Carl Hårleman

Hårleman directed the completion of the Royal Palace in Stockholm after Tessin’s death and brought the Rococo to its interiors. He also rebuilt Svartsjö Palace and designed manor houses and churches across the country.

Carl Hårleman was born in Stockholm in 1700, the son of the garden architect Johan Hårleman, who worked in the royal gardens. He learned architecture from Göran Josua Adelcrantz, Tessin the Younger’s assistant on the palace project. In the early 1720s he travelled to Paris, where he studied architecture and ornament, and went on to Italy. On these journeys he became acquainted with the new French style that would soon develop into the Rococo. After his return in 1727 he was given responsibility for the work on the Royal Palace in Stockholm, which had long been almost at a standstill. He became court intendant and, in 1741, Superintendent, and he was ennobled and later made a baron.

Hårleman’s most important achievement was the completion of the Royal Palace in Stockholm. He did not alter Tessin’s exterior but created interiors in the French Rococo style, and to have them executed he recruited a group of French artists and craftsmen to Stockholm in the 1730s. The royal family was able to move in in 1754, the year after his death. He rebuilt Svartsjö Palace on Färingsö and designed manor houses such as Åkerö in Södermanland and Övedskloster in Skåne, the latter built only after his death. He also designed churches, institutions and the Celsius Observatory in Uppsala. His architecture is calm and well proportioned on the outside, with rendered façades and mansard roofs, while the Rococo was allowed to flourish indoors.

Hårleman died in 1753. He helped found the drawing academy in Stockholm that became the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, and he passed on the French knowledge he had acquired. The French craftsmen he brought to Sweden trained Swedish pupils, giving the country its own tradition of Rococo interior decoration and furniture making. His type of manor house, a two-storey building with a mansard roof and wings, became the model for hundreds of Swedish manor houses and rectories in the 18th century. He was a close friend of Carl Linnaeus and Anders Celsius and active in the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Through his role as Superintendent he also governed the design of public buildings throughout the realm during the Age of Liberty.