page_title: Västerlånggatan
section_title: Tyska Brinken-Järntorget
hierarchical_section_title: Västerlånggatan / A walk north to south / Tyska Brinken-Järntorget
caption_attribution_description: Detail of portal at 68, w:Västerlånggatan. Gamla stan, Stockholm.Västerlånggatan 68, Kornhamnstorg, Gamla stan, Stockholm. Sandstensportal av Aris Claeszon (död 1634 i Amsterdam), nederländsk skulptör. Verksam i Sverige från 1620-talet till 1630-talet.
context_page_description: Västerlånggatan is a street in Gamla stan, the old town of Stockholm, Sweden. Stretching southward between the squares Mynttorget and Järntorget, it follows the course of the city's now demolished 13th-century defensive wall.
  The blocks along the street are elongated but only a few meters in width; those on the eastern side oriented lengthwise, and those on the western crosswise. Only four blocks thus forms the eastern side of the street while some 20 are lined-up along the western side. Most of the front doors of the buildings are located either on the quiet Prästgatan, the parallel street passing along the eastern side, or in one of the numerous alleys on the street's western side. The intact façades of the northernmost blocks are hiding the semi-detached offices of the Riksdag. To the south of those are the remaining numerous and very narrow blocks and alleys which before the great fire of 1625 occupied the entire western side of the street.
context_section_description: Number 52 was called Sidenhuset Pärlan ("silk house the Pearl") and the portal still features the pear-shaped pearl over the front door which was the owner's mark of the silk trader Henric Meurman.  He created a small-ware shop in the 1660s, decorating the portal with fruit garlands and a bow resembling those on the House of Knights, following a common practice for burghers to copy decorations found on prominent palaces.
  The current building on Number 54 was, according to an inscription on the portal, completed in 1662, but parts of the building are considerably older, the first owner, a Diedrik Skekerman from Lübeck, appearing in historical records as a lodger and innkeeper in 1589-1597.  The portal is made of red limestone and possibly designed by Nicodemus Tessin the Elder.  In the basement of the building, five metres under street level, a sealed round arched tunnel have been found, thought to have led under Västerlånggatan to Prästgatan and to have been built as an escape route in case the Danes would take the city.  One of the oldest second-hand bookshops in Sweden, Aspingtons Antikvariat, was located here 1978–2001.  The building is today owned by the trade union for the employees of the Customs and Coastguard (Tull-Kust).
  Number 63, including its Neo-Rococo ornaments and green shutters, is the family heirloom of the Torndahls.  The building was bought by the goldsmith Per Gustaf Torndahl in the mid 19th century and his shop was continued by his widow, Ida Tekla Sabina Cunigunda who also added the ornaments.  The grandchildren of Gustaf and Ida are still carefully minding the building and operating the handicraft shop still present on the address.
  Barely visible in the red sandstone cartouche of the portal of Number 65 is a Christogram, IHS, the maxim SOLI DEI GLORIA ("To God alone the glory"), and the initials of the Holstein cloth trader Peter Hanssen and his wife Anna Steker:
  The couple, which restored the building during the 1660s, were very rich and, among other things, donated the pulpit still found in the German Church.
  Number 68, the so-called von der Linde House was built by Erik Larsson in 1633.  He had made a fortune exporting Swedish iron and importing wine and, serving as an economical advisor to King Gustavus II Adolphus, was eventually raised to peerage under the name von der Linde.  The bared brick wall of the Dutch Renaissance façade is richly decorated with sandstone ornaments cut by Aris Claesz from Haarlem, including the sumptuous portal.  The two heads in the portico symbolizes Mercury and Neptune and in the arms of Erik Larsson are two linden which he planted on his homestead at Lovön.  Flanking the portal are two cartouches displaying inscriptions in German:
  The property was later bought by Queen Christina to her half-brother, Gustav, Count of Vasaborg, the illegitimate child of Gustavus Adolphus, who had a wing added facing the square on opposite side of block.  The names of all proprietors, historical and present, are engraved on a slate behind the front door, a list ending with the Masonry Master's Guild (Murmestare Embetet i Stockholm), founded in the old town in 1487, and today using the building for their extensive archive. One of the inhabitants was Pierre Chanut and his guest Rene Descartes. Two of the old proprietors have given their names to establishment residing in the building; the former confectioner Drottning Kristina facing the street and the banqueting rooms von der Lindeska valven in the basement
  Number 70 is a medieval building but the exterior was created in the early 17th century. On the front facing Funckens Gränd are the initials of former owners: L L D L 1627, Lydert Lang and Dorotea Lang.  The present building on Number 72–74 is a product of the merging of two older buildings during the 20th century.  In medieval times, these two buildings were separated by an alley of which remains a narrow and elongated backyard passing through the block.  Various properties in the block have been merged and partitioned repeatedly over several centuries, and though virtually all tr
caption: Number 68.
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