"Kungsträdgården (Swedish for "King's Garden") is a park in central Stockholm, Sweden. It is colloquially known as Kungsan.
The park's central location and its outdoor cafés makes it one of the most popular hangouts and meeting places in Stockholm. It also hosts open-air concerts and events in summer, while offering an ice rink during winters. Additionally, First of May demonstrations held by the Left Party and other communist and left-wing parties usually take place here each year. There is also a number of cafés, art galleries and restaurants; for example Galleri Doktor Glas, a name taken from the novel Doctor Glas by Hjalmar Söderberg published in 1905.
The park is divided into four distinct spaces (south to north): (1) Square of Charles XII; (2) Molin's Fountain; (3); Square of Charles XIII and (4) "Fountain of Wolodarski" (without an official name). The park is administered and events in it organized by the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce.
History
Though the royal kitchen garden is known to date back to the Middle Ages, it is first mentioned in historical records as konungens kålgård ("king's cabbage garden") in 1430. (See also Trädgårdsgatan.) The royal property in the area was considerably enlarged through an acquisition in 1454 and further expanded throughout the following century. This utilitarian garden was gradually transformed into an enclosed royal Baroque pleasure garden and accordingly referred to as "King's Garden" throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. The garden was a symmetrical composition centred on a fountain and separated from the waterfront by the Makalös Palace ("Peerless").
However, the demolition of the walls began in the early 19th century, and for the inauguration of the statue of Charles XIII in 1821, his successor Charles XIV John had most of the garden replaced by a gravelled open space ordered to be named "Square of Charles XIII". When Makalös was destroyed by fire in 1825 the park was extended south down to the waterfront. Notwithstanding the area became had become a popular spot for bourgeois social life and military drilling, Charles XIV's initiative never was appreciated, and in the 1860s the space was subsequently furnished with the tree-lined avenues still giving the park its character and through which the old name prevailed. In addition, the park's showpiece, the tall and elaborate Molin's Fountain, was cast in bronze and given a space in the park.
The following century saw several proposals to have the northern section of the park replaced by various buildings, but during WWII a contract determined the area should remain a park and in 1970 it finally became the property of the city.
In the 1970s, construction of the metro station caused much controversy since the plans called for the old elms to be cut down, which led to violent protests and a tree-hugger campaign on May 12-May 13, 1971 with people chaining themselves to the trees, the so-called Battle of the Elms. Eventually these protests not only saved the trees and caused the station entrances to be located east and west of the park, but they also marked the end of a period when many old buildings in central Stockholm were demolished.
The park had a reputation for rioting youth, prostitution, and drug dealing in the 1980s. Extreme-right demonstrations in the 1990s by the statue of Charles XII altered its reputation. It was redesigned in the late 1990s to it present shape. In 2004, 285 new linden trees were planted to replace the sick elms (of which some dated back to the 17th century) and new pavilions with cafés were added."
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