Weekend Reflections

 

Linking to Weekend/Street Reflections #300 

Monday this week (19th October) did not only offer blue sky and amazing autumn colours in the trees, but also perfect river reflections... :) 

The photo at the top shows a view across the river to the city park (in Borås, Sweden). The second one shows an old industrial complex along the same river. (Those who have been following this blog will no doubt recognise it from many previous photos - but on a day like this, I can never resist just taking one more...) Not sure what kinds of businesses reside there now, but originally they were no doubt to do with the textile industry. 

My Town: Industrial Architecture

 

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The river that flows through my town is lined with many old industrial buildings; most of them nowadays converted to serve other purposes. On Saturday (when out walking without any special goal in mind) I passed one such complex that I've probably walked past at least a thousand times before, and it suddenly it occurred to me to walk in among the buildings to explore a bit more. 

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 Nowadays these buildings house a lot of different businesses, but as it was Saturday, the whole place was pretty much empty - which left me free to take as many photos as I liked, without anyone wondering why...

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▲ Fire escape staircases and their shadows such as these always fascinate me. ▼

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 I also love how much work was put into the architecture of factory buildings in the past... Lots of little details, like decorations around windows and doorways etc.

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▲ I found that I was able to walk all the way down to the river and look over to the path on the side where I usually walk. (There's another old industrial building there as well, which is also nowadays home to several minor businesses.)

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▲ Other (and uglier) old factories have been torn down and replaced by modern apartment buildings (condominiums).

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▲ Finding one's way in Borås can be quite tricky, and not least for pedestrians, as besides the river there is also a railway and motorway to take into account, none of which can be passed just anywhere. On this occasion, I had to return to the street I came from and walk through an underpass below the motorway, to get to the other side of that. 

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▲ On the other side of the river, there is nowadays a special underpass for pedestrians, where you walk on a wooden bridge just by the water. Walking under there (as I often do when walking into town and back), I'm often fascinated by the geometrical patterns formed by light, shadows, and reflections.  ▼

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▲ Looking back across the river to where I stood to take photos 9 and 10. ▼

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(Photos 12, 13 and 16 were taken earlier in March - a note mostly as reminder for myself.)

Cotton Mill Museum (Rydal)

 
This cotton mill at Rydal (Västergötland, Sweden) was built in 1853, along the river Viskan - the same river that also flows through the town of Borås (where I live). This is also where the first hydro-electric power station in Sweden was built; and this mill was the first building in Sweden to have indoor electric lighting. 

"Due to the well preserved remains of an old industrial community, this factory, along with several other buildings, have been declared historical monuments. They tell the story of how the Borås region became the textile epicenter of Sweden."

https://digitaltmuseum.se/021015654584/arbetarbostader-i-rydal

A whole community grew up around the cotton mill, with the workers all living in (wooden) apartment buildings along the road nearby. Whole families would work at the mill - also young children, back in the early days. Some people lived their whole life here, in a very closed community.

Inside the mill, the huge machine hall is also preserved pretty much as it was when production stopped. We were able to join a guided tour, with a guide telling us about the history of the place, and demonstrating how the various machines worked, and what they were for - following the process from raw material (imported cotton) to finished product (yarn). 

"The spinning machines in the old spinning hall... represent the production of a novelty yarn that became the main product of the company in the 1920's. It was used in the weaving of rugs, furniture fabrics and as knitting yarn. Production ceased in 2004 [but a few machines are still run for public displays]"

 

The guide only turned on one machine at a time, for a very short while - but that still gave an idea of what an infernal noise all of them going at once must have made together... All day long...!

 

 

An old manual spinning wheel on display, hanging from the roof.
(My paternal grandmother had one like it, but painted green, I never saw her use it but I think it had belonged to her mother, from when they lived on a farm, and had sheep, and spun their own wool.) 

Some old enamelled kitchen items - I remember similar ones in that combination of beige and green from my grandmother's kitchen as well. 

More from the Textile Museum

At the Textile Museum (link to a previous post) there is also a permanent exhibition of old machinery used in production of textiles. Borås is an old textile industry town, and there used to be lots of textile factories here. Nowadays much of the production takes place abroad even if we still have a lot of focus on both fashion design and mailorder here. 

I snapped some random photos of various machines on my recent visit, but I don't have any details about them, so just enjoy the photos (if you like).

 

 

This display I think is to remind us of the fact that nowadays most the production takes place in poorer countries - just so that we here in the "western world" shall be able to buy too much, too cheap...

And this is to illustrate what one might have expected to find in a teenager's wardrobe in 1950 vs 1980 and 2010. Personally I suspect that this development has continued, and that teenagers 2024 must be having difficulties fitting all their clothes and footwear into just one wardrobe... What do you think?!

For my own part, I have to confess that I fill all of the wardrobe space I have in my flat all by myself (plus some extra storage down in the basement)  - which makes me wonder sometimes how families living in similar size flats (or smaller) manage their situation...

Flax Processing

Walking into town on Saturday, I passed by an arts and crafts shop, where they were having a kind of exhibition outside, demonstrating the process of turning flax into textile fibres. 

 

I'm afraid I did not stick around long enough to pick up all the details, but here is a short YouTube video from the open-air museum Skansen in Stockholm, showing the process, and including the correct terminology.

 

I hope the link works; if not, you'll find it here:
https://youtu.be/2_ToT0dxX-g 

 

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