Uplands Nation - History and Building

History and Building

In its earliest form, Uplands nation was founded, or may at least first be attested, in 1642, but the current nation is the result of a merger in 1823 with Fjärdhundra nation and a second one in 1829 with Roslags nation, two smaller nations recruiting students from different parts of the province of Uppland (Fjärdhundraland and Roslagen), each of which also date to the early 1640s (the earliest documents from Fjärdhundra nation are also from 1642, while the archives from Roslags nation begin already in 1640).

Before acquiring the current nation building (1825), the nation held its meetings either in the house of its inspector – the professor who had been appointed by the university to guard over the virtue and behaviour of the students of a particular nation – or in the home of one of its members. The steadily increasing size of the library forced the nation to start renting space in 1763, but as late as 1814, the protocol mentions a meeting in the home of the member "J. Almquist", i.e. the later notable writer Carl Jonas Love Almqvist.

The current building of the nation was built by the master turner Peter Strandman after a fire in 1809, but some of the walls date to sometime before 1770. It was acquired by the nation in 1825. The nation had previously owned the neighbouring plot for a few years, but sold this to Västmanlands-Dala nation.

In the 1950s a new wing was added according to the design of the architect Sten Hummel-Gumælius. The garden of the nation includes sculptures by Carl Milles and Carl Eldh. On the garden wall along the street Sysslomansgatan is a plaque with a medallion (based on the portrait by Johan Tobias Sergel) in the memory of the poet Anna Maria Lenngren, who grew up in a house once standing there. This wing contains twenty student rooms; another thirty are located in a different house two blocks away.