The age of greatness
As a European great power Sweden needed palaces, churches and towns that could stand comparison with those of the Continent. The Tessins brought the Roman and French Baroque to Stockholm.
In the first half of the 17th century the impulses came from the Netherlands: brick with pale stone details, and new towns such as Gothenburg, founded in 1621 with canals on the Dutch model. The House of Nobility, the assembly house of the nobility, was built from the 1640s with a säteri roof and pilasters.
Nicodemus Tessin the Elder designed Drottningholm and Kalmar Cathedral, and after the fire of 1697 his son Tessin the Younger designed a new Stockholm Palace, a Swedish interpretation of Roman palace architecture. The palace was not finished until 1754.
Out in the country the nobility built manor houses and palaces. The säteri roof, with a vertical row of windows between two roof slopes, became a Swedish hallmark.