Holger Blom

Svampen am Stureplan 1938

Svampen am Stureplan 2006

Holger Edvard Maria Blom (born August 2, 1906 , † March 2, 1996 in Stockholm ) was a Swedish architect and landscape architect . From 1938 to 1971 he was the City Gardener of Stockholm.

Life

During the 1920s, Holger Blom worked in Paris and lived with Le Corbusier's brother. He took the famous architect's functionalist ideas with him to Sweden and to the Stockholm exhibition in 1930 , in which he participated. This exhibition is widely considered to be a breakthrough for functionalism in Sweden. In 1938 Blom came to the Stockholm Roads Department, Park and Green Areas Department. He soon became the head of this department and remained so until his retirement in 1971. He thus decisively shaped the appearance of Stockholm's parks.

Holger Blom's park program for Stockholm from 1946 summarized the functionalist idea with regard to the park in the Stockholm development, a style that would later also be called “Stockholm style” ( Stockholm styles ). These principles were incorporated into the city's development plan in 1952 and implemented in practice until the late 1970s.

One of his most memorable buildings in Stockholm is the so-called “mushroom” ( svampen ), which was built in 1937 according to Blom's plans on the central square in the Östermalm district , the Stureplan . It is a simple but daring concrete structure with a cantilevered, round roof of approx. 16 meters in diameter on a 3.3 meter high central pillar. The “mushroom” was intended as rain protection, newspaper kiosk and meeting point and functioned as such until right-hand traffic was introduced . After that, the "mushroom" stood a little deserted in the middle of traffic. In 1988 it was finally demolished because it was dilapidated, but rebuilt after strong protests by Stockholmers and reopened on October 19, 1989.

Holger Blom was involved in a variety of projects in Stockholm, including the Slussen transport hub (together with Tage William-Olsson ) from 1935, the Tegnérlunden and Norr Mälarstrand parks from 1942 and the Strandliden promenade in the suburb of Hässelby .