Gustav Adolfs Torg
Address: The square is sorrounded by four streets. At the north side, Köpmansgatan and at the west side, Torggatan. At the south side, Norra Hamngatan and Östra Hamngatan at the east side.
History
Before Nov 18, 1854 the square was known under the name Stora Torget or Stortorget.
1854 the statue
Gustav II Adolf was placed in the middle of the square. Bildhuggaren Bengt E. Fogelberg has made the statue. After the statue was place at the square the place started to be talk about as the Gustav Adolfs Torg. The official name for the square was not taken until much later, year 1959.
Stora Torget was built with stone -
cobblestone year 1629. Even many other places in town was at this time replaced with stone. When Stora Torget changed from beeing a square were you could shop all things to be a so called "nicesquare" all the cobblestone were replaced with so called streetstone, this happend year 1852.
Which buildings are sorrounding the Square?
Since the 1600´s the Stora Torget has been the centre for the city board. The Square is sorrounded by the
district court , stock exhange and the town hall.
At the square you also could see one of the towns several well houses, were the citizens in Gothenburg went to get their drinking water. This house was located at the east.
The water was led here from a well from Kallebäcks in
hollowed-out oak tree trunk
.
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What happend in the early days ?
At the square several trades were held with many different
merchandises
. Farmer carts were placed nearby each other at the square and along the canal the boats were tied up and full with merchandise.
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Christmas time: It´s here the big Christmas tree is lit up and placed every year. At the same time at the yearly Christmas trade you also can buy a lot of different stuff and food here.
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The Statue Gustav II Adolf
The Statue is made after the legend about the foundation of Gotenburg. The King should have ride up for the mountain Stora Otterhällan and with a big grasious gesture pointed over the fields of Gullbergs by the canal and should have said. "The City shall be placed here"
So the pointed finger at the statue is the one that is reproduced at the statue.
One thing that is a little bit odd with the statue is that the King looks really old in the face, the King was only 24 years old when he said that the city shall be placed here.
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Fun facts:
The Sculpture
The Statue that is placed at the square today is only a copy. 1845 Gothenburg ordered a Statue of Gustav Adolf from B.E Fogelberg.
The first statue (cast) was made in Rome but sorry to say that this mission failed due to that the brons was bad.
After this failure a wax model was sent to München were a new statue was ready 1851. When the statue was sent by boat to Sweden the ship sank in the North Sea. The Statue was rescuded, but the people who rescuded the statue wanted to have a very big sum of money, so in the end it became much cheaper to order a new one instead.
It is the third version that you see today at the Square. The Statue that was rescuded was later melted down in Germany.
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Source: Göteborgsguiden
sv.wikipedia.org
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