STOCKHOLM. – Capital of the Kingdom of Sweden, S. (Stockholm in Swedish), on the western shore of the Baltic Sea, where the slow action of glaciation has created a tangle of lakes, islands, and peninsulas, canals, and rivers that gives the locality a distinctive physiognomy.
Around the year 1100, the mouth of Lake Mälaren was already fortified, and on the hill of the island stood two fortifications to oversee the two watercourses now called Norström and Söderström. Around the middle of the 13th century, Birger Jarl built his royal castle, the first city walls, and outside them the two long streets, one of which still survives: Västersånggatan (the long western street) running from north to south of S. To his time also dates the first construction of the church of St. Nicholas, the oldest in S. (Storkyrkan). It was erected around 1250, rebuilt in 1306 as a three-aisled structure with a wooden roof; in 1340 a chapel dedicated to the Blessed Virgin was added; at the beginning of the 15th century, five bays were added to the eastern side, and along the walls a series of chapels, while inside all the vaults were brought to the same height; by the end of the same century the aisles were extended to five, with the chapels demolished; in the mid-16th century King Gustav Vasa demolished the raised choir; and at the beginning of the 18th century the exterior was unified to match the royal castle. The tower dates from around 1740; the interior was reduced in Baroque style; here is the wooden group of St. George executed by Bernt Nöte of Lübeck in 1489. The silver and ebony altarpiece with Baroque decorations is the work of E. Erdmüller of Hamburg; the great candelabrum of the choir is from northern Germany of the 15th century; the paintings of the Crucifixion and the Last Judgment are by David Klöcker Ehrenstrahl, around 1695. The sumptuous royal stalls were designed in 1684 in Italian style by Nicodemus Tessin the Younger; so too, around 1700, was the pulpit. The baptismal font dates from 1514 and comes from Uppland. The church is now used for Protestant worship.
The church of Riddarholmen belongs to the Franciscans and was founded with the attached convent around 1270. The original church was bounded to the south by a wall divided at the bottom by niches, beyond which lay a cloister, founded and endowed by King Magnus Ladulås, who is crudely depicted in a fresco. The cloister was enlarged in the 15th century and connected to the central nave by arches. The church, now occupied by Protestants, presents itself as a three-aisled structure with an elongated choir; four round pillars separate the central nave from the northern aisle, while four rectangular pillars separate it from the southern aisle. Near the choir are the tombs of Kings Charles Knutsson and Magnus Ladulås. Of the ancient church is the pointed vaulted porch on the north side. Around the church between the 17th and 19th centuries a series of funerary chapels were built; to the south those of the dynasties of Gustavus (c. 1630) and Bernadotte (1860); to the north of the choir the Carolinian chapel designed by the Tessins and C. Härleman (1671–1743); further west, the Banér chapel.
Around 1400 the city walls were extended to include Riddarholmen and Helgeandsholmen, where the Parliament Building now stands; around 1500 date the two cylindrical towers, one in the building of the Svea Court of Appeal and the other, called Birger Jarl’s Tower, in that of the municipal archives. To the west of the Riddarholmen church the remains of the ancient Franciscan cloister can be identified, and in the southern part of the city the ruins of the Dominican cloister were found. But the old city was repeatedly devastated by fires that destroyed the then wooden houses, replaced only in the 16th century by brick buildings inspired by the architecture of northern Saxony and France. The period of great construction, however, was the 17th century. Then the church of St. James, begun at the end of the 16th century during the reign of John II, was completed; around 1640 the so-called German church was erected on the site of a guildhall; here the silver baptismal font comes from Augsburg. Between 1630 and 1640, the great governor of S., Clas Fleming, after the fire of 1625, laid out plans for the expansion of the city within boundaries that remained until the beginning of the 20th century. The most notable example of the architecture of the period in S. is the Palace of the Nobility, with its pillared façade, the work of the Dutchman Justus Vingboons; it was finished by Johan de la Vallée, to whom is also owed the Palace of Axel Oxenstierna near the Castle and, together with Nicodemus Tessin—whose son, also Nicodemus, introduced Italian Baroque to S.—the Old State Bank building, the town hall, and the construction of the new Castle, completed by his son Carl Gustaf Tessin, C. Härleman, and C. J. Adelcrantz; the latter two erected the monumental North Bridge. The Palace of the Grand Governor was built around 1700 by Nicodemus Tessin the Younger, who succeeded in blending motifs of Italian Baroque with the Swedish climate; his collaborators for the interior included the Frenchmen De Maux, J. Fouquet, and E. Chauveau. Around 1770 the architects C. J. Cronstedt and E. Palmstedt erected the Stock Exchange in Rococo style.
New plans for the development of S. were made by A. Lindhagen in 1869, with the new districts of Strandvägen, Norr Mälarstrand, the large parks of Kronobergsparken and Tantolunden, the Riksdag House, the new Opera House, later the Dramatic Theatre, the Nordic Museum (1888–1907), the Stadium (1912), the Law Courts (1915), the new Town Hall (1923), the work of Ragnar Östberg, the Lärkstaden district with the Engelbrekt Church, up to the modern districts of Rödbargsstaden, Atlas, and Rörstrand; the Concert Hall (1923–26), the School of Business and the Southern Bank are works by Ivar Tengbom; the Municipal Library, inspired by Egyptian motifs, is by E. G. Asplund.
The Catholic parish churches currently in S. are those of St. Henry, in the northern part of the city (Götgatan), where the apostolic vicariate also has its seat; attached is a parish school run by the Poor School Sisters of Munich; and that of St. Eugenia on Norra Smedjegatan, founded in 1835 in the southern part of the city, with an attached parish school run by the Josephine Sisters of Chambéry. There are also the two kindergartens of Oscar Minne and Jozef-Frankfurt run by the Sisters of St. Elizabeth; the French Sisters of St. Joseph run a girls’ high school. For 25 years the Dominican Friars of the Paris province have had the church dedicated to Our Lady under the title of the Annunciation. The German Salesians have, since 1931, a small school and a chapel. The Dominican Tertiaries of the motherhouse in Fribourg, Switzerland, opened a hospice in S. in 1931. The Sisters of St. Bridget, with their motherhouse in Rome, opened a house in Djursholm, near S., in 1923. The Sisters of St. Elizabeth opened a small hospital in S. in 1926.
Main libraries include the Royal Library, rich in manuscripts such as the *Codex aureus holmiensis*, an evangelary from the second half of the 8th century from the *Studium* of Canterbury; the Sacramentary of St Amandus of Anglo-Saxon school from the 10th century; the famous Codex gigas, etc. Other notable libraries are those of the Karolinska Institut for medicine, of the Riksdag for history and law, and the Nobel Library in the Svenska Akademie for contemporary literature. In 1972 the Karolinska Mediko-Kirurgiska Institut was founded; in 1978 the Tekniska Högskole, a higher school with eight sections for scientific propedeutics, architecture, chemistry, electrical engineering, civil engineering, hydraulics, mechanical engineering, mining, and naval engineering; in 1982 the Skogshögskola for the study of forests; in 1987 the Stockholma Högskola of university character; and also the Higher School of Commerce. The *Kungliga Akademie för de fria Konsterna* was founded in 1735 by C. G. Tessin to develop artistic education and later became the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. The *Kungliga Vetenskapsakademien* for the promotion of natural and mathematical sciences was established in 1739 and is divided into eleven sections. In 1736 the *Kungliga Vitterhets Historie och Antikvitets Akademie* was instituted for history and archaeology. It consists of 25 academicians and publishes the *Antikvarisk Tidskrift*. In 1786 King Gustav III founded the *Svenska Akademie*, or Academy of the Eighteen, named for the number of its members, for literature. In 1895 Alfred Bernhard Nobel founded the *Nobelstiftelse* with an endowment of 30 million crowns to award annually five prizes to those who have most distinguished themselves in the fields of physics, chemistry, medicine, literature, and for the promotion of peace. The foundation is governed by a board of directors; the prizes for physics and chemistry are awarded by the Academy of Sciences of Stockholm, that for literature by the Swedish Academy, and that for peace by the Norwegian *Storting*. The Egyptian Museum, founded in 1928, contains a certain number of Egyptian antiquities belonging to the State; material from the Austro-Swedish exploration of 1931–32 in the western delta of the Nile at Merinde Beni-Salame; funerary objects, stone and alabaster vases, jewellery, scarabs, and the large statue of a Middle Kingdom king, perhaps Sesostris II. The Nordic Museum, inaugurated in 1873, was ordered by A. Hazelius to illustrate Swedish culture with an ethnographic collection of the Swedish provinces and a history of the civilisation of the upper classes over the last four centuries. The Skansen Museum is an open-air museum in Djurgården; it was opened in 1891 and displays all the characteristics of Swedish folklore. The State Historical Museum and the Royal Coin Cabinet were established as early as 1670 to give an exact idea of the history of civilisation in Sweden, from prehistory to the Middle Ages. The National Museum is the State Art Museum. It was begun under King Gustav Vasa but developed in 1777 with the collections of Queen Louisa Ulrica and King Adolph Frederick. The Museum comprises painting and sculpture with a section for the Far East. The Royal Armoury in the Nordic Museum contains a general collection of arms and samples of Swedish manufacture, as well as a collection of State trophies. The Hallwyl Museum in the Omnino Palace (1893–99) contains about 400 paintings, especially of the Dutch school of the 17th century, over 600 pieces of porcelain from various European countries, and 600 Chinese ceramics, Chinese bronzes, and artistic furniture, illustrated in a descriptive catalogue of over 40 volumes. The Free University of Stockholm contains a collection of paintings by Italian, French, Dutch, and Swedish artists of various periods; this collection, donated by several benefactors, is intended to supplement the teaching of art history. The Thiel Gallery contains the largest collection of Swedish art from the end of the last century to the beginning of the present one. For the Pancristian Conference of Stockholm from 19 to 30 Aug. 1925,