Þannig byggðist bærinn

THUS, THE TOWN WAS BUILT | HOUSES WITH CORRUGATED IRON
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The characteristics and specialties of the
settlement in Hafnarfjörður are mainly
based on three factors: first, the interaction
between the lava field and settlement;
second, the special position of the town with the inter-action
between the harbour and the settlement; and third,
the large number of corrugated iron-clad timber houses.
At present, there is nowhere in Iceland where there is
preserved an equally large, continuous area of corrugated
iron-clad timber houses as in Hafnarfjörður.
In the late 19th century and until the end of the 1930s, wooden houses dominated the town. When
the so-called sheep sale began to England as of 1880 and trade relations began to strengthen,
imports of various products that were previously unknown in Iceland began. One of the things that
came new to the country was corrugated iron, which was very useful. Iron made the houses watertight,
as well as reduced the fire risk from the outside and was also generally cheaper than the timber.
Nevertheless, many houses were still built in a Norwegian style, but it was adapted to the Icelandic
conditions by iron cladding them. In Hafnarfjörður, however, for a long time, there were a lot of so-called
timber houses, clad with corrugated iron, but their characteristics were that their walls were so low that
there were only windows on the gables. One house of that type still stands, Siggubær at Kirkjuvegur
10, and it can be said that a house of this type was typical of the home of the people in the early
1920s in Hafnarfjörður.
In 1915, there was a great fire in Reykjavik, which made people re-think the building of timber houses
and concrete houses became more popular, but in Hafnarfjörður, people were loyal to the timber
houses for quite a bit longer. The first concrete house in Hafnarfjörður, Reykjavíkurvegur 20, was built
in 1911, and the following year, a number of additional concrete houses were built. These were, for
example, Strandgata 9 and Gunnarssund 3, as well as the house that housed Hotel Hafnarfjörður,
which stood on the corner of Austurgata and Reykjavíkurvegur.