Explore Drottningholm

Drottningholm Palace Theatre is the court theatre of Drottningholm Palace, completed in 1766 to designs by Carl Fredrik Adelcrantz for Queen Lovisa Ulrika. Its auditorium, original stage sets and 18th-century stage machinery survive and are still used for a summer opera season; guided tours lead through the auditorium and the rooms of the theatre building.

Drottningholm Palace stands on the island of Lovön in Lake Mälaren and was built from 1662 to designs by Nicodemus Tessin the Elder for the Dowager Queen Hedvig Eleonora. The royal family lives in the southern wing, while the state rooms, the Baroque garden and the park are open to visitors; the royal domain has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1991.

Sven-Harry's Art Museum opened in 2011 in a brass-clad building by Wingårdh Arkitektkontor beside Vasaparken, founded by the builder Sven-Harry Karlsson. The lower floors hold an exhibition hall; the top floor recreates his 1770s home Ekholmsnäs on Lidingö with works by Carl Fredrik Hill, Helene Schjerfbeck and Anders Zorn, and the roof terrace has sculptures.

Stockholm City Hall is the seat of Stockholm Municipality on the eastern tip of Kungsholmen, built from 1911 to 1923 of nearly eight million red bricks to designs by Ragnar Östberg. It can be visited only on guided tours, which lead through the Blue Hall, where the Nobel banquet is held, the Golden Hall, the Council Chamber and the Prince's Gallery.

Riddarholmen Church is the former church of a Franciscan friary founded on Riddarholmen around 1270, and the burial church of Swedish monarchs from Gustavus Adolphus to Gustaf V. Its cast-iron spire replaced one destroyed by lightning in 1835, and its walls carry the coats of arms of deceased knights of the Order of the Seraphim.

Avicii Experience is a museum about the Swedish music producer Tim Bergling, known as Avicii, opened in February 2022 in the Space building at Sergels torg, one floor below street level. Created with his family after his death in 2018, it shows a reconstruction of his childhood room and objects and photos from his life, and covers mental health among young people.

Storkyrkan, also called Stockholm Cathedral or the Church of St Nicholas, is the oldest church in Stockholm, standing in Gamla stan between the Royal Palace and Stortorget. Dedicated in 1306 and given its Baroque exterior in the 18th century, it keeps a brick-vaulted Gothic interior with a late medieval St George and the Dragon and the painting Vädersolstavlan.

The Nobel Prize Museum occupies the former Stock Exchange Building on Stortorget in Gamla stan, built in the 1770s. Opened in 2001 for the centenary of the prize, it presents Alfred Nobel and the laureates through objects they donated, films and changing exhibitions; the Swedish Academy also has its rooms in the building.

Stortorget is the oldest square in Stockholm, at the centre of Gamla stan, the medieval old town. Tall gabled merchant houses painted red and ochre line its south and west sides, and the 18th-century Stock Exchange Building on the north side houses the Swedish Academy and the Nobel Prize Museum. A Christmas market fills the square each winter.

The German Church in Gamla stan grew from the 14th-century guildhall of St Gertrude and was enlarged into a two-nave church by Hans Jakob Kristler in 1638–1643. After a fire in 1878, Berlin architect Julius Raschdorff built the present brick tower and copper spire, 96 metres tall. Inside are a Baroque altar and a royal gallery designed by Nicodemus Tessin the Elder.

Stockholm Palace is the official residence of the Swedish monarch, standing in Gamla stan on the site of Tre Kronor Castle, which burned in 1697. Designed by Nicodemus Tessin the Younger and completed under Carl Hårleman in 1754, it holds the Royal Apartments, the Hall of State, the Treasury with the state regalia and the Museum Three Crowns.

The Royal Armoury, founded in 1628 when Gustav II Adolf ordered his campaign clothes to be kept, is Sweden's oldest museum and lies in the cellar vaults of Stockholm Palace. It shows armour, coronation robes, the king's clothes from the battle of Lützen, his stuffed horse Streiff and royal carriages.

The Swedish Museum of Natural History grew from the collections of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and became a museum in 1819. Its domed brick building in Frescati, designed by Axel Anderberg, was completed in 1916. Exhibitions cover animals, plants, fossils, minerals and human evolution, and the Cosmonova dome cinema, added in 1993, is Sweden's largest planetarium.

The Hallwyl Museum occupies Hallwyl House at Hamngatan 4, a town house finished in 1898 for Count Walther and Countess Wilhelmina von Hallwyl. The couple left the house and its contents to the Swedish state in 1920 and it opened as a museum in 1938, showing a private home of about 1900 and the countess's 50,000-object collections of paintings, arms, porcelain and silver.

Nationalmuseum is Sweden's museum of art and design, founded in 1792 and housed since 1866 in a building by Friedrich August Stüler on Blasieholmen, facing the Royal Palace across the water. About 5,000 paintings, sculptures and design objects are shown along a chronological route, and the building reopened in 2018 after a five-year renovation.

The Swedish Museum of Performing Arts covers music, theatre, puppetry and dance and has been housed since 1979 in the former Crown Bakery, a 17th-century building on Sibyllegatan next to the Royal Stables and the oldest industrial building in Stockholm. Its collections include more than 6,000 instruments from the early 17th century onward, stage costumes, masks and marionettes.

The Swedish Army Museum occupies the 18th-century arsenal buildings of Artillerigården in Östermalm, a site used by the artillery since the 17th century. Opened in 1879 as the Artillery Museum, it traces Swedish military history from the Middle Ages to modern neutrality through weapons, uniforms, trophies and life-size scenes of soldiers and civilians.

Moderna Museet is Sweden's state museum of modern and contemporary art, opened in 1958 on the island of Skeppsholmen. Its present building by Rafael Moneo opened in 1998. The collection includes works by Picasso, Dalí, Duchamp, Matisse, Louise Bourgeois and Rauschenberg, and an outdoor sculpture park holds pieces by Calder, Tinguely and Niki de Saint Phalle.

Fotografiska is a museum of photography that opened in May 2010 in Stora Tullhuset, a brick customs house on Stadsgårdshamnen in Södermalm built in 1906–1910 to designs by Ferdinand Boberg. It has no permanent collection and shows changing exhibitions of photographers, from Annie Leibovitz at the opening to Anton Corbijn and Helen Levitt, with a restaurant on the top floor.

Junibacken on Djurgården is a children's attraction devoted to Swedish children's books, above all those of Astrid Lindgren, opened in 1996. A small train rides through scenes from her stories to a reconstruction of Pippi Longstocking's Villa Villekulla; there is also a square of houses for other authors, a theatre and a children's bookshop.