Swedish Gustaf's Church, Copenhagen

Basically the Øresund in built form foreshadowing the century of friendship that followed, the monarchs of both Sweden and Denmark dedicated Svenska Gustafskyrkan when it opened in 1911. Despite their proximity and inseparable present-day ties, Svenska Gustafskyrkan was the first Church of Sweden church building in Denmark, following the thousands of Swedish sailors working in the Danish capital. Designed by Skånsk architect Theodor Wåhlin, it was built in the National Romantic style that was especially popular in Denmark, but used Swedish materials like Helsingborg Brick and Ignaberga Limestone. 

So, what’s changed? Two biggish things—one, kind of shitty, Folke Bernadottes Allé (originally known as Søndre Frihavnsvej) was expanded at some point, chewing up sidewalks and street trees for cars (nice bike lanes though). The other, kind of charming—the tower on Gustaf’s Church sprouted a clock. It originally decorated a church on St. Thomas in the Danish West Indies, but it was in Denmark for repairs when the First World War broke out—stranding it—and it was installed here in the late 1910s. Well, and no more horses obviously.

The Church of Sweden started ministering to Swedes in Copenhagen in 1901 with the arrival of Pastor Nils Widner. Nearly 20,000 Swedes lived in the Copenhagen area in 1900, but this was the first organ of the Swedish state religion in the city. To build it, the Swedish government contributed about 20% of the building cost and the Danish state donated a site on Grønlands Bastion, part of Kastellet (which by that point was an outmoded but still-active military base). After finishing the fundraising efforts with private contributions, the congregation hired Swedish architect Gustaf Wickman to design their new building. 

King Frederik VIII of Denmark cast the first stone at the cornerstone laying in 1908, followed by Queen Lovisa of Denmark, King Gustaf of Sweden, and Queen Victoria of Sweden—which I imagine was a genuine symbol of international cooperation at the time, since less than century earlier the two countries had fought a war (a half-hearted one, but still). 

…but a year later construction had yet to start. Either Wickman had grown fed up with the number of changes requested to his initial design, or the congregation tired of his lack of responsiveness to their requests, but within a year the parties ended their collaboration. The church hired Swedish architect Theodor Wåhlin instead, working with Danish architect Gotfred Tvede as the supervising architect.

Both stylistically and practically, the change probably made sense—Wåhlin was Skånsk, based in Southern Sweden—both geographically closer and culturally closer to Copenhagen than the Stockholm-based Wickman. Whereas Wickman specialized in banks and civic buildings, Wåhlin was the supervising architect on the Lund Cathedral, as well as restoring and designing  a bunch of churches across Southern Sweden. Wickman might’ve been a bigger name—amongst other things, he’d spent a year in Chicago designing the Swedish Pavilion at the 1893 World’s Fair—but Wåhlin was relatively local and specialized in churches. 

Named for the Swedish monarch at the time, Svenska Gustafskyrkan combined the National Romantic Style so popular in Copenhagen in the early 1900s with Swedish materiality. It basically looks like a regular Danish church from the period, just darker, because they imported dark brown Swedish bricks fired at Helsingborgs Ångtegelbruk just across the Øresund. 

Dedicated by the kings of both countries in 1911, Gustaf’s Church is a whole complex—in addition to the worship space itself, it has church halls, a community center, offices, a rectory, staff houses, archives and storage rooms. More than just a church, this was—and to some extent still is—a center of Swedish life in Copenhagen (and historically a very popular wedding venue for Swedes). Now one of the overseas parishes that form the Church of Sweden Abroad, Svenska Gustafskyrkan continues to provide a community hub for the 20,000 Swedes who live in Copenhagen. 

Further reading:

• Wåhlin article about the building in Teknisk Tidskrift, 1911

In their own words:

GUSTAFSKYRKAN

Tro - Öppenhet - Hopp

Svenska kyrkan i Köpenhamn

On Helsingborg Brick:

Det berömda Helsingborgsteglet

Naturhistoriska Riksmuseet i Stockholm, Norrköpings rådhus och inte minst Terrasstrapprona vid Stortorget här i Helsingborg är några av de många framstående byggnadsverk där fasadtegel från…

Helsingborgs stad

Kind of a bummer to see how much shittier Søndre Frihavnsvej / Folke Bernadottes Allé became over the years as the municipality widened the road for cars and devoured all the street trees.

Wickman's style was so different to Wåhlin's it's interesting to imagine if his version had been built—personally, I generally prefer the National Romantic stuff over whatever this is, but it's also so silly that it could've been fun.

I thought it was nice that at the end of this article Wåhlin thanked basically everyone who worked on this building: architect Th. Hirth, engineers J. Bang, H.G. Queckfeldt, Huttemeier, and Thorning-Madsen, organist P.S. Rung-Keller, garden designer Knud KlixbKlixbüll, masons E. Pihl and R. Nielsen, carpenters Norkjær, Lars Jørgensen, and Løwe, tinsmith Ernst Maribo & Son...and so on.