Nicodemus Tessin d.y.
In his youth Tessin the Younger travelled in Italy and France and got to know Bernini and Versailles. His principal work is the Royal Palace in Stockholm, a Roman palace in a Nordic capital. He also designed the Tessin Palace and replanned the whole of central Stockholm, in plans that never came to fruition.
Nicodemus Tessin the Younger was born in Nyköping in 1654, the son of the architect Nicodemus Tessin the Elder, who gave him his first training. With the support of the Dowager Queen Hedvig Eleonora he travelled in 1673 to Rome, where he stayed for several years, studied antiquity and contemporary architecture and got to know Bernini and Carlo Fontana. He then spent time in Paris and followed the work at Versailles. A later journey in the 1680s renewed his contacts with France and Italy. When his father died in 1681, Tessin the Younger took over his post as palace architect and completed Drottningholm, Kalmar Cathedral and the Caroline burial chapel, while also designing the park at Drottningholm.
Tessin’s principal work is the Royal Palace in Stockholm. He began remodelling the old Tre Kronor castle in the 1690s, and after the fire of 1697 he designed an entirely new palace. It takes the form of a Roman palace around a square courtyard, with flat roofs, austere façades and rich interiors by French artists and craftsmen. Construction continued until 1754. He also designed his own Tessin Palace on Slottsbacken, 1694–1700, with a small Baroque garden, as well as Steninge Palace. He drew up grand plans for central Stockholm with squares, a church and bridges, and a proposal for the Louvre in Paris. His architecture combines Roman monumentality and French elegance.
Tessin the Younger became a member of the Council of the Realm, a count and Superintendent, and was one of the most powerful men in Caroline Sweden. War and financial problems, however, meant that work on the palace stood still for long periods, and his town plans remained on paper. He died in 1728, and Carl Hårleman was left to complete the palace. Tessin’s collections of drawings, engravings and art passed to his son Carl Gustaf Tessin and today form a central part of the Nationalmuseum’s collections. He is regarded as Sweden’s foremost Baroque architect, and the palace remains the country’s largest secular building of the period. His view of architecture as the state’s foremost art form long shaped the Swedish building office and teaching at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts.