Stockholm Palace

Stockholm Palace or the Royal Palace (Swedish: Stockholms slott or Kungliga slottet) is the official residence and major royal palace of the Swedish monarch (the actual residence of King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia is at Drottningholm Palace). Stockholm Palace is on Stadsholmen, in Gamla stan in the capital, Stockholm. It neighbours the Riksdag building. The offices of the King, the other members of the Swedish Royal Family, and the Royal Court of Sweden are here. The palace is used for representative purposes by the King whilst performing his duties as the head of state.

This royal residence has been in the same location by Norrström in the northern part of Gamla stan in Stockholm since the middle of the 13th century when the Tre Kronor Castle was built. In modern times the name relates to the building called Kungliga Slottet. The palace was designed by Nicodemus Tessin the Younger and erected on the same place as the medieval Tre Kronor Castle which was destroyed in a fire on 7 May 1697. Due to the costly Great Northern War which started in 1700, construction of the palace was halted in 1709, and not recommenced until 1727—six years after the end of the war. When Tessin the Younger died in 1728, the palace was completed by Carl Hårleman who also designed a large part of its Rococo interior. The palace was not ready to use until 1754, when King Adolf Frederick and Queen Louisa Ulrika moved in, but some interior work proceeded until the 1770s. No major conversions have been done in the palace since its completion, only some adjustments, new interiors, modernization and redecorating for different regents and their families, coloration of the facades and addition of the palace museums. The palace is surrounded by the Lejonbacken and the Norrbro to the north, the Logården (known as the Shot Yard in English) and Skeppsbron in the east, the Slottsbacken and the Storkyrkan in the south, and the outer courtyard and Högvaktsterrassen in the northwest.

As of 2009[update] the interior of the palace consists of 1,430 rooms of which 660 have windows. The palace contains apartments for the Royal families, representation and festivities such as the State Apartments, the Guest Apartments and the Bernadotte Apartments. More features are the Hall of State, the Royal Chapel, the Treasury with the Regalia of Sweden, Livrustkammaren and the Tre Kronor Museum in the remaining cellar vaults from the former castle. The National Library of Sweden was housed in the northeast wing, the Biblioteksflygeln (the Library Wing), until 1878. As of 2014[update] it houses the Bernadotte Library. The Slottsarkivet is housed in the Chancery Wing. In the palace are the offices of the Royal Court of Sweden, a place of work for approximately 200 employees. The Royal Guards have guarded the palace and the Royal Family since 1523. A comprehensive renovation of the facade began in 2011, to repair weather damaged parts made from sandstone. The repairs are estimated to cost approximately 500million crowns (about US$77million) over a period of 22 years.

The Royal Palace is owned by the Swedish State through the National Property Board of Sweden which is responsible for running and maintaining the palace, while the Ståthållarämbetet (the Office of the Governor of the Royal Palaces) manages the royal right of disposition of the palace.

The first building on this site was a fortress with a core tower built in the 13th century by Birger Jarl to defend Lake Mälaren. The fortress grew to a castle, eventually named Tre Kronor for the core tower's spire top decorated with three crowns.

At the beginning of the 17th century, King Gustavus Adolphus made plans for a new royal palace. The plans came to naught, but in 1651, his daughter Queen Christina appointed Jean de la Vallée to architect for the royal castles, and among his commissions was to make suggestions for how to improve and update the Tre Kronor Castle. Contemporaneous copperplates from 1654 shows de la Vallée's idea of a more visible castle on a raised plateau with a connecting bridge over the Norrström. Queen Christina remodelled and embellished the existing castle extensively, but no new castle was built during her reign.

From 1650 to 1660, Jean de la Vallée made suggestions for large conversions of the castle, but it was not until 1661, when Nicodemus Tessin the Elder became City Architect and Architect for the Royal castles, that more substantial plans for a new castle were made. In 1661, he presented the first draft for a conversion of the northern row which his son, Nicodemus Tessin the Younger, would later rework and realise in 1692 to 1696.

A map of the Stadsholmen from the 1650s, illustrates de la Vallées suggestion for the conversion of the old castle. The project also brought about an adjustment of the Slottsbacken, making it partially enclosed by buildings. Of interest are Tessin the Younger's additions in pencil on that map, probably made at the end of the 17th century. There is an early sketch for the northern facade's west wing and the two curved wings enclosing the outer courtyard (both executed). Tessin the Younger also made plans for the city area west of the palace with large stairs in false perspective where the Axel Oxenstierna palace, among other buildings, are and joining the Västerlånggatan in addition to a wide street to the present Mynttorget, straight though the city block with the present Brantingtorget (not executed). He had envisioned a line of sight from the center of the palace, westwards to the Riddarholmen.

The northern row of the present palace was built in 1692, in just five months as a part of the old Tre Kronor castle. The new row had the same austere Baroque style that still remain, contrasting with the rest of the Renaissance castle.

At an early stage of the conversion in the 1690s, a number of elderly Swedish artists such as David Klöcker Ehrenstrahl and Johan Sylvius, were still alive and they contributed with artistic work to the completion of the northern row, in particular to the Royal Chapel. Ehrenstrahl made the large religious paintings and Sylvius painted the plafond.

A model for the austere Roman baroque style, including a relatively strict regularity and symmetry, was the Palazzo Farnese in Rome, where the architect in charge of the conversion, Nicodemus Tessin the Younger, went to study buildings in 1688.

The walls surrounding the storages, stables and workshops of the Tre Kronor castle are now behind the Lejonbacken and in the basement of the northern row. Thus, Lejonbacken conceals the old windowless wall behind it. Older walls can also be found higher up in large parts of the northern row's facade walls. The walls from the former northeast and northwest square corner-towers for example, are thicker in this part of the palace's ground floor, since Tessin re-used the remaining walls and incorporated them in the new palace. About half of the old walls were used in that manner, since the ever frugal Charles XI had only reluctantly agreed to the conversion which started in 1690. Thrift and recycling were guiding principles at the building of the northern row. Hence, the construction proceeded rather quickly and after five months the new row was topped out and roofed. The new walls became higher than the old ones, except for the towers which were completely enclosed in the new walls. The Charles XI's Gallery is one more feature remaining since before the fire, all according to Tessin's plan.

A new Royal Chapel in the northern row was inaugurated at Christmas in 1696, and a new Hall of State was also planned there. The chapel was to replace the old castle chapel that had been erected by John III in the same location by the old storages and stables at the Tre Kronor castle.

Building the new chapel with the same proportions as the old one an...