Landskrona is a town in Scania, Sweden. Located on the shores of the Öresund, it possesses an excellent natural port, which has lent the town first military and then commercial significance. Ferries operate from Lankdskrona to the island of Ven, and for many years there was also a connection to Copenhagen.

Landskrona was founded by the Danish king Eric of Pomerania early in the 15th century and a fortress was built in the 1540s. Following the cession of Scania by Denmark, Landskrona became part of Sweden in 1720. The fortress and its extensive system of moats continued to have military importance until the 1700s. The town’s population grew rapidly during the industrial revolution, and the Öresundsvarvet shipyard operated from 1917 until the 1983 and employed up to 3500 people.

In 2013 Landskrona had close to 33,000 inhabitants. It is the seat of Landskrona Municipality.

Culture

Landskrona Konsthall opened in 1963 in the park attached to Landskrona Citadell. In the surrounding parkland there are sculptures by twenty artists.

Carl Fredrik Reuterswärd, was a Swedish painter and sculptor. He lived in Landskrona at the end of his life and died of pneumonia at Landskrona Hospital, on 3 May 2016, aged 81. He was a professor of painting at the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm from 1965 until 1969. In 1974, he was a guest professor at Minneapolis School of Art in Minneapolis, Minnesota. In 1986 he was awarded the Prince Eugen Medal for painting. Reuterswärd is known for his sculpture showing a revolver tied in a knot, called Non violence, which is exhibited outside the United Nations headquarters in New York City.

British artist Ian Berry, who makes artwork from denim jeans, lived in Landskrona between 2010-2015 and made some of his artwork based on Landskrona and the Oresund Region.

Sports

The Landskrona BoIS football club was formed through a merger of two older clubs in 1915. “BoIS” was one of the twelve original football clubs in Sweden’s premier football league, Allsvenskan. They have won four Allsvenskan medals and the cup once, in 1972. As of the 2018 season, Landskrona BoIS play in Sweden’s second-tier league, Superettan. They are based at the Landskrona IP stadium, where their attendance record is 18,535.

Between 1930 and 1939 the annual Saxtorp TT-races motorcycle events saw crowds of up to 160,000. Saxtorp is located some 10–15 km south-east of the town centre.

Townscape

The town’s centre and buildings along the entrance streets generally consist of buildings with between two and seven floors. As a fortified town, stone houses were preferred instead of wooden houses, so the city boasts few examples of traditional Danish and Scanian half-timbered houses. Apart from the Citadel and Sofia Albertina Church, other notable 19th-century or older buildings are “Rådhuset”, the Town Hall, Landskrona museum [sv], the old railway station building and the theatre.A traditional half-timbered building in Landskrona harbour, restored by Frans Ekelund.

Much of the town’s central parts, and buildings along the entrance roads are characterized by the work of the former town architects Fredrik Sundbärg 1901–1913 and Frans Ekelund 1913–1949. Sundberg created a number of monumental buildings such as the old water tower, the school Tuppaskolan, the power station, a hot bathhouse (demolished in the 1970s), and two large blocks of flats intended for the working class, Falken and Gripen . Ekelund, who was a believer in the Garden city movement, reserved areas for people to build customised homes, typically smaller houses with cellars and two floors.

Ralph Erskine created the row house area called Esperanza (Spanish for hope) around 1970. The new water tower came into operation the same year.

Around the Town Hall Square, all but one building was built before functionalist architecture became popular. Some older buildings were demolished in the mid-20th century. Falcks hörna, a block-corner building with a rather unusual appearance, was demolished in the middle of the night in 1971 amid protests.

Harbour

Landskrona Harbour, the main basin. A part of the protecting artificial island Gråen can be seen to the right, the shipyard Öresundsvarvet in the background. It may look that way, but there is no possibility to enter or leave the harbour to the south, as the waters becomes very shallow just south a little south of the shipyard.

A natural deep harbour has existed here for a longer time than the town has been known. It’s mentioned in the Danish historical work Saxo Grammaticus from around 1200 The port is based on a natural chute in the sandy sea floor, despite the lack of any nearby debouching river. Since the 18th century, the harbour has been protected by the artificial island Gråen. In the 1960s it had a total quay length of around 3 km As of 2017 its usable quay length has been greatly reduced, with a tally of approximately 1250 meters of remaining quay, and its activity has been low for decades. The former car ferries to Copenhagen-Tuborg departed from the Nyhamn port, in the northern end. At a common map, it looks like the harbour has two inlets. But the waters immediately south of the harbor are extremely shallow. The northernmost part of Lundåkrabukten, the bay between Landskrona and Barsebäck, is not just shallow, but also largely free of stronger currents. During cold winter periods, Sea ice can then be formed here, much faster than at most other places in Øresund.