Stockholm’s Castle and Environs

Stockholm’s Castle was rebuilt in the early 1700’s after a devastating fire destroyed the original.  To me it isn’t the palace itself, as imposing and beautiful as it is, that was the important dimension of the project; instead, it was how the castle fit into a new urban plan which completely re-configured part of Gamla Stan, all of Helgandsholmen, and part of Norrmalm.

The original castle, called Tre Kronor or Three Crowns, was an amalgamation of parts and pieces that had been built, renovated, and added-on since the 1250’s.  Its waterfront location, high walls, jumble of towers, turrets, and Renaissance gables lent the Three Crowns Castle a fairytale-like air whose spirit embodies today’s (Disneyland)  concept of “medieval castle.”  In comparison to the defensive castle as seen in the 1661 painting below, the building that stands in its place is a placid palace.  While it has a quiet, simple character, it is not short on grandeur: the new palace has 1,430 rooms and is Europe’s largest royal residential palace (to give an idea of the palace’s scale, the interior courtyard is football-field length).  

1661 painting of Tre Kronor Castle by Govert Camphuysen

Like Stockholm’s lesser palaces, Three Crowns had a long history of renovations.  In the late 1500’s, modern Sweden’s first king hired Willem Boy to transform the palace from a medieval fortress to a Renaissance castle.  While the facades and turrets were updated in style, the defensive nature of the castle remained; the Stockholm Bloodbath in which 50 of Sweden’s highest ranking noblemen had been killed by the Danes was only about 50 years before and was still fresh in King Vasa’s memory.  

A model at the palace shows the castle after Boy's renovation.  The jumble of the original castle's many additions and alterations over time is apparent.

In the 1650’s, Jean de la Vallée proposed a remodel of the castle that would keep the central medieval tower while it regularized and re-clad the surrounding buildings in a colossal and overtly classical façade.  In Jean de la Vallée’s proposal, the castle was reoriented to face north toward Norrmalm and a corresponding bridge over the water from Gamla Stan, past Helgandsholmen, and to Norrmalm was included in the project.  Additionally, other than the central tower, Vallée’s proposal  removed any defensive character from the building; he transformed the castle into a palace (at this later point in history Stockholm relied on a defensive network of castles and fortifications out in the archipelago to stop any attacks before they got to the city).  Although Vallée’s scheme was never carried out, it did set a precedent which future proposals would remember.

Vallée’s proposal

Just a few years later, in 1666, Nicodemus Tessin the Elder designed a new veneer for the northern façade of the castle.  This was contemporaneous with the renovation of many older palaces in Stockholm; like the other palaces, the Three Crown castle “modernized” from a detail-rich Dutch Renaissance to a restrained classical style (see my post: Palaces from The Time of Great Powerin the 1600's).  Nicodemus Tessin the Younger carried out his father’s drawings, and the new northern façade was finished in 1692 (map 1).

Tessin the Elder's north facade

Shortly thereafter, in 1697, a huge fire devastated most of the castle, burning everything but Tessin’s newly renovated wing to the ground.  The survival of Tessin’s wing coupled by the fact that Nicodemus Tessin the Younger generated full and detailed plans, sections, and elevations for the castle’s 1,430 room replacement within six weeks of the fire makes me a bit suspicious as to the cause of the blaze.  In all my reading, I have not come across anything that assigns or even hints at blame to Tessin, but it’s hard to imagine a better way for the royally appointed architect to create job security for himself.  

Tessin's plan for the new palace

In stark contrast to the original castle’s assemblage of parts over time, the new palace is an orderly, nearly symmetrical plan consisting of a central square surrounding a courtyard plus three wings pointing to the east and west of the square (there would have been four wings but the existing church was in the way of the southwest wing).  There are an additional two wings forming a broken arc at the west end of the building.  The symmetrical nature of the new palace is important in addressing the palace’s many “front” doors: one facing Norrmalm to the north, the growing commercial center of the city; one facing Gamla Stan to the south, the traditional heart of the city; and one facing the water to the east, the city’s entry point and diplomatic façade.  The western façade faced the rounded wings which housed the castle guard and army commander.  

One of the rounded guard and army wings

Just as the various facades faced various aspects of the city, their design and functions echoed what they faced.  The northern façade facing out to the city at large houses the Rikssalen, or the National Hall, which housed the King’s throne room.  The south façade (map 2) faces historic Gamla Stan and the city’s historic cathedral church; this wing houses the castle chapel and the façade decorations commemorate the nation.   

The palaces South facade.  Statues and panels represent important contributors to Swedish society like Linneus who was an admired botanist throughout the world.

The eastern façade (map 3) facing the water is the Queen’s side; the “feminine” qualities of this entrance through a small but formal garden were meant to be welcoming and disarming for arriving diplomats.   

The western façade (map 4) facing the arched wings housing the castle guard is the King’s side and is decorated in war and “manly” themes.  

War themes on the western facade: a helmet, three war ships, arrows, a horn to signal "charge!", a dagger, and a crossbow with a sheath of arrows.

It is interesting to note the difference in quality between Nicodemus Tessin the Elder’s north façade and Tessin the Youngers’ façades.  The slightly older, north façade is much simpler in comparison to the other façades.  The older north façade is nearly decoration-free except at the portal, but the slightly newer facades feature patterned plaster work, pilasters, ornate window surrounds, varied window shapes, complicated cornices, Juliette balconies, niches with statuary, patterned floor bands, textured plaster, medallions, caryatids, and Italianate arches.  The return to Classicism after the Dutch Renaissance style was at first a simpler, cleaner architecture, but it didn’t take long for the “new” Classicism to become quite decorative and additive.     

The north facade (left) gets no more complex than a changing corner quoin.  The west facade, on the other hand...

The plan and design of the palace itself is fairly straightforward, but the re-configuration of the urban environs around the castle are more complex and require a short history lesson for better comprehension.  First, it is important to note that the fall of the “great” Swedish empire corresponds to the end of the 17th century.  In 1700, Russia, Saxony–Poland, and Denmark–Norway joined forces and attacked the Swedish empire on all sides.  King Karl XII was initially able to defend the country’s territories in unexpected victories, but he became too cocky and committed the classic mistake of trying to attack Moscow.  At the Battle of Poltava, the Russians captured most of the Swedish army, and King Karl XII was forced to flee to the Ottoman Empire where he stayed for years trying to convince the Ottomans to join in with Sweden to attack Russia.  The Ottomans were only so interested in Karl’s plan and they eventually became fed up with Karl’s political intrigues and his soldiers’ terrible behavior; King Karl XII was eventually imprisoned by the Ottomans for several years.  By the time Karl returned to Sweden in 1714, Russia had become the great power in the North, and Sweden’s war-weary Parliament converted the crown from an absolute to a constitutional monarchy.

Given this war-beleaguered background in which Sweden lost most of its empire, it is no wonder that the king didn’t have money to rebuild right away and that the new palace wasn’t habitable until 1754.  It is also no wonder that Tessin’s new urban plan for the areas around the palace created a triumphal urban center which through blatant symbolism and grand, processional spaces declared Stockholm the seat of a grand and successful empire.  Naturally, these references to grandeur and success were merely illusions; Tessin sent his urban plans to King Karl XII for approval while the king was imprisoned in Constantinople and dreaming of a re-built Sweden.  Tessin’s new urban plan was never carried out—not only did the king not have enough capital to realize the plan, but he died four years after returning to Sweden and subsequent monarchs did not have the same egotistical need to assert their prowess.  Despite not being built out, the plan remained important for Stockholm’s future urban design and as a record of how an 18th century absolute monarch wished to immortalize himself.  

Tessin's plan for the new urban plan surrounding the palace

The fundamental heart of Tessin’s plan was an axis between the royal palace and a newly built burial church (map 5).  This axis is formed by a straightened bridge across Helgandsholmen to Norrmalm (recalling Vallée’s earlier proposal).  Like the palace interior where the chapel and the throne room face each other across the interior courtyard, Sweden’s important axes of monarchy and religion were symbolized in Tessin’s plan where the new church and the royal palace faced each other across the water.  The other parts of the plan—the palace hill and rearrangement of Gamla Stan, the stable on Helgandsholmen, and the formal square on Norrmalm were all secondary elements to this new ceremonial axis.

On Gamla Stan in the vicinity of the palace, Tessin had to deal with a sudden change in grade of about 30 feet between the water’s edge and the palace’s southern portal.  Because the palace was no longer a castle with walls, ordinary people and goods needed to be able to negotiate this terrain, but it was critical that the area outside the palace’s southern entry be flat for ceremonial purposes.  In order to accommodate both needs, Tessin designed a very steep slope (map 6) ramping up from the water’s edge to the southern portal.  However, because several existing buildings at water level on the south side of the palace hill would be obliterated by this ramp, the southern edge of the ramp is a wall that drops into an ditch-like alley which allows access to the original buildings.  (These original buildings include Flemingska Palace #11 and Boneaus Palace #19, Palaces from the 1600’s.)  This is a bit of an awkward design move that is still confusing and misleading today. 

Tessin's awkward elevation change solution with existing palaces and the resulting ditch to the left, the grand ramp leading to the backside of the church in the middle, and the royal palace on the right.  The ramp is much steeper than it appears in this photo.

It is also anticlimactic that this imperial, ceremonial ramp is directly on axis from the water to the back side of the cathedral church (map 7), which was also in existence long before Tessin’s time.  Tessin hoped to partly alleviate this problem by re-cladding the medieval Gothic church in a classical baroque façade that matched the style of the palace.  The new facade looks more like a front door than the backside of a church and leads to confusion.

Tessin's drawing for the re-cladding of the church.  Today's church is a bit simpler than Tessin's drawing.

Tessin’s vision for Gamla Stan didn’t  end with the ramp.  He also designed three prominent buildings on the upper, flat end of the palace hill.  These buildings included a palace for himself (see #20 in my post Palaces from the 1600’s) (map 8) which was placed directly across from the royal palace’s entrance (I’m assuming that as palace architect he was entitled to some good real estate nearby),

Tessin's own palace from the south portal into the royal palace

a stock market (map 9), and a machine house (map 10) (not sure exactly what this entailed).  Not liking the medieval town hall (map 11) facing Gamla Stan’s Stortorget (“The Large Square,” the heart of Gamla Stan), Tessin also proposed to rebuild it in a classical style more in keeping with the times.  Directly west of the palace beyond the curved guard wings, Tessin designed a building to house Sweden’s Supreme Court (map 15).  And not to leave any important aspects of Swedish society or government out, he also designed a mint building (map 12) a block away.  The mint building was not built until the 1780's, and it does not appear to have been much influenced by Tessin's design (I'm not sure who the architect was).  As far as I can tell, Tessin’s own palace was the only one of these six buildings that was ever realized.

Tessin's elevation and plan drawings for the royal mint

The mint building as built in the 1780's.

At first glance, it’s hard to understand why such a prominent place and so much real estate would be devoted to the royal stables, but considering the increasing importance of cavalry in war and the king’s loss of much of the Swedish empire, it makes a bit more sense that the stables and carriage house would occupy all of Helgandsholmen (“The Holy Spirit’s Island).  The original stable had been designed by Tessin’s father, but it burned in 1696, allowing Tessin to build a showier, grander version which also included a show track and grandstand that would provide entertainment.   For me the most interesting aspect of the stable buildings is that we have a slew of Tessin’s drawings for the project as he reworked and refined it.  You can see the progress he made from the first submission to the last.  Again, however, this project was not realized and the island is now home to Sweden’s Parliament.

Tessin's drawings for the stall buildings from 1696, 1712, and 1713.

Tessin’s proposed changes on Norrmalm are perhaps the most striking part of his urban plan.  When walking from the palace to Norrmalm over the straightened, axial bridge, a person would be walking directly toward an imposing church (map 5).  Tessin proposed this church as the new burial church for the Swedish monarchs (I supposed the existing burial church on Riddarholmen was too old-fashioned for him).  It is no accident that this church strongly resembles St. Peter’s in Rome.  On a study trip to Italy several years before, Tessin had fallen in love with Michelangelo’s, Bernini’s, and Palladio’s architecture.  References to giant, powerful empires (be they papal or Roman) were just another way to shore up the king’s fallen ego.  It is also no accident that the church’s cupola and the top, residential floor of the palace were at the same height—the king and god were equally above all others in Sweden.

Tessin's elevation, plan, and section drawings for the new royal burial church

Tessin imagined the square in front of the new church to be much like Rome’s forum: a place for all to cross paths while being reminded of who is in charge.  Proportional relationships were important to Tessin’s designs, and he designed the square to have a 3:2 relationship, the ideal relationship for a city square according to Vitruvius.  Flanking the church, the two private palaces (one of which was Torstensonska Palace, #5 in my Palaces of the1600’s post) (map 13) were to be removed and classical public buildings were to take their place in order to house Stockholm’s governor and the palace office.   Various monuments and fountains were planned for the square.  While none of the buildings around this square were ever realized, they did inform the public, monumental nature of today’s Gustav Adolf’s Square.

Tessin's perspective of the church square, a monument to be placed in that square, and a plan for the replacement of the palaces that flank the square.  The perspective gives a good idea of what those palaces would have looked like in elevation.  The monument to the king implies that he is more powerful than the Egyptian empire and Hannibal.

In keeping with the theme of tearing down or recladding everything in the vicinity that wasn’t designed by Tessin and that didn’t match his classical taste, Tessin proposed that the Mäkalös Palace (see #4 in my post Palaces of the 1600’s) (map 14) be torn down in order to make way for a monumental arsenal building.  This new building would make a more fitting edge to Kungsträdgården than a private palace, and it would also house a public trophy room or victory hall so that the public could view the king’s war booty.  Again, Tessin’s design goals seem to be more rooted in inflating the King’s ego than in reality.  It’s hard to get a sense of the gigantic scale of this building from the drawing, but it is at least two city blocks long and the ceilings in the victory hall were 50 feet tall.  Tessin provided lots of space for all the war booty that was highly unlikely to ever arrive. 

Tessin's plan, elevation, and section/elevation at one of the Arsenal towers

Again, the royal palace and Tessin’s palace were the only pieces of this grand scheme to ever get built.  Due to the monarchy’s financial troubles, construction was delayed again and again, and by the time palace construction began in 1727, Tessin was on his deathbed.  Architect Carl Hårleman took over the project and completed it according to Tessins plans and also designed the palace’s interiors.  This explains why the palace’s exterior is a stricter, Baroque Classicism while the interiors reflect a later, richer French Rococo.   

My favorite part of the interior is the chapel and the droopy clouds everywhere.  I suppose that the droopy clouds represent the Holy Spirit’s all-reaching presence, but they just make me smile.  

Just a sampling of the chapel's oozing, dripping, drooping clouds.

The palace facades are currently undergoing a $36 million, 50 year renovation, which is why there is black netting and scaffolding visible in several of my exterior photos.

Some of my favorite palace details.  Left: This "wrapping" pedestal is on Tessin the Elder's north facade, but the detail is repeated on Tessin the Younger's facades as well.  Middle: This is the "left over" space between the palace's northwest wing and the arcing wing.  Right: Streetlamp and beautiful, crisp shadow.

 

Tourist tip: You can walk into the chapel for free, and I highly recommend stopping in while you explore Gamla Stan.  However, if your stay in Stockholm is short, I recommend going to Drottningholm Palace (also designed by Tessin) instead of touring this palace.  The Drottningholm Palace tour is much more extensive, the interiors are much less disturbed, and the grounds with auxiliary buildings are greatly interesting.

Ragnar Josephson’s Tessins slottsomgivning (1925/2002) was extremely helpful and unless otherwise noted, all drawing images came from this book.  All photographs are my own. Other helpful sources included Thomas Hall’s Stockholm: The Making of a Metropolis; the royal family’s website on the history of the palace: http://www.kungahuset.se/kungligaslotten/kungligaslottet/slottet/historik.4.187e1841020141a4c88000631.html and Wikipedia for filling in the gaps in my knowledge of King Karl XII and his wars: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_history#The_Great_Northern_War:_1700

Painting of the original castle from: https://www.tii.se/projects/thecastle

Vallée’s proposal image from: http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholms_slott 

Turning the Corner from the 17th to the 18th Centuries

In my next post, I will be turning the corner from the 17th to the 18th century.  But before I do, I wanted to take a minute to look at what the non-architectural cultural scene might have looked like in Stockholm during the 1600’s.

In Holland and Spain, the likes of Vermeer, Rubens, van Dyck, Rembrant, and Velazquez were painting their way through the 1600’s.  However, Sweden didn’t seem to have any heavyweights on the artistic scene.  Instead, the Swedish art world was focused on creating and decorating important buildings, and many of the period’s artists were engaged in creating murals and friezes in the new palaces instead of painting on canvas.  This was certainly the case with Johan Sylvius and David Klöcker Ehrenstrahl who were engaged in the artistic work at the new Drottningholm Palace just outside of Stockholm.   

Sylvius left and Ehrenstrahl right.

Otherwise, Swedish paintings tended to be rather formal portraits.   

Ehrenstrahl's self portrait, Michale Dahl's self portrait, and King Karl XII by David von Krafft.

Another important source of art in Sweden was war booty.  As Sweden fought and won many overseas wars throughout the 17th century, important art collections were brought back to the country.

I also have not been able to find much in the way of Swedish music from this period.  In other European countries, music composition was transitioning from Renaissance madrigals to early Baroque operas and choir pieces.  The German Heinrich Schuzt wrote the first German opera, and you can listen to one of his pieces here.  Another German, Johann Pachelbel, wrote his famous Canon in D.  Henry Purcell was the first English composer and wrote many operas.  I found that the majority of important composers during the 17th century were Italian: Marco da Galiano, Claudio Monteverdi, Girolamo Frescobaldi,  and Franceso Cavalli,  who wrote an opera in celebration of the marriage of France’s Louis XIV.

It is also interesting to note that while Sweden was expanding its territory around the Baltic Sea, Europe was expanding its horizons across the oceans.  The Dutch East India Company was founded in 1602, Jamestown in Virginia was founded in 1607, the Mayflower landed at Cape Cod in 1620, and Europeans first sighted Australia and New Zealand during the 17th century.  Other 17th century European news of note included the uniting of Scotland and England when King James VI of Scotland was crowned on the English throne.  Likewise, in 1682, Peter the Great ascended Russia’s throne.  Although literary giant Shakespeare died in 1616, both John Locke and Renee Descartes hit their philosophical strides during this time period.

I realize that this is an extremely cursory look at non-architectural culture and current events from the 1600's, but I do hope that it has painted an at least somewhat broader picture of what was going on in Sweden and Europe while Stockholm was getting its first urban plan, a new waterfront to greet the world, a new ship-building facility, and numerous new churches and palaces financed by Sweden's economic and military dominance in the Baltic region.

This Wikipedia page has info on the who’s who of Swedish art: http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svensk_konst#Ren.C3.A4ssans_och_Karolinsk_barock_.2815-_och_1600-tal.29 and http://www.last.fm/ has info on just about every composer ever.

Kungsträdgården--The King’s Garden

Kungsträdgården is perhaps Stockholm’s first example of making a park out of terrain that is impractical to build upon.  This theme was repeated many times throughout Stockholm’s history, although most of the other parks are located where granite bulbs and cliffs pop out of the earth, making the ground too rocky and jagged to build upon.  Instead of a high point, Kungsträdgården was originally a low, marshy area and the point where a creek drained into the sea.  Stockholm’s current landmass gives a hint of this: one can imagine today’s park being a low area separating Blasieholmen (map 1), which was once an island, from the mainland of Norrmalm.

Like so much of Stockholm near the water, the marshy land of Kungsträdgården was filled in quite early in the city’s history.  Already in the 1300’s there is a record of burials in the area east of St. Jacob’s Church (see Churches of the 1600’s) (map 2), and in the 1400’s, this area was used as a kitchen garden for the Castle (map 3) which was directly across the straight.  (I think it’s fun that the Swedish word for kitchen garden is kålgård, which directly translated means “cabbage garden.”  From the name you can tell exactly what a medieval Stockholmer ate!)   

In the early 1500’s, Gustav Vasa moved the royal herb garden from Gamla Stan across the water to Kungsträdgården (the street name Trädgårdsgatan or “Garden Street” just south of the Castle points to where the old herb garden had been located).  Records indicate that during Vasa’s time, in addition to herbs, onions, cucumbers, plums, and cherries were among other fruits and vegetables grown in the garden.

In 1565, Vasa’s son Erik XIV converted Kungsträdgården into a pleasure garden.  The fruits and vegetables were moved further north to Humlegården, a bit of land that was too rocky and bulby to build upon.  Erik XIV hired the French Architect Jean Allard to design the new royal pleasure garden and orangery.  Many expensive, exotic plants were transplanted into the garden, and a bit later, Gustav II Adolf brought back boxwoods after fighting in Germany. 

Queen Kristina, in 1635, gave the southernmost land adjoining the water to the Earl Jacob de la Gardie who built the Makalös palace on this land (see #4 in my post Palaces from the Time of Great Power in the 1600’s).  In 1648 the Queen hired another Frenchman, André Mollet, to convert the garden from the Renaissance to the more modern baroque style complete with almond-tree alées.  Mollet left Sweden in 1653, and Kristina abdicated the throne in 1654.  After Kristina, the kings did not have much interest in the garden and it began to decay.

However, in the late 1600’s, Queen Hedvig Eleonora hired a garden master named Johan Hårleman to restore the gardens, and by 1690, Kungsträdgården was in top shape again.  Eleonora also had a stone wall built around the garden.  This stone wall replaced a tree border and was intended to keep riff-raff out of the garden.  Visitation by anyone other than the Royal Family was by invitation only, and this was enforced by armed guards.  During the Time of Great Power, Eleonora used the stately garden to impress visiting dignitaries.  Kungsträdgården became a symbol of what Sweden was capable of.

1716 Dahlberg etching of Kungsträdgården looking southward.

Queen Hedvig Eleonora's stone wall delineated Kungsträdgården's final form and size.  Today's park consists of the area inside the stone wall plus Makalös palace's land (the palace burned in 1825). 

In the mid-1700’s, a more general public was allowed access to the park, but access was still limited to gentry and successful merchants.  The likes of maids and street urchins were, by law, excluded.  It wasn’t until Gustaf III’s death around 1795 that the park was truly open to the public.

 Over the centuries, Kungsträdgården has gained a collection of memorial statues and fountains.

Like so many of Sweden’s extravagant baroque gardens, Kungsträdgården was modernized in the early 1800’s to be more like the popular romantic English gardens with winding, “natural” paths.  Many trees were removed to allow more light into the garden and to allow for the meandering paths.  The extravagant, formal gardens were replaced with simple grass lawns and un-shaped, “natural” bushes.  The stone walls were removed to allow easier, freer access to the garden.  By 1830, the only remaining hint of the original garden was a formal alée of trees on either side of the space.

The garden became Stockholm’s favorite meeting place for all levels of society, and it remains so to this day.  However, in the mid-1800’s, the park gained a bad reputation for fights and for being the living room of the “great unwashed.”  In an attempt to take back and cleanse the park of the unwanted elements, the garden was slowly formalized again with straight axes, fountains, memorial statues, and large gravel spaces throughout the late-1800’s and early-1900’s.

This postcard from the 1900's shows the open, gravel spaces within the park.  Today's park is very similar.

Electric lighting also helped to discourage unwanted activity.

Kungsträdgården has been the site of many festivals, rallies, and protests over time, but perhaps the most famous and important was the Elm Conflict of 1971.  Throughout the 50’s and 60’s, Stockholm’s powerbrokers went on a modernization rampage.  In the city center, thousands upon thousands of historic buildings were torn down to make way for superblocks and glass office towers.  A devastating amount of Stockholm’s historic urban fabric was lost, and although many citizens fought the losses, the city’s power was too great and the citizens lost fight after fight.  I’ll be blogging more about this when I make my way to the 1900’s.

Anyway, in 1971, the city planned to raze thirteen 100+ year old elm trees in the middle of Kungsträdgården in order to make way for a new subway entrance.  Stockholmers were outraged and a well-organized resistance was planned.  Citizens camped in the grove by night and climbed up into the trees by day.  A strained peace between the police and the demonstrators reigned for several days, but when a city-hired worker with a police bodyguard fired up a chain saw and began to cut into a tree, violence broke out.  There were injuries on both the police and the demonstrators’ sides, but the end result was that the trees remained (you can still see the saw scar in one trunk).  The citizens’ victory in the Elm Conflict marks the end of Stockholm’s urban revitalization craze.  Today, the subway entrance lies on the edge of the park, and you can buy lunch from the 1950’s tea house and sit at a table in the elm grove.

It is interesting to me to note the topography around the park and how the topography has affected development.  Originally, as I mentioned above, the area was low-lying and marshy.  To the east of the park, the rising elevation as you leave the park isn’t so noticeable, but just to the west of Kungsträdgården, streets rise steeply.  Within a short block, street level is about 20 or 25 feet higher than in the park.   

the elevation change from the park westward

On the eastern, gently-rising side of the park, imposing, richly-detailed buildings from the 1800’s dominate.

But on the western, sharply-rising side, modern buildings from the 1950’s and 60’s mediate the difference in elevation.  Just behind the modern buildings and up on the embankment lie older, statelier facades.  

Today, Kungsträdgården bustles with activity.  Every day of the year there is some sort of public event—a Christmas market and ice skating in the winter, cultural festivals throughout the spring, concerts and entertainment events all summer, and more cultural food festivals in the fall.  

The park's large bandstand.

Children splash in the pool on warmer days,

Talk about multi-use: the fountains are also planters and lights.

office workers eat picnic lunches in the sun, and retired men play chess under the trees.  

On the weekends, the park’s many cafes and food stands are busy round the clock.  Some of the cities most beautiful flower gardens lie within the park, and flower displays change with the seasons.  

fall flowers

Other than to play, Stockholmers come to Kungsträdgården to eat.  In the warmer months, the many cafes and restaurants that ring the park are swarming with people sitting outside in the sun.  The park has several beautifully designed restaurants:

A newer addition to Kungsträdgården.  Several of these glass pavilions were recently built on the east side of the park, shielding the park from the moderately busy road.  The facades facing the park are all glass while the road-side facade is more closed except for large, pop-up windows (right).  The slightly bowed roof form reminds me of pagodas (left).  Translucent awnings filter the western sun (middle).   

 and some not-so-inspiring restaurants:

Kungsträdgården, due to a combination of its central location, busy entertainment calendar, and many eateries, is one of Stockholm’s most successful urban environments.

Many of the above facts were culled from:

http://www.norrmalm.myor.se/studier/kungstradgarden.html and http://www.kungstradgarden.se/web/Historia.aspx

All images are my own except for the historical images which came from: http://www.norrmalm.myor.se/studier/kungstradgarden.html