doctrine are distinguishable. Gothenburg had a number of active architects during the mid 1800’s, who most of them weren’t schooled in the traditional Art Academy in Stockholm. All of them were at some point working with the language of the medieval architecture, but they all had encountered and studied it during travels in Europe, and where probably to a very little extent inspired by Strömberg.