The museum building itself is an experience during your visit to Nordiska museet, the Nordic Museum. Here are ten highlights and details to discover in this impressive palace.
Built as a Museum in the Late 19th Century
You are stepping into a building that was designed and constructed to be Nordiska museet, the Nordic Museum. It has never had any other purpose or name. Designed by architect Isak Gustaf Clason, the museum took a long time to complete, from the architectural competition in 1883 until its inauguration in 1907.
The architecture draws inspiration from medieval castles, Danish Renaissance, and 19th-century European museums: a monumental building with gallery floors arranged around a vast central hall.
Refined for Our Time and the Future
In the 21st century, the building has been carefully restored, refined, and improved to ensure long-term sustainability and accessibility for today’s and tomorrow’s visitors.
An Architectural Landmark
The grand structure, stretching 153 metres and crowned with a golden spire reaching 81 metres above the ground, is visible from afar across the city.
High up on the gables are the coats of arms of the Nordic countries. Atop the gables, a medieval knight and a 17th-century warrior stand guard over the museum. Up close, unique details reveal themselves. Here are ten highlights to discover during your visit.
Highlights
1
Entrance and Art Portal from the West
1
Entrance and Art Portal from the West
In June 2020, the new entrance and the artwork Two Directions were unveiled. The entrance is located at ground level in the museum’s courtyard and was designed by architect Lone-Pia Bach, Bach Arkitekter.
The artistic design of the portal is by Finnish-Sámi artist Outi Pieski, inspired by a Sámi spoon in the museum’s collections. Marja Helander’s video work Birds in the Earth guides you into the museum.
Foto: Helena Bonnevier, Nordiska museet
2
The Main Entrance Portal, from the East
2
The Main Entrance Portal, from the East
This monumental portal was completed just in time for the inauguration in 1907, in classical antique architectural forms. Its columns, decorated with hazel and rowan, rest on six pedestals with reliefs by sculptor Carl Eldh. Beneath each image are inscriptions with mottos written by author August Strindberg.
At the top of the gable sits the Norse god Odin. In the triangular section below, people are depicted handing over objects to the museum. At the centre stands a female muse figure, personifying the museum and receiving the people’s gifts. Decorations also include squirrels – symbols of “the gatherers,” the founder Hazelius’s assistants in the museum’s collecting work.
You now enter a vestibule beneath an overwhelming star vault. In the limestone floor you see squares and circles, the geometric shapes that form the quatrefoil, the symbol featured in the museum’s logotype. It appears in both the original seal and the museum’s logo created for the 150th anniversary in 2023.
The grilles covering the old warm-air ducts are decorated with either a globe showing the Nordic region, or an owl and an oil lamp – symbols of wisdom, insight, and enlightenment. upplysning.
Foto: Okänd/ Nordiska museet, NMA.0044862
4
The Capitals’ Ornamentation
4
The Capitals’ Ornamentation
Look up at the columns in the staircases leading left and right from the vestibule. Their capitals are decorated with motifs from Nordic flora and fauna: lynx, wolf, and bear, pine and spruce. You can also find scenes of life and work in the Nordic countries – a farmer’s wife churning butter, a farmer mowing with a scythe.
The stonemason Oskar Sundström, who carved much of the ornamentation, is also portrayed here.avbildad.
Foto: Karolina Kristensson, Nordiska museet
5
The Great Hall
5
The Great Hall
The sheer scale of the 126.5-metre-long hall with its 24-metre-high ceiling is overwhelming. The hall was designed for large public festivities. The lanterns (glass domes) in the ceiling provided the only lighting until electric lights were installed in the 1930s (which is why the museum was once closed during the darkest months). In the star vault you can see three crowns, the symbol of the Swedish nation.
You can count 68 columns of Kolmården marble. In the central hall, finely dressed Mölnbo marble dominates. The large wall surfaces are plaster – the original plan was to paint them with scenes from Nordic history, but the prevailing taste of the time favoured simplicity, inspired by the light plastered walls of the Vasa era.
The patterned floor, made of red Öland limestone with grey inserts from Närke, is laid out in fields reflecting the hall’s architecture. The wine-red limestone has since inspired the colour palette of the museum’s graphic profile. In the floor you can also see a compass rose and symbols for elements, minerals, and earth types. For a long time, the floors were cleaned daily with wood shavings soaked in oil and wide mops to give them a dark, glossy finish.
Foto: Jonas Lindström / Nordiska museet
6
The Gustav Vasa Sculpture
6
The Gustav Vasa Sculpture
The six-metre-high oak sculpture of King Gustav Vasa by Carl Milles stands bathed in light and painted by Olga Milles. It marks the museum’s focus on the period from 1523 onwards.
At first, a temporary plaster version of an older Gustav Vasa was made for the 1907 inauguration. When a permanent sculpture was commissioned, Milles insisted on portraying the king younger and more vigorous. The oak version was unveiled in 1925.
It is said that a piece of an oak tree planted by Gustav Vasa himself at Rydboholm Castle is placed inside the king’s forehead.
Foto: Mats Landin/ Nordiska museet
7
The Glass Dome
7
The Glass Dome
Look up! In the apse directly above Gustav Vasa is the building’s only painted lantern, decorated with a North Star radiating beams of light. On the wall below are the mottos of several Swedish monarchs.
Foto: Peter Segemark, Nordiska museet
8
The Jubilee Lift
8
The Jubilee Lift
From the very beginning, the museum had modern innovations for its time, including lifts – each with space for a conductor and a few visitors. Today, a spacious new lift complements the building’s two smaller originals. It takes you from the Great Hall up to the exhibitions. With its exposed mechanics, the lift nods to Isak Gustaf Clason’s fascination with engineering. Look closely and you’ll spot the quatrefoil motif here as well.
The word “Lift” (“Hiss” in Swedish) uses the same characteristic typography as the original engravings in the building. Its muted olive-green colour is drawn from steel doors found throughout the building.
The Jubilee Lift was designed by Fahlander Arkitekter in collaboration with the County Administrative Board of Stockholm. It was inaugurated on the museum’s 150th anniversary, 24 October 2023, by the Minister for Culture.
Foto: Emil Fagander / Nordiska museet
9
The Coronation Gallery
9
The Coronation Gallery
Opposite the Gustav Vasa sculpture is the so-called Coronation Gallery, an extension of the first gallery level (floor 3). The balustrade facing the hall is adorned with remarkable decoration – above it hang two coronation cloths, magnificent textiles carved in pale marble. The design suggests that royalty were intended to take part in public festivities in the hall from this gallery.
Here you also find a narrow wooden gallery with spiral staircases leading up to the higher galleries (floor 4). The name Coronation Gallery comes from the fact that the Royal Armoury (Livrustkammaren) was temporarily housed in the Nordic Museum, exhibiting coronation robes and regalia here.
Foto: Emil Fagander/ Nordiska museet
10
The Jubilee Bridge
10
The Jubilee Bridge
In 2023, when the Nordic Museum celebrated its 150th anniversary, preparations were made for the Nordbor exhibition spanning the entire top floor. The Jubilee Bridge now makes this level fully accessible. From here you can look out across the Great Hall in the west, and through a large window towards the water in the east. For many years this window was covered.
The bridge is designed as a suspension bridge, inspired by engineering, in raw steel with details from the museum’s typographic history. Its railing pattern features the quatrefoil symbol. The white colour is drawn from the plastered walls of the Great Hall.
The Jubilee Bridge was designed by Fahlander Arkitekter in collaboration with the County Administrative Board of Stockholm. It was inaugurated on the museum’s 150th anniversary, 24 October 2023, by the Minister for Culture.
