Swedish Street Scenes in the 60s

Roadtrip: Swedish Street Scenes in the 60s

Here are a bunch of old postcards depicting normal everyday life street scenes in Sweden in the 1960s. Progress has taken its toll on all of these places and I very much doubt they look like this today. Although, I do love the colors and how everything looked so casually organized and clean back then.


About the author: Chris

Founded Ultra Swank in 2005. Has a crush on Pan Am, Disneyland and the Century 21 Exposition. Lives life as an expat in Barcelona, Spain.

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By Chris

August 26th, 2008

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Comments for this post

  • P-E Fronning

    Fina grejor! Härliga gamla Brommaplan …och till och med Boden ser ju ganska trevligt ut med gubbar ihopträngda på en bänk. Bioskylten t v ser också finemang ut.

  • Charles

    I love street scenes such as these. It’s funny to see the big American Mercury in the last picture. So oddly out of scale to the other cars in the lot. Great pictures.

  • Anonymous

    Charles is close about the Mercury. I too was surprised to see a big American car in the lot but as a classic car buff from way back, (no one else would care about this.) I recognize the car as a ’58 Edsel Citation, four door hardtop no less, close to the top of the ill-fated Edsel line. Even stranger than seeing a Mercury, but there is a resemblance since this Edsel model was based on the Mercury body. In this case, Ford didn’t have a better idea. Right in front of the Edsel is what appears to be an early sixties Ford Fairlane.

    Yes, great pictures.

    Robert

  • Chris

    Believe it or not, but there were quite a lot of American vehicles in Sweden in the 50s and 60s before the gas crisis in the 70s when people converted to small Japanese effiecent cars. I will try and find some more postcards that has American cars on them and post them here.

  • Charles

    LOL now that I look closer, I see that it obviously is an Edsel.

  • The King Of Cool

    Wow! I love those. I’m always interested in seeing street scenes of the past. It’s nice to see what these places looked like before progress took its toll.

  • Charles

    It was a more hopeful time when all was possible. How sad that we see the glass half full these days! To vision!!!

  • David

    I can’t quite tell where the picture in Boden was taken from, I know it’s Drottninggatan but I’m not sure exactly the intersection, but I think that the buildings on the extreme left and right are still there (the building with the Bio sign may have had a turret restored on the bay window too). In fact, pretty much all of the buildings are still there – there is still a Handelsbanken in the corner of the green building, which is now yellow and the pink building is also yellow (I have figured out the intersection, it is Drottninggatan and Kungsgatan – the building with the Bio sign is gone, which is now home to Tempo/Åhlens…Which I believe was featured on this blog) and we are looking northeast from the gågatan. The high rise in the back is the City Hall and there is a second tower to the left of it, at about the same height. And the location is Medborgarplatsen where the Bodensia Hotel is located.

    I LOVE the metal facades in Näsbypark and the neon signs which Norden seems to have an addiction to.

  • Chris

    Thanks for your lengthy input David! You seem to know your way around Boden even though it seems that you are currently living in Chicago? Are you a expat Swede leaving Sweden for the States or have you lived there when you where younger? Studying, working or whatever?

  • David

    Yes, I lived in Boden for a time, but not a Swede I’m afraid, but a Native Chicagoan and Swedophile.

  • Chris

    Hehe Swedophile. That’s a new one, sounds a bit cheeky to me ;-)

  • David

    I’ve been in to Scandinavia since I visited as a child. Grindtorp is one of my most vivid early architectural memories.

    I would *never* be cheeky! Never. Aldrig i livet!

  • David

    I was just looking over the photographs again, and it’s rather funny that the two products of Dearborn are facing each other in the Bromma parking lot.

    Quite a polyglot selection of cars in fact, two Peugeots, a mini, two German Fords (the maize and white sedan by itself) and a smattering of Italian and German machines among the Amazons.

    A lot of VW’s here and in Boden – the cheeky cinema ads must’ve convinced a lot of Swedes. Though WHY you would want an air cooled car with no heater in Boden is another story….

Ultra Swank – Your one stop blog for retro living, style and design

Ultra Swank takes you back in time into the kitsch, chic and swank living of the 50s, 60s and the 70s. We mainly focus on the design, architecture and the lifestyle of the happy-go-lucky and space-age-living mentality of that era – but also on the music and movies that takes you back to happier times. Ultra Swank is run by Chris, a Swede born in the wrong decade that currently resides in Barcelona. Read more

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