Alfred Grenander

Swedish-born Alfred Grenander (1863–1931) was an important architect in early 20th-century Berlin, where he is remembered for his work for the municipal railway network. He organised and exhibited at the 1905 exhibition at the premises of furniture maker and retailer Arthur S. Ball in Potsdamerstrasse in central Berlin, in which Mackintosh and several of his own students participated.

Grenander was born in Skövde, N.E. of Gothenburg, Sweden. He trained first at the Technical University in Stockholm (1881–5) before continuing his studies at the Technical University in Berlin (1885–8), where he became friends with Otto Spalding and Hermann Muthesius. During the 1890s he was employed in the office of Paul Wallot, architect of the Reichstag, and in 1896 established his own practice with Spalding, who was by then his brother-in-law and with whom he built many villas largely in and around Berlin until 1903. He also built himself a holiday home in Falsterbo in southern Sweden. In 1897, he began teaching architecture classes at the Berlin Museum of Applied Arts. From 1900 until his death Grenander was employed by the companies operating the Berlin underground and elevated railway network designing stations, viaduct ironwork, carriage interiors, pavement kiosks, offices and railway works buildings. Some examples of Grenander's stations and viaducts survive. Later work included large office and industrial buildings, several for the Post Office, which displayed the changes in architectural taste and style to which Grenander succeeded in adapting.

Like many of his contemporaries around 1900, Grenander was interested in designing the whole and consequently was an enthusiastic designer of furniture and fittings. He achieved considerable success in this field: at the 1904 World Exhibition in St Louis his drawing-room furniture, made by A. S. Ball, shared an award for best technical execution. The drawing room was exhibited at Ball's premises in Berlin in 1905. 1