With Our Meager Resources... Jönköping – an unfinished fortified town of the 17th century. Jönköping belongs to a group of Scandinavian towns that were relocated and provided with a new town plan during the 17th century. Though the aim was to modernize and fortify the strategically important cities of the Realm, lack of funding made some of these projects impossible to realize. The visions of King and Council were too far removed from the harsh realities of a poorly developed country on the fringes of Europe. Even so, the undertaking was on a scale rarely seen in this part of world before. Its lasting results meant that the Renaissance town with its rectilinear plan and highly organized society was to be seen as an ideal for urban life for centuries to come. The aim of this paper is to follow the development in Jönköping from 1612 when the medieval site was abandoned and work started on a large fortified town. Although easily defended, situated as it was on a spur of land surrounded by two lakes and vast marshlands, the very same reasons made the living conditions quite unsuitable. Large sections of the new town had to have their plots and streets raised with landfill before any houses could be built on the site. Jönköping in the 17th century with its canals and large inner harbor was planned in a fashion similar to the towns of the Low Countries. And devastating floods continued to occur. Two new Royal Chartered factories of great strategic importance were founded in Jönköping in 1620; one for the manufacture of small arms and armor, the other producing cloth for the armed forces. Within little more than a decade a new model town was created and made to function. But the cost had been immense. And the fortifications around the town were never built – partly a result of lack of money; partly due to the new political geography after the Roskilde peace treaty of 1658. During the same period the castle of Jönköping was restored and enlarged into one of three major fortifications guarding the southern border of the Realm together with Kalmar and Elfsborg. Recent excavations have revealed the extent of these early 17th century modifications with its large bastions, walls and moats. More unexpected were the hidden weaknesses – signs of haste and neglect during the construction period! When summing up, the strategic town of Jönköping with its modern layout, its royal factories and a vast castle built to withstanding siege artillery, can be seen as typical for the new towns of the period. But it also illustrates the weakness of a Sweden aiming to become a major power in Northern European politics. The visions of the leading groups in the country couldn’t match the economic realities. The resources to fulfill all these ambitious plans simply weren’t there… Paper presented at Urban Variation – Utopia, Planning and Practice International Symposium at the University of Gothenburg 19th to 22nd of February 2013

1. With Our Meager
Resources…
Jönköping – an unfinished fortified town of the 17th century
Urban Variation – Gothenburg 2013
Claes B Pettersson

2. The Importance of the Place
The City Fortresses of Southern
Sweden in the 17th century:
• Gothenburg (founded in 1621)
• Jönköping (re-established in 1613)
• Kalmar (re-built in 1613 / new site 1647)
Jönköping :
• Supply base with stores for the army
• Centre for strategic manufacture
(arms & cloth)
• Important junction (land & water)
• Administrative centre for the region
Scandinavia in 1701- information provided by Olof Rudbeck

3. Grand designs... Stadgarna
...meets a harsh reality
Idealet
The ideal – the fortified city of
Naarden in the Low Countries
The low budget version – draft of a new Jönköping, possibly made
by Karl IX himself (before the siege of 1612)

4. Visions for King & Council…
Draft for the new town, dated 1617
...but hardly for the Good
Citizens of Jönköping!

5. Landfill and logistics in the early 17th century
Blue line – estimated shoreline before 1613
Brown – landfill made by the Crown, mainly in the manufacturing areas
Yellow – landfill made by the burghers themselves during the first
decades

6. The Morass – no suitable place for a city…
Sedge
Peat cutting – for building material

7. Landfill – at the Royal Chartered Arms Factory Site
Henbane
Systematic landfill by the Crown 1613 – 1623 (bottom)
Landfill by later private owners 1623 – 1800 (over)

8. How to build a city – the logistics
1618
1617 1620
1623
1637
The Old
Town The Castle
• Soil from the old town and the site of the castle
• Timber from the vicinity – the Royal Manor of
Ryhov?

9. Timber foundations at the Royal Chartered Cloth Factory
Water crowfoot
Pine trees, felled in the winter of 1620 - 21

10. A visions that still remains – in the maps of 1657-58
The town as an unfinished project

11. Gardens instead of
ramparts…
In the late 17th century the
area intended for the town
fortifications was used for
cultivation plots

12. A Town for King and Council?
Places of worship – two churches
DEN FÖRSTA TRÄKYRKAN for a new town
The Swedish Coat of Arms
Western entrance to Kristine Church – begun
in 1649 The Court of Appeal – begun in 1639

13. The Royal Chartered Arms
Factory
1620
Wheellock
Flintlock
Gunsmith’s workshop, built about 1640
Matchlock
High technology – based on a long
local tradition in arms Fixture
manufacturing

14. The German Meadow
Vantmakeriet 1620
• Large scale textile production
(cloth)
• For the army & the navy
• A manufacture based on highly
Three blocks – excavated skilled workers, recruited in Germany
1982 to 2007

15. Flemings bastioner
The New Castle – a modern
artillery fortress of the highest
strategic importance
1605
1617
Drafts by Master Builder Hans Fleming – to be shown to King & Council

16. Bastion Carolus
1605 - 1612
North & west flank excavated 2012
• Differences in wall thickness
• Massive or hollow wall
• Varying quality of mortar and
stone
Shoddy work… in exposed
positions!

17. Bastion Carolus
Built on insufficient
foundations...
In danger of collapse from the
beginning...
Broken sandstone ashlars in NE corner

18. Changing plans & bad solutions
• No casemates along the lakeshore
• The breach that was never filled

19. Mortar as a historic source material
Lime mortar from northern flank of
bastion Carolus – built in 1609-10
Lime mortar from makeshift wall –
built immediately before the siege of
1612

20. Similiar in appearance - but not in performance…?
A jerry building with
impressive
exterior?
Jönköping castle1690
Tested and proved in
battle a number of
times…
Kalmar castle 2011

21. Propaganda versus Reality...
A town of great strategic value – the central, but weakest link in the chain of
defence!
• where the impressive city fortifications were never built
• where the castle was neither finished, nor ever fully prepared for battle
• where one of the two Royal Chartered Manufactures became a total failure
• where the local economy was closely linked to the aggressive foreign policy
• where the international element was of great importance during the 17th century