The House of Nobility is completed

The nobility’s assembly hall on Riddarholmen is completed after more than thirty years of building, in Dutch classicism with a säteri roof.

The House of Nobility reflects the ambitions of Sweden’s age of greatness and became the model for the palaces of the nobility.

In 1626 Gustavus Adolphus gave the nobility an ordinance that organised it as a separate estate in the Riksdag, with the families divided into classes according to rank. During Sweden’s age of greatness the nobility grew rapidly, as kings and Queen Christina ennobled officers, officials and foreign soldiers and granted them estates. The nobility was the leading estate of the realm, and it needed a building for its meetings during the Riksdag and to display its standing. Construction began in the 1640s to designs by the French architect Simon de la Vallée, who, however, died as early as 1642. The work then took a long time, since it was to be paid for by the nobility itself and the money often ran out.

Over the years several architects were involved, but it was the Dutchman Justus Vingboons who in the 1650s gave the façades their form, with giant Corinthian pilasters rising through two storeys that give the building a calm and dignified elevation. The façades are of brick with sandstone details. Jean de la Vallée, Simon’s son, designed the curved säteri roof that crowns the building. The house stands on its own plot by the Riddarholm Canal, surrounded by a garden. The walls of the great hall inside are covered with the coats of arms of the noble families, and the ceiling was painted by David Klöcker Ehrenstrahl with an allegory of the glory of Sweden and the virtues of the nobility.

In the 17th century the House of Nobility became one of the buildings that shaped the Stockholm of the age of greatness, and its säteri roof became the noble roof par excellence, repeated on palaces and manor houses all over the country. But the political power of the nobility gradually waned, and with the parliamentary reform of 1866 the Riksdag of the Estates was dissolved. Since then the House of Nobility has served as the nobility’s own association, managing the building, the families’ genealogical records and foundations. Since 2003 it has no longer had any status in public law. The hall is used for concerts and events, and the building is regarded as one of Stockholm’s most beautiful works of 17th-century architecture. Outside, on Riddarhustorget, a statue of Gustav Vasa has stood since the 18th century.