If I choose to walk into town past the railway station, these are some of the buildings I pass by.
An ‘avantgarde’ triangular office building from 2010; the head office of a rapidly growing fashion company (Gina Tricot, founded in 1997).
The railway station, built in 1900 (building listed as an important part of our cultural heritage).
Not sure about the importance of the building in the background, but it’s one of rather few old wooden buildings in town, and is a restaurant of some kind. (It was really the tree that caught my eye now, though…)
Across the street from the railway station there is an old “senior high” school for technical sciences; founded back in 1856. On the ground floor in the red brick wing, facing the station, you now also find our tourist office.
Across another street from there, we have one of the town’s first cinemas, built in 1914 – Röda kvarn (after the famous Moulin Rouge - note the decorative wind mill on top of the wall.
This building is also a cultural heritage listed one. It still serves as a cinema, but is now run by the town’s culture administration. They show certain classics or more ‘difficult’ or educational films etc, usually just one or two shows per film (and daytime specials for schools sometimes).
The town centre this weekend was full of market stalls for the spring market, which I’ll save for a later post. So let’s just sneak around all that for now and just have a look at some of the views along the river which I took from the town park while waiting to take a bus home.
View from the park across to the South Square, where most of our bus lines meet. It is surrounded on three sides by low old wooden buildings (and on the fourth side by the river).
16 comments:
I like how your city embraces the river; our city turns its back on ours. There are many trees and bushes but the buildings' fronts face the other way. I like your railroad station. Thanks for your comment on my post today about hats. Do you have a nice collection?
I like the way your town has all of these different styles all mixed into one place and they look beautiful. each one is beautiful in its own way... and they fit into a beautiful scape... wish i could walk it with you....
Tour river walk is so beautiful! and the brilliant sky, water reflections, and pink tree make a wonderful scene worthy of setting up an easel and painting it. Your first pink tree is glorious, maybe cherry blossom. I love the first modern building, and also the cinema building. Your town has a lovely mixture of both old, classic, and modern.
Thanks Terra. In the 30 years I've lived here, the town has become better at 'featuring' the river and making it possible to walk along it (a project still in progress). In the past, the most important function of the river was to serve the textile industry. Nowadays most of the production has moved abroad, old factory buildings are being converted into offices or schools or replaced by modern apartment buildings. And along the riverside they are making room for walkpaths and cafés etc.
As for hats, maybe I should do a separate post on that topic as well :)
The town certainly looks its best on a crisp sunny day like this, Sandra.
The pink trees are some kind of (ornamental) cherry blossom, yes. We seem to have (at least) two different kinds of them around town: some early ones and some late ones. The early ones have dropped their flowers by now, but those in the park along the river are of the later kind, and were at their very best this sunny Friday.
Historic buildings are so important to me, they speak of the past. That blossom is lovely!
You really do live in the loveliest of towns. Everything, whether new or old works so well together. And with those glorious pink blossoms its like the icing on a beautiful cake.
I think it likely that the old railway station will be more enduring than the modern triangular one although both have their interesting points. I love seeing bits of your city that I haven't already seen. I know that I would spend a lot of time sitting in pavement cafés doing crosswords and people watching.
Yes Jenny, I do like it too when they manage to preserve old buildings - and old trees! :)
The fresh colours of spring always seem to work wonders, Pauline :)
You may well be right about the buildings, Graham - even if the plans for a new railway might actually come to include a new station at a different location, as this old building is already listed it is likely to still be preserved. Its function these days is already different from what it used to be. It's still a place where you wait for trains; but tickets you have to buy elsewhere. Preferably online, I suppose. What people do who don't have access to a computer, I don't know. Perhaps they just stay home - like I do. I haven't been anywhere by train in years so I'm feeling quite out of date on the procedures these days...
You live in a beautiful little town, so walkable, and well preserved. I'm not a big fan of modern architecture and prefer the old.
I once worked for a company that owned 50% of the country's cinema. We got to watch the movie's for free.
Your town seems to have managed well the difficult task of integrating new and old, preserving what is worth preserving from the past and at the same time allowing for progress.
Nice photos - glad I stopped by. And I hope you'll share at http://image-in-ing.blogspot.com/2015/05/textures.html
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