Örgryte nya kyrka

By the 1880s, industrialisation had brought large numbers of new residents into Örgryte parish, and the old church, seating only a few hundred, could no longer cope. Under the initiative of vicar Magnus Ekberg, funds were raised through donations and a loan, and a new church for around a thousand worshippers was planned. After difficulties finding suitably firm ground, a site was chosen at Svalberget, and the church, designed by architect Adrian C. Peterson, was consecrated on 6 July 1890 by Bishop Edvard Rodhe.

The building is a cruciform church with an open timber roof structure and a five-sided vaulted chancel, oriented north-east to south-west because of the shape of the plot. Its tower rises to nearly 60 metres, and the red brick used, brought from Skåne, is richly decorated with ornamental brickwork, stone details and ironwork.

The church's interior has changed character more than once. A 1930s restoration smoothed over walls and ceiling and introduced pink tones in the chancel, while a 1970s scheme favoured blue. Work carried out at the end of the 1990s, connected with installing a new organ, uncovered traces of the original 1890s colour scheme, and the interior was subsequently restored towards this earlier, plainer appearance, with the wooden floor also exposed.

Among the furnishings, the large carved oak altarpiece showing the crucified Christ with Mary, another Mary and John, made around the time of the church's completion, was later moved to its present position in a transept arm; a different altar painting, made up of several panels with imagery for different points in the church year, was added in the mid-20th century. The font, designed by the architect responsible for several of the 1930s changes, was given to the church in the late 1920s by a later vicar, at which point the church's older stone font was returned to the old parish church nearby.

The two organs, standing on facing galleries, are of particular interest to visitors. One is an English organ built by the noted Victorian organ builder Henry Willis, originally for a church in London, which eventually made its way to Sweden and is described as the largest British Victorian organ in the country. The other, a large mechanical-action instrument with dozens of stops, was built as part of a research project by Gothenburg University and Chalmers University of Technology, aiming to recreate a North German Baroque organ in the tradition of Arp Schnitger, with its design based on surviving instruments in northern Germany.