Sweden Guide
The Bothnian coast
Sundsvall
The capital of the tiny province of Medelpad, SUNDSVALL, known as "Stone City", is immediately and obviously different. Once home to a rapidly expanding nineteenth-century sawmill industry, the whole city burned to the ground in June 1888, and nine thousand people lost their homes. Rebuilding began at once, and within ten years a new centre constructed of stone had emerged. The result is a living document of late nineteenth-century neo-Renaissance architecture, based around wide esplanades intended to serve as fire breaks and designed and crafted by the same architects who were involved in rebuilding Stockholm's residential areas at the same time. However, the reconstruction was achieved at a price: the workers who had laboured on the new buildings were shifted from their homes in the centre and moved south to a poorly serviced suburb, highlighting the glaring difference between the wealth of the new centre and the poverty of the surrounding districts.