Glance across to the left to see a grand, rectangular white masonry building defined by a stately row of arches and columns on the ground level, topped with six distinct statues standing guard along the roofline. This is Börsen, Gothenburg's historic Exchange Building and current home to the city council.
The story of this place is absolutely fascinating. Back in the seventeenth century, the city's merchants didn't have a dedicated building. They just conducted their business right out on the main square, and when they needed a roof over their heads, they would huddle in a lower room of the nearby city hall. They called that room the Beursen. By the late seventeen hundreds, they decided they needed a proper headquarters, but they didn't actually gather the funds until 1844.
When they finally started building, they hit a massive literal roadblock. The ground here is pure clay. We are talking twenty to fifty meters of soft, shifting clay deep into the earth. So, to keep this massive structure from sinking into the mud, engineers had to drive a double layer of wooden foundation piles deep into the ground. But even with all that effort, the building still settles. In fact, a modern survey found a staggering forty centimeter height difference in the floor between two of the building's corners!
King Oscar the First laid the foundation stone in 1844, hiding a lead box inside filled with gold, silver, and copper coins. By the time the building opened in 1849, it had used two million bricks and cost four hundred and fifty thousand silver riksdaler. That was the old Swedish currency, which would be roughly four million dollars today.
Look up at those six figures on the roof. They might look like carved stone, but they are actually hollow, cast from zinc at a Swedish foundry. They represent the driving forces of Gothenburg. From left to right, you have Diligence, Peace, Commerce holding a staff, Navigation represented by Neptune with a trident, Wealth leaning on a horn of plenty, and Industry holding a rudder.
The square in front of the building has changed dramatically since those statues were first raised. Notice how the bustling Östra Hamnkanalen, visible in front of the Exchange Building in 1910, was eventually filled in to create the expansive paved plaza of Gustav Adolfs Torg that visitors walk across today.
In 1895, a massive fire ripped through the building. The damage was extensive, leading to a major reconstruction in the early nineteen hundreds. During that rebuild, they transformed an open inner courtyard into a spectacular indoor hall. Take a look at your screen to see a photo of its beautiful vaulted glass roof and walls made of yellow marble stucco, which is a fine plaster molded and polished to look exactly like solid stone.
Today, those grand inner halls, filled with green marble columns and intricately patterned oak parquet floors, host the city's most important council meetings and even royal guests.
Enjoy the grandeur of the square, and let us continue when you're ready.
.jpg){kind=link}
