The Hafnarfjörður Quince marks our town.

The Hafnarfjörður twig is ours

Do you know the Hafnarfjörður Quist? The first Hafnarfjörður annex was built onto the house of Eyþór Þórðarson and Guðrún Sigurðardóttir in 1941. The annex spread like wildfire throughout the town. People altered their annexes, extending or joining them together to increase their living space.

„The space under such dormers was used very well; instead of a storage loft, it was even possible to fit good rooms or a smart flat,“ says Rósa Karen Borgþórsdóttir, curator at the Hafnarfjörður Folk Museum, describing how the space was expanded with the alterations. „Perhaps it's no wonder that people preferred this type of loft extension, when there was a significant housing shortage,“ she says.

„The reason the twig has been given this name is that there are so many of them here. The twigs have been made widely across the country and in the Nordic countries. But here it gets this name because it is so very common.“

Here we see the first Hafnarfjörður wreath, which Eyþór Þórðarson and Guðrún Sigurðardóttir had placed on their house on Hraunstígur in the 1950s.

„The reason the twig has been given this name is that there are so many of them here. The twigs have been made widely across the country and in the Nordic countries. But here it gets this name because it is so very common.“

Not in written sources before 1980

Rósa went in search of it for us Hafnarfjörður folk. „I haven't found any written records until after 1980. But this particular variety of sprig is known locally as the Hafnarfjörður sprig,“ she says.

But who owned the first one? „It's fun to say that Eyþór Þórðarson, my great-great-uncle, and his wife Guðrún Sigurðardóttir owned the first one. The house was built in 1929 but in 1941 he requested a dormer running the entire length of the roof,“ she says. And that raises another question. Rósa, are you then a pure-bred Hafnfirðingur?

„No, not like that, my people came here in 1907,“ says Rósa modestly. But back to the gable. She tells of Davíð Kristjánsson, the master carpenter who designed that gable. „He came to Hafnarfjörður in 1904 but died in 1942,“ she says.

Set on the town's timber-framed houses

Rósa is still poring over the data on the twig, and that information awaits a follow-up report. But we're starting now, as is fitting for modern people, and getting straight to the story.

„The reason this is called Hafnafjarðarkvistir is most likely that there were more timber-framed houses and houses with high gables here than elsewhere, where the dormers can be fitted. In Reykjavík, people had started to build stone houses.

But it remains a mystery where Davíð gets this idea from. He did not study abroad and was one of those who bought the carpentry workshop from Jóhannes Reykdal, which the latter had founded in 1903. The workshop was then named Dvergur,“ says Rósa Karen.

„They have probably had some catalogue, books, and I wish we had this. Davíð lived in the house that the Nándin food shop is in. His son continued to live there after his death. The house has an interesting history,“ says Rósa Karen, explaining how 4 Hraunstíkur, Eyþór's house, was the first to undergo this change.

Cost-effective and provides more space

„Then the extension starts to spread throughout the town,“ she says. „These extensions were cheaper, clearly simpler and indoors they gave more space. But then they've evolved. They've evolved to take over the entire roof. Then there's no eaves, but instead homeowners have gained a whole extra storey. Originally, they didn't have such a high roof,“ she explains. „Yes, they come in different variations.“

Rósa Karen also consulted architects as part of her research.  „Yes, the gable has a character that suits Hafnarfjörður,“ she says. „In building registers, this gable, which is so long that it extends over the roof, is called the Hafnarfjörður gable. So let's own it outright.“

Yes, he is a handsome Hafnarfjörður lad!

• Do you know more? Please send us a line at samskipti@hafnarfjordur.is