The beloved places that turned 100 years old in 2023 were Liseberg, Gothenburg Botanical Garden, Gothenburg Museum of Art, the Aquarium at the Maritime Museum, Slottsskogsvallen, Göteborgs konsthall, and Göteborg Natural History Museum. They were all built for the great Anniversary exhibition in Gothenburg in 1923 when the city celebrated 300 years. It was also then when the parade street Avenyn got its current route, and the School of Economics received its first students.
So 2023 was one long string of celebrations in Gothenburg! The city celebrated that Gothenburg turned 400 years old with an Anniversary Festival, June 2–5, an anniversary celebration that lasted all summer, and with a final weekend, August 31 – September 3. Additionally, all of the 100-year-old beloved venues were celebrated throughout the year, which you can read about below.
Gothenburg Museum of Art showed the Gothenburg colorists
The Gothenburg Museum of Art is one of Northern Europe’s foremost museums for visual arts. Here, works by masters such as Picasso, Rembrandt and van Gogh coexist with Nordic greats such as Carl Larsson and Sigrid Hjertén, alongside Swedish and international contemporary art. The museum was built for the Anniversary exhibition in 1923. The architecture is influenced by Roman antiquity but also links to Swedish classicism from the 1920s.
To celebrate its anniversary, The Gothenburg Museum created the exhibition “The wonderful colour: Gothenburg colorism in a new light”, where visitors had the opportunity to experience works by the Gothenburg colorists, including Åke Göransson, Ivan Ivarson, Nils Nilsson, Ragnar Sandberg, and Inge Schiöler. This exhibition marked the first major showcase of the Gothenburg colorists since the 1980s, introducing their beloved art to new generations of visitors.
Gothenburg Botanical Garden inaugurated new cultural gardens
The botanist Carl Skottsberg was commissioned to lay out Gothenburg Botanical Garden, which was inaugurated for the jubilee exhibition in 1923. The garden is one of Europe’s largest and foremost botanical gardens. Here you will meet the dramatic Rock Garden and the peaceful Japanese glade, but also colorful perennials and summer flowers.
During the anniversary year in 2023, the botanical garden had a full programme of activities. In the spring, visitors could enjoy a profusion of flowering onion plants and a cherry picnic, Hanami, which was extended to two days on April 29-30. The garden’s birthday was celebrated on July 8 with a big party and the inauguration of the new Cultural Gardens. Throughout the summer, artists active at Konstepidemin exhibited in the garden, and during the autumn, there was a colorful pumpkin exhibition.
Liseberg opened a new imaginative hotel
For a hundred years, Liseberg has been one of Gothenburg’s most beloved meeting places. When the amusement park celebrated its anniversary, it did so by opening the adventurous family hotel Liseberg Grand Curiosa in April 2023. The hotel is a playful living experience, right next to Liseberg. It is star-shaped and nine stories high, and has 457 rooms. All rooms have at least five beds, but there are also six- and seven-bed rooms, and rooms with a connecting door for the really large group. And in 2024, you’ll be able to swan jump right into the upcoming adventure in the Oceana water world that’s being built next door.
The 100th birthday was also celebrated by the new attraction Luna in the Liseberg amusement park. It is a so-called boomerang roller coaster, where the guest rides first forward and then backwards, and it is the tallest and fastest of its kind in the world.
During the summer season there were also four anniversary events in the amusement park:
- MetAle, May 26-27, was a weekend with a focus on Gothenburg’s word-famous craft beer breweries and concerts with the local rock bands Bombus and Hardcore Superstars.
- During the anniversary weekend June 1-4, Liseberg’s 100-year history was highlighted with lectures and guided tours.
- “Humour in the harbour” took place on August 18-19 with a stand-up show and seafood menu, led by presenters Niklas Andersson and Ina Lundström.
- Klubb Karusell, September 8-9 and 15-16, transformed a part of Liseberg into a vibrant open air nightclub with pop-up bars, DJs, dance floors, live music and street food.
Göteborg Natural History Museum celebrated its anniversary with a meadow and exhibition
Göteborg Natural History Museum is the city’s oldest museum, founded in 1833. After a move, the museum got its own building in Slottsskogen, where the gates were opened to the public on July 8, 1923. Over the years, the museum’s scientific collections have grown and today they include around 10 million objects – everything from small amoebas and minerals to the famous Malmska whale, the world’s only mounted blue whale.
The museum celebrated 2023 with a commemorative publication, a new flower meadow and the commemorative exhibition Med öga på naturen (An eye on nature) – Birds, fossils and photographs that highlight the importance of natural science from a historical perspective up to today’s society.
Göteborgs konsthall showed an exhibition about contemporary art in Gothenburg
When the art gallery Göteborgs konsthall was completed in May 1923, it was one of the few modern buildings in Sweden built to display contemporary art. The gallery’s skylights and closed walls provided, according to modern aesthetics, the best conditions for showing art. Read more about the historic building av goteborgskonsthall.se.
The gallery’s 100th anniversary was celebrated with the exhibition I’m Imagining a Home – Göteborgs konsthall 100 years, which opened on June 9. In the exhibition, around 30 contemporary artists in Gothenburg gave the visitors a unique insight into the contemporary art scene in Gothenburg. The gallery also arranged a three-day festival, June 9-11 , in its back garden with music, performance, poetry, workshops and food trucks.
The Maritime Museum and Aquarium
The Maritime Museum was founded by the Nautiska Föreningen (Nautical Association) in Gothenburg and opened in 1913. The first years the museum was run on a small scale and the collections were shown, among other things, at Gothenburg’s Anniversary exhibition in 1923. Today, The Maritime Museum and Aquarium has just undergone the largest renovation in the building’s history.
Before 2023, the museum reopened with a brand new aquarium building underground. Here awaits an exciting underwater world full of aquatic animals and corals, the exhibition The Ocean Planet and the public research lab Ocean Lab. The largest aquarium, the Coral Sea, holds 400,000 liters of water. Here you will be able to follow how a coral reef slowly grows over time.
Avenyn showed an exhibition of historical photos
Avenyn is Gothenburg’s main boulevard! Starting from Kungsportsbron all the way to Götaplatsen, the street is 860 meters long and was built at the end of the 19th century, but got its current stretch up to Götaplatsen before the Anniversary exhibition in 1923.
In the Avenyn area, visitors could, during the anniversary year, see historical images from the street on twelve electrical cabinets that were deployed from Berzeliigatan to Korsvägen.
Slottsskogvallen and its entrance park
The Slottsskogsvallen sports arena was built for Gothenburg’s 300th anniversary and has been the arena for everything from international women’s games and speedway to concerts and the finish line for the Göteborgsvarvet Half Marathon. Before the 100th anniversary, stands and pavilions have regained their original colours and the entrance park has been rebuilt into an activity park for both events and spontaneous activities.
During 2023, Slottsskogsvallen was celebrated in various ways and the facility hosted many exciting events, such as the World Youth Games, the Göteborgsvarvet Half Marathon and a concert with Miriam Bryant and Veronica Maggio. The 100-year celebration culminated in a festival day dedicated to sports.
