Stadsvassarna - the forgotten ecology of the urban core
The Göta Älv, which runs from lake Vänern to the Kattegatt sea, as we know it today was formed with the withdrawal of the inland ice sheet around 14,000 years ago. In the 1600s, the city of Gothenburg was founded to enable the Swedish Empire of the to participate in the growing Atlantic trade. The site of the city, about 7km from the open sea, was dominated by beach meadows, marshes and reeds interspersed with steep granite hills. The dutch engineers which the king employed to design city, upended these ecologies by constructing wide canals for ships to load and unload their cargo, and star shaped moats and walls to defend that trade.
Around the fortifications, huge areas of marshlands called “stadsvassarna” remained, even as the city grew. To the cities east, the vast “Gullbergsvass” area was about as large as the city itself and to the north, the “Hisingsvass” stretched from modern day Sannegårdshamnen to Ringön. Old maps, such as the one above from 1644 indicates that the marshlands and reeds extended to the west side of the city as well.
While marshes and lowlands have traditionally been seen as a source of problems by agricultural societies, we now that they provide invaluable services. Marshlands often make up some of the most productive and biodiverse ecosystems, an ornithological guide from the 1950s even described it as “Europes most fertile hunting grounds for birds”.
Gothenburgs location along swedens west coast at the delta of the river means it is a critical stop for several migratory bird species. But the marshes also create habitats for many other animals such as invertebrates, fish, amphibians. Soft and spongy land areas have been highly emphasized in urban resilience strategies. These lands ability to absorb water can mitigate floods and heavy rains which are expected to become ever more frequent and violent during the coming century.
The ‘quayification’ of the river edge
The first riverfront area outside the city walls to be transformed was the masthugget district at the city’s west entrance. The dutch traveller JACOB NICOLAJ WILSE notes int the late 18th century: "West of the city, a suburb called Masthugget stretches along the embankment. Mainly seamen live here and many ships are anchored here."
But large areas remained untouched, partly because of the difficulty of physically transforming such large marshlands. A laconic remark in a newspaper from the mid 1800s notes:
Då den nuvarande Fattigförsörjningen år 1799 inrättades, ”öfverlemnades”, såsom Granberg säger, ”till dess fullkomliga disposition den dittills onyttige och obrukade Gullbergsvass; der Direktionen ämnade låta plantera korg eller bandsel.” Planteringen lärer försökts, men har naturligtvis misslyckats. Nog tycker pilen om sank mark, men icke växer den i öppen sjö When the current Poor Relief was established in the year 1799, "there was handed over," as Granberg says, "to its full disposal the hitherto useless and unutilized Gullbergsvass, where the Directorate intended to plant willow for basketry or withes." The planting is said to have been attempted, but naturally failed. The willow does indeed thrive in marshy ground, but it does not grow in open water. (My translation)Göteborgs Handels- och Sjöfartstidning 13 november 1857
But with new technology such as steam driven pumps, these areas could progressively transformed during the 19th and 20th century to satisfy the seemingly ever growing apetite for riverfront industrial real estate following the industrial revolution. The rapid expansion of industry and ports meant that within less than a century, most edges between the river and land was man-made and hard.
However, in the mid-1900s the river lost its significance for commerce and industry as the shipyard industry closed down and trade shifted to container shipping and the outer port areas. Around the same time, car-centric urban development led to former port and industrial areas being replaced by surface parking and road infrastructure. Most quays became only visible from the highway.
Boardwalk core - Falling in love with the image of the quay
The curiously straight edges of the river on maps became taken for granted as the living memory of their creation and use faded. Gothenburg’s post-industrial era, following the collapse of the shipbuilding industry, saw the northern riverfront largely redeveloped. The ideals of postmodernism and new urbanism romanticized the highly urbanized port-city interface, leading to the construction of long waterfront boardwalks along former docks and piers. In most cases, new quays had to be built because the old ones were technically exhausted. But no ships were to be moored here: this redevelopment catered to the purchasing power of a growing class of high-paid workers in the service sector.
As the southern riverfront is now undergoing a similar transformation, the city has launched a massive project to build an artificial peninsula for office and residential development by Masthuggskajen. This project is characterized by a similar romanticization of the urban form but is even more postmodern and paradoxical. It features a harbor without ships, courtyard typologies without usable courtyards, and a recreational city district on the wrong side of a major highway. There is no real reason to build it this way other than that it “signifies” trends that have gained status in urban planning discourse: orderly “city block typology,” waterfront boardwalks, and river access.
Mainstream architectural discourse often points out how we seem to have lost touch with the history of the places we inhabit. As much as I agree with that notion, I find it offensive to invent a new past that never was, in the form of ‘classical’ urban form, especially as we seem so eager to demolish real building and places full of real heritage and memories.
It is evident that our aesthetics and ideals of a good life must change following the multiple anthropcenic crises we now face. Let’s reexamine the soft and disorderly, biodiverse and ever changing, riverfront of the Stadsvassarna. Perhaps a more sustainable and less anachronistic, historical role model for the riverfront can be developed from it?
The design project which was a continuation of this research: Urban reeds - Masthuggsvassen