A Visual History of Graffiti on the Erikstorpsgatan Substation

[[Olle]] and [[Luisa]] were out wandering this morning, and came across a building in industrial Malmö with this luscious lettering:

I love so much about that typeface: the low crossbars (A, E, R, K), the subtle tuck-in of the umlaut on the O, the dreamy swoopiness of it all (see also Wouter on the death of swoopiness).

Of course I had to do some detective work and find the sign in context.

Fortunately Olle had left the geolocation embedded in the JPEG’s EXIF, and I was able to find it with a little Google Maps wandering; it looks like a power substation:

A search for more information about Malmö Elverk led me to this collection of images in the collection of the Malmö Museum, one of which jumped out at me:

It’s a similar building, presumably also a substation, and also with lovely typography. The museum’s digital collection helpfully contained a street address in the item’s metadata, and so with some additional Google Maps wandering, I was able to see this location in its current context on Erikstorpsgatan:

One of the under-explored aspects of Google Street View is that archival images, stretching back more than 10 years now, are browsable. Meaning it’s possible to see a visual history of the graffiti on the Erikstorpsgatan substation from 2019 to the near-present.

Here’s June 2009:

Two years later, in September 2011, there is some of the 2009 work still there on the grey door, but the brickwork seems to have been cleaned and re-tagged:

Three years after that, in June 2014, there’s been an attempt, by someone, to reset things with grey and purple:

Five years later, in August 2019, the building has been completely refreshed, including the signage on the grey doors, and some landscaping:

In October 2021 things are much the same:

But by June 2022, the most recent photo in Street View, there are new tags:

Apple’s Street View equivalent has an even clearer view from June 2022:

I am fascinated by the world of letters, and one of the things I love most about wandering about the world, when I’m able, is paying attentions to signs, noticeboards, warnings, posters. It’s nice to be reminded that when I’m close to home, I can still venture out on the screen. Thank you to my wandering friends for that.