The railway and the masonry city
The railway, industry and migration to the towns transformed Sweden. The masonry city grew up with rendered Neo-Renaissance façades, and the great public buildings dressed in historical styles.
The Nationalmuseum in Stockholm, designed by the German architect Friedrich August Stüler and opened in 1866, was the great monument of the age, a museum in a Neo-Renaissance on northern Italian models.
Helgo Zettervall designed the main building of Lund University, completed in 1882, and restored cathedrals so drastically that he sparked a debate about how old buildings should be cared for.
The State Railways gave the country station buildings from standard designs and new railway towns, and the Building Ordinance of 1874 required stone in town centres.