Carl Fredrik Adelcrantz
Adelcrantz designed the Chinese Pavilion, the Drottningholm Palace Theatre and the Adolf Fredrik Church in Stockholm. He moved from the Rococo towards neoclassicism and headed the Office of the Superintendent, which reviewed all public buildings in the realm.
Carl Fredrik Adelcrantz was born in Stockholm in 1716, the son of the architect Göran Josua Adelcrantz, one of Tessin the Younger’s closest collaborators. He studied at Uppsala and took a post in the civil service, but soon turned to architecture. In about 1739–1743 he travelled in Germany, France and Italy to study architecture. On his return he worked on the Royal Palace in Stockholm under Carl Hårleman, where he learned the art of Rococo interior decoration and gained insight into the royal building works. He became court intendant and in 1767 succeeded Hårleman’s successor as Superintendent, a post he held until 1795. He was later made a baron.
Adelcrantz often worked for Queen Lovisa Ulrika and Gustav III. He designed the new Chinese Pavilion in the park at Drottningholm, 1763–1769, where Chinese motifs are mixed with French Rococo. The Drottningholm Palace Theatre, 1764–1766, is a plain building on the outside but houses one of the best-preserved 18th-century theatres in the world, with working stage machinery. The Adolf Fredrik Church in Stockholm, 1768–1774, has a central plan and a dome. He also designed Gustav III’s opera house on Gustav Adolfs torg, inaugurated in 1782 and demolished in 1891. Over the course of his career his formal language moved from the playfulness of the Rococo towards the stricter order of neoclassicism, particularly evident in the austere façade of the opera house.
For many years Adelcrantz was president of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, and as Superintendent he had great influence over all public building in Sweden, since the Office of the Superintendent reviewed the designs for churches and other buildings throughout the realm. He died in 1796. His work at Drottningholm is today part of the World Heritage Site, and the Palace Theatre is still used for opera with its original sets and machinery, something unique in the world. The Chinese Pavilion was restored in several stages during the 20th century. Adelcrantz is regarded as the most important architect of the transition from Rococo to Gustavian neoclassicism, and through him Gustav III’s passion for theatre and opera was given an architectural setting.