Kalmar Cathedral

Kalmar Cathedral, Kalmar
W. Bulach, CC BY-SA 4.0

Tessin the Elder designed the cathedral in the new Kalmar after the Roman Baroque, with four corner towers and façades that resemble temple fronts. It was built of limestone from Öland and is one of the most important church buildings of Sweden’s age as a great power.

When Kalmar was moved to Kvarnholmen after a fire in 1647, the new town needed a church that showed the importance of the diocese and the realm. Nicodemus Tessin the Elder had studied in Italy and France and brought with him the order and weight of the Roman Baroque. Building began in 1660 and went on for over forty years, and the church was completed in 1703.

The cathedral has the form of a Greek cross, extended with apses, and has four corner towers. A large dome was planned over the crossing but never built. Inside, the space is light and tall, with an altarpiece designed by Tessin the Younger. The church is one of the few wholly Baroque church buildings in Sweden and shows how the age of greatness wanted to give the country an architecture of European standing.