page_title: Stockholm Palace
section_title: The northern row 1692–1696
hierarchical_section_title: Stockholm Palace / History / The northern row 1692–1696
caption_attribution_description: Svenska: Stockholms slott: Norra längan Dessa bilder av slottet, efter Nikodemus Tessin d.y:s ritningar, är utförda före branden 1697, enl. Erik Vennberg
context_page_description: Stockholm Palace or the Royal Palace is the official residence and major royal palace of the Swedish monarch. 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.
context_section_description: 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 and making it fit within the walls of the old chapel, with a retained high ceiling inside the walls of the former northeast tower (now the northeast corner of the palace), proved difficult for Tessin if he was to be able to adhere to the austere Baroque style where all the windows aught to be the same size, and placed in precise rows despite what rooms were behind them. To achieve this, Tessin added a mezzanine floor with smaller square windows just above the lower row of windows. These smaller windows now encircles the whole building, a remnant of the first castle chapel. After the fire, when Tessin could make more substantial alterations, the Royal Chapel and the Hall of State were placed in the southern row instead, and the furniture and inventories, such as benches, household silver and decorations are to some extent preserved in the present-day Royal Chapel.
  According to a plan from before the fire, the palace was to be in a square shape without any wings in austere Roman Baroque style, essentially with the rest of the rows looking like the northern row. This suggestion is not preserved, historian Boo von Malmborg suggests that this was probably because Tessin did not dare to present his comprehensive plans to the economical Charles XI.
  The new building is depicted in five engravings in the Suecia Antiqua et Hodierna printed in 1695 to 1702: picture No. I.19 the new northern facade of the castle including the Lejonbacken and the square courtyard, picture No. I.20 the new chapel's interior, picture No. I.21 the chapel's exterior, picture No. I.27 view of the Hedvig Eleonora Church and picture No. I.32 view from the Kungsträdgården. Lejonbacken, which was to lead up to the north gate from the east as well as from the west, was never completed before the fire and is only ment
caption: The northern row with the planned Lejonbacken before the fire in 1697.
  From the Suecia Antiqua et Hodierna.
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