Adelgatan 9
in Malmö

adelgatan 9, Malmö — A beautiful doorway at Adelgatan 9

The properties at Adelgatan 11 and Kansligatan 1 were part of the same deal and make up the eastern part, marked in blue, of a block with the peculiar name Sqvalperup.

The sandstone doorway was added in 1908 when large parts of the facade and building were renovated.

Tenants and owners

Shops and other businessesꜜ
Vacant premises: not updated
Owners: not updated

A building with architectural history

If you look at Adelgatan 9 from across the street today, you wouldn't guess how significant the changes to the building and the block have been. The building is marked with a red line and the foundation is still there today. More about the building’s history↓

Televerket

At Adelgatan 11, rows of women once worked at switchboards. The roof was filled with telephone wires. Read more about Televerket and Adelgatan↓

Hotel district

A tram rings past several hotels, as there were many in this area. Savoy still remains, but Hotel Horn, where Fritiof Nilsson Piraten invited us to dine in Bock i Örtagård, has left its location by the canal. Read more about the hotels and surroundings↓

The block Sqvalperup

This peculiar block name came from a misunderstanding. Until well into the 1900s, it was believed that the oldest part of Malmö by the sea was called Skvalperup. But it was actually called Lower Malmö, as opposed to Upper Malmö, the original village near Triangeln.

The block bordered directly on the city wall, now Norra Vallgatan. Outside was a wide stretch of beach where fishermen dried their nets and merchants unloaded goods from around the Baltic Sea. At the intersection with Hamngatan stood Malmö’s earliest fort. It was a tower later incorporated into the city wall. It was demolished in the 1700s after serving as a warehouse for many years.

The building dates from the mid-century and is the same one still standing, though extended and rebuilt many times since then.

Looking at the sandstone doorway and the facade above, one senses that something significant occurred in the building’s history. We now set out in search of the missing–or perhaps hidden–links.

The renovation was so extensive that the builder embedded a message for posterity. Note how the portal lies in the left corner of the building, and the two-story white house is still standing.

The beautiful Jugend-style facade was removed, the roof completely redone, and the building was extended so the doorway now lies in the middle of Adelgatan 9. The older house at Adelgatan 11 was replaced by what stands today.

Televerket moves in

The Royal Electric Telegraph Agency was founded in Stockholm in 1853. The following year, a telegraph line was extended through Gothenburg and Helsingborg to Malmö.

Operations in Malmö began in an old timber-frame house on the corner of Norra Vallgatan and Östra Hamngatan, later moving as traffic demanded more space. During the first 50 years of operations, the number of lines and customers doubled every five years.

By 1885, they settled on Adelgatan and stayed for over 100 years. As the phones and wires grew more complex, it became harder to move them.

takbild — Phone wires. On the left is the Customs House / Malmö Börshus

The image shows the roof of the Norra Vallgatan building around 1890. Each phone line needed its own wire, creating a tangle over rooftops all over the city. In the late 1890s, they began burying the wires – not for aesthetic reasons – but to reduce signal issues and downed lines.

The Adelgatan building wasn’t enough, so the Norra Vallgatan property was purchased and demolished. Architect John Smedberg designed a new building with turrets and towers in 1884–85. It started with two floors and had three hotel neighbors to the west.

In 1908–1911, expansion continued. Hotel Skandia was bought and merged into the Telegrafverket complex alongside the addition of a third floor. The Adelgatan building was completely rebuilt in Jugend-style with a fine sandstone portal and a facade of bright plaster and rosy sandstone.

As seen in the previous photo, the facade’s ornamentation was removed in the 1950s, as another building rose to the west. Televerket had now expanded to cover the entire eastern half of the Sqvalperup block.

Hotels lined Norra Vallgatan. Some for train travelers, others for seafarers needing quick and cheap accommodation. A selection: Jernvägshotellet, Skandia, Köpenhamn, Småland, Horn, and Central. Nearly half of Malmö’s hotels were located along Norra Vallgatan.

Hotel Horn was immortalized by Fritiof Nilsson Piraten↗ svW – Piratensällskapet↗ svW – in the book Bock i Örtagård, describing the lavish buffet and its devious guests. The hotel opened in 1861 as Hotell Svea, was bought by master Horn in 1870, and eventually renamed Savoy Hotel in 1902.

In the 1930s and 40s, the streets behind Norra Vallgatan, Västergatan, and neighboring alleys filled with small hotels. Almost every building had one – usually with just 10–12 rooms – perfect for a family-run business.