Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00Palaces, the most spectacular and lavish homes on earth.
00:12Luxuriously designed for the royals who wanted the biggest and the best.
00:18Behind the golden gates of these royal megastructures are incredible stories waiting to be discovered.
00:25Infamous monarchs from history and the artists, designers and engineers who turned their grand visions into a reality.
00:36These are the most opulent, flamboyant and innovative royal residences around the world.
00:43This time, constructed on the site of a former castle, the Royal Palace of Stockholm has 1400 rooms spread over three main floors and covers almost 300 years of design.
01:00From Baroque, through Rococo, to the present day.
01:05Making it one of the world's greatest palaces.
01:09The Royal Palace of Stockholm
01:12Measuring 230 meters long and 125 meters wide, the Royal Palace of Stockholm may look perfectly rectangular and uniform from the outside, but the rooms within are anything but.
01:38Located in the centre of Sweden's capital city, the sumptuous palace has been the official residence of the Swedish monarchy for over 250 years.
01:49Lars Lundström is the head curator at the Royal Palace of Stockholm.
02:02Lars Lundström is the head curator at the Royal Palace.
02:07To say what makes Stockholm unique is a difficult question actually because every royal palace, every royal house is unique in its way.
02:18The Swedes tend to think of ourselves as a modern nation and the general picture of Sweden has got a lot more to do with modernity than with history.
02:29When you look a little bit beneath the surface, there is very, very much that has been handed down through the generations.
02:37And that kind of continuity, although reshaped, steeped in a new way, still characterises Sweden very much.
02:44Kings and queens of Sweden called the Royal Palace home until 1982, when the current king, Karl XVI Gustav, moved to the outskirts of the bustling city.
03:00After the marriage of current king and queen, their majesty's decided that bringing up children would be much more natural in a place like Drottingholm than here in the centre of Stockholm,
03:17which is actually the first time that kings have been permanently living somewhere else than in the centre of Stockholm since they started living somewhere permanently at all.
03:28It's the king's official residence. And this is where the king and the queen and also the crown princess and her husband has their offices.
03:38So every day, more or less every day, they come in here to do their different kinds of duties.
03:43But also this is where all the official ceremonies take place, like you have state visits at the gala dinners.
03:50All those social functions and ceremonies always takes place here at the royal palace.
03:55Before the royal palace was completed in the 18th century, a castle stood on the same site.
04:03It was called Tre Cronor, meaning three crowns. Dating back to the 13th century, it is believed that the physical structure of Tre Cronor was made from a hybrid of materials over the years.
04:17So the Tre Cronor castle, we believe, was primarily made from timber. And we also understand that the roof covering was of copper plates.
04:26So even if there were parts of it that were made from stone and brick, it was quite dominated by timber.
04:33The original castle had not been built in one period, like any medieval castle. It had been added to many times before.
04:41And by the 17th century, it was a wonderful concoction of different styles and periods.
04:46The base of it was stone, the top of the towers was brick, and these were topped out with wonderful spires in copper and of slate.
04:54So the whole building was a fairy tale concoction of towers and staircases and turrets.
05:03By the late 17th century, Sweden was expanding its borders. The ruling monarch, King Charles XI, wanted a new palace that was befitting of the growing nation.
05:16At that time, Sweden had become a rather large and important country in the northern part of Europe and felt ashamed of the old palace when people came to Stockholm from the continent.
05:30That was not the way a proper castle or modern castle should look at that time. Still very much of the Renaissance style remained and even a lot of the medieval style.
05:42So Charles XI started to renovate the old medieval castle and had to rebuild a part of it to become more modern.
05:51In that time, they also had a big program where they sent away different kinds of artisans and architects to study the latest fashion down in the subcontinent.
06:02Now we're talking about Italy or France. So the inspiration was to go to the source, the Silicon Valley of the time,
06:08and get inspiration to build something magnificent that would show that Charles XI was the greatest king that Sweden ever had.
06:18To realize his dream, King Charles reached out to the finest architect in Sweden.
06:24King Charles XI was actually the son of an architect who was called Nicodemus de Zin the Elder.
06:33Nicodemus de Zin the Younger was born in 1654 and got really heads on like being taught and raised as an architect.
06:42There was no other plans for him than becoming the person that would inherit his father's title and education.
06:51So his style and his education to his youth was actually just focused on becoming an architect.
07:00That's why he kind of early also goes in his early twenties to Italy to study architecture on sites.
07:09When Te Zin came back to Sweden, he knew exactly the way a modern palace should look.
07:15And this was around 1690.
07:18And at that time, King Carl XI had decided to modernize the northern wing of the palace.
07:25At the time, Stockholm Palace had two large towers in the northern wing and a smaller building between those two towers.
07:38So two apartments were added between those two towers.
07:44Completed in the mid-1690s, King Charles XI's gallery was the jewel in the crown of Nicodemus de Zin's new-look north wing.
07:54To see an invited artists who he had met on a visit to Versailles to paint the ceilings in the gallery.
08:06The murals tell many stories.
08:10The main story is about a war between Sweden and Denmark that was taking place in the 1670s.
08:22And it's like a story that starts here.
08:25This is called the war cabinet.
08:28And this is about how the war are starting.
08:31And then the story continues.
08:34So we can see that blacksmiths are making weapons.
08:37They are making swords up on the painting just up here then.
08:41So this is about how the soldiers were armed.
08:44And then the story continues very quickly.
08:48So that you can see Carl XI.
08:51This is about the victory.
08:53He's going to be crowned with a circle of stars.
08:57And this is a symbol for eternity.
09:00So Carl XI would be forever known for his courageousness during these battles against the Danes.
09:07If you think about the craftsmanship, it's amazing this room.
09:16It's quite amazing because you can imagine all the painters working here then.
09:21And also sculptures and people that was gilding all the frames.
09:27So I think it's amazing when you think about how many people that was working here at the time.
09:32The artwork depicting Sweden's 17th century victory over Denmark is part of a proud military tradition that lives on today.
09:43Even the current king, Carl XVI Gustav, served in the Navy.
09:49And they've kept a great deal of the pomp and ceremony.
09:54The Slayer Guard, who are the oldest part of the Vatican Guard, the oldest regiment in Europe.
10:01And their royal blue uniforms and steel helmets, still mount guard at the royal palace in Stockholm.
10:08The ceremonial changing of the guard takes place at the palace three times a week in the winter.
10:14And every day during the summer months.
10:17Attracting 800,000 spectators per year.
10:20It's been a tradition since mid-summer of 1523.
10:26In this form as we see it today, more or less.
10:31It's been going on since the mid-1700s.
10:35They will actually just be waiting now until the new guard arrives.
10:40And when the new guard arrives, there will be a parade for the banner, the Swedish banner.
10:46And then they will start changing the guards.
10:53The sentries tell each other what they are supposed to be guarding.
10:57So every sentry around the palace has this type of instruction that they are telling the next sentry.
11:04And now you see the two guards changing place.
11:13So they have the new guard entering the rifle bridge.
11:17And that's the position of the acting guard, so to speak.
11:2218 years after leading his army to victory against the Danes, Swedish king Charles XI died in April 1697.
11:39Just weeks later, a huge fire engulfed Trachronor Castle.
11:44The fortress that once stood on the site of the royal palace of Stockholm.
11:49They had not had the time to organize a funeral yet.
11:55When the fire started in the afternoon, they carried his mortal remains.
12:01It was the first that they saved, of course.
12:04Because it was very important to have a proper funeral for the king.
12:09So we are quite sure that the fire started on the attic.
12:14And it was the Friday, May 7th, 1697.
12:18We are not quite sure, though, how the fire started.
12:23But most probably, it was a broken chimney that caused the fire.
12:27And there was a fire for almost one week.
12:30And when a week had passed, the palace was more or less totally in ruins.
12:37The fire was devastating, destroyed all of the castle apart from the newly built North Wing.
12:43The regency council of the new king, Charles XII, immediately commissioned a bigger and better palace.
12:52They called upon the architect who had revamped the surviving North Wing just a couple of years before the fire, Nicodemus Tessin.
13:00A couple of days after the fire, Nicodemus Tessin the Younger, the architect, were asked to make a new plan of a new palace.
13:14But he thought it's not good to build a new palace on the fire-damaged walls.
13:21So the fire-damaged walls were actually demolished then.
13:25And then three new wings were built then in the 18th century.
13:30Tessin's new plans were a million miles from the fairy-tale turrets of Tre Cronor.
13:37The easiest way to describe his proposal was that he started off with a northern wing, where he had existing walls which could be reused.
13:46Then he added three more wings to create a square, like a Roman palace, which was four squares with a yard in the center.
13:53And in order to make this look less box shaped, he then added lower abutted wings on either side.
14:03There was a little bit of a problem on the southern side, because if you really extended the southwest wing as far as it should, you had to demolish the main church of Stockholm.
14:15And that was out of the question.
14:17And therefore, we've got rounded wings at the outer courtyard that screen off the fact that one wing is just a little stump.
14:30In terms of the design aesthetic of this palace, it's actually a fairly low rise structure of a few stories.
14:37And it's very, very geometric, so it's a clean rectangular sort of shape in the Baroque style.
14:45The bottom of the palace appears to sit on a stone plinth.
14:49And above that, we have a band of rendered brickwork with stone surrounds around the windows.
14:55And then at the top, a cornice and a parapet.
14:58So the buildings divided, like a classical column, into three parts.
15:02A base, and then a large area of wall, and then a top, like a capital on a column.
15:08Construction of the new royal palace began just months after the fire, in 1697.
15:14Nicodemus Tassin and the government decided on using native domestic materials.
15:23So a lot of stones were quarried from Swedish stone quarries in Gotland and in other parts of Sweden.
15:30At the palace, there would be maybe two or three hundred people working daily from different shifts doing construction work.
15:38And a lot of bricklayers.
15:40The original castle was mostly constructed of stone, which is typical of castles of the period.
15:45The new buildings were constructed out of stone and brick.
15:50Brick was used for the interior of the walls, which was again normal for the late 17th century.
15:57It enabled you to have a fireproof construction and created large walls relatively cheaply.
16:03But all the decoration was beautifully done in stone, which formed a thin layer on the outside.
16:09The brick was covered up by render to protect it from the frost and the weather.
16:13The render is a great idea because it has a uniform colour, giving a flat facade.
16:18But also because when it cracks or becomes damaged, it's easy to replace.
16:22Which in the harsh climate of Stockholm, with the frost attacking the brickwork,
16:27meant you had a surface you could continually repair to keep the palace pristine.
16:32But the weather wasn't the main problem in constructing the palace.
16:38An unsuccessful conflict against Russia in the Great Northern War between 1700 and 1721 created a great financial strain on Sweden.
16:48If I'm to give a short answer to how the build went, it's slowly.
16:57Sweden was engaged in a war.
17:00It actually ended with complete defeat of the end of Sweden's rather brief time as a great power in this part of Europe.
17:08And all resources had to be put into the war effort just to make the country survive.
17:14Meaning that the building here grinded to halt.
17:19The Great Northern War was of course also a proof of failure of the royal family to keep Sweden to have control of its borders.
17:27So when Charles XII dies in 1718, the royal family has a lot of criticism around it for being self-interested.
17:38But it actually starts with a new era called the Age of Liberty in 1721.
17:45And it transides to the royal family as being symbols of power but not head of power.
17:55The builders downed their tools for 18 years between 1710 and 1728.
18:01By the time the construction of the palace resumed, the architect, Nicodemus Tassim the Younger, was in his early 70s.
18:13Nicodemus Tassim the Younger's original plans were in a style baroque.
18:18So the early interiors that are constructed before the fire are in a baroque style.
18:24And of course the exterior is also in the baroque style, which is much more heavier and massive in its architectural expression than what later on becomes the baroque cocoa when the royal family moves in in 1754.
18:41So there's a transition between the exteriors being baroque during this time since it takes around 58 years to construct the palace that the styles change.
18:52So a lot of the interiors through that time become a rococo interior.
18:57Modernity was what mattered when the palace was decorated.
19:03This was cutting edge modernity long before anyone had heard of rococo in Germany or Denmark.
19:11So this was a way of showing that you knew what was happening, a way of showing the world that this was a modern nation.
19:23We had just lost our status as a great power.
19:27And this was a starting afresh.
19:30The monarch who finally moved into the new royal palace in 1754 was King Adolf Frederick.
19:41But after almost 60 years of construction, things had changed in Sweden.
19:46The king no longer had the same power as many of his predecessors.
19:51The day when they moved in in 1754 was a big ceremony.
19:57It was designed for an absolute ruler of a great power, an extremely big palace, even by that time standards.
20:06When it was finished, it was still a symbol of Sweden's greatness, but no longer for an absolute ruler.
20:13And it's the parliamentary committee that decides about the building, not the king.
20:19The king was a bystander.
20:21And then the parliament more or less hands over the keys and says,
20:25Well, please, we are finished now.
20:30Architect Nicodemus Tassin the Younger had died in 1728 and didn't live to see the finished building.
20:38But his influence over the new royal palace was clear for all to see.
20:46Tassin the Younger actually designed the palace to a really intricate way of symbolizing power.
20:53You have four facades and every facade has a symbol or meaning, which you have the male and the female on the west and the eastern side.
21:03The aesthetic of the king's western facade was quite kind of practical and businesslike,
21:09because that was the part of the palace from which the king was actually carrying out his ruling duties.
21:15Whereas the eastern facade, which was representing the queen, got its inspiration more from emotions like love and compassion.
21:23And on the north you have the nation as a power and on the south you have the power as being triumphant in battle.
21:32So you have like four sides of each individual character of the nation.
21:38Tassin's connective design trait continued inside the new south wing of the palace.
21:45Nicodemus Tassin the Younger was quite clever when he not only juxtaposed the male and the female side,
21:53to also juxtapose the church and the state.
21:56So in the east you have the church and the ecclesiastical power.
22:01And to the west you have the whole estate and the throne as a symbol of the secularized power.
22:09So the whole structure of the building is supportive of the whole community, how it was perceived at that time.
22:15The decoration of the interiors, the lavish paintwork and gilding, was important.
22:21But so was the layout of the building.
22:24The chapel and the throne room are deliberately designed to be visually connected.
22:29So that it is obvious that the instructions from God are being transmitted directly to the throne.
22:37When you're standing in the hall of state, when you're standing in front of the throne chair,
22:43it's about 100 meters between the throne chair and the altar in the royal chapel.
22:49It's an amazing view.
22:53I can assume when people were entering the hall of state,
22:58perhaps they could look over their shoulder and see the altar in the chapel,
23:03and then they would understand that the king had divine power.
23:11Both the chapel and the hall of state were adapted from Tassin's original plans
23:16by local architect Karl Harleman.
23:19He modified the designs to make the rooms more fashionable.
23:23The significance of the hall of state is that it's really a good example of a style that is transitional.
23:31Nicodius Tassin the Younger actually draws a hall of state which is in a baroque style.
23:37But through the time when they constructed the palace, the hall of state transides and becomes a rococo place.
23:44So the sculptures are on the cornish level, more sitting on the level and not actually carrying the ceiling,
23:52which actually symbolizes the transition really well in the sense that you don't have a baroque space.
23:58It translates into a rococo space, which is much more open and light in scheme.
24:06The difference between baroque and rococo is a complicated thing.
24:09Of course, it's every difference between one style and another.
24:12Rococo is in many ways less pretentious.
24:17You don't look for the grand effects, you look for something more intimate.
24:21You look for lighter colors often,
24:24a little bit more informal than the baroque who loved state rooms, state occasions,
24:31and was always symmetrical.
24:34The magnificent hall of state takes up two floors of the palace
24:39and was home to the rickstag, the Swedish parliament, for over a hundred years.
24:45Until 1974, though, the opening of the parliament in January each year took place in this hall of state,
24:53with the king still sitting in the silver throne in front of us.
24:57The silver throne that is, of course, the most important object in this hall of state,
25:03made in 1650 in Augsburg, Bavaria, Germany,
25:08and a gift that time from one of the most powerful men in Sweden, Magnus Gabriel Lagarde.
25:14And a gift to the Swedish queen Christina at that time,
25:18and supposed to be used during the coronation seven of us.
25:22And so it was.
25:23And ever since then, this throne chair has been the throne chair in Sweden.
25:28The king who inherited the hall of state at the royal palace of Stockholm was Gustav III,
25:37who was crowned in May 1772.
25:40The progressive ruler had ascended to the throne the previous year.
25:44Gustav III was a great man of culture. He loved art, he loved the opera, he loved music.
25:52He said that he thought the Swedish language was better when it was sung.
25:56The cultured king made many alterations to the look of the palace.
26:01Every generation of royalties living here have made changes.
26:07I mean, this is a home. We might not think of a palace as a home, but it was home to the royal family.
26:14And just as we don't move into the home of our grandparents without making changes,
26:21it was the same for the royal family.
26:23Every generation made their contributions to the palace, their changes.
26:28So when Gustav III becomes king in 1771, the actual style is changing from the rococo
26:37into some sort of like early neoclassical style.
26:42They have the grotesque paintings on the walls, and you can see Pompeii, the lost city,
26:49was actually discovered during the 17th century and inspired a lot of architects to do the same.
26:55So it's actually an Italian-Roman style which is high in its passion at the time.
27:02Gustav wanted Sweden to return to an absolute monarchy, meaning the king would have power over parliament.
27:11In 1772, he plotted to overthrow the rickstag.
27:16One year after his accession to the throne, he staged a coup.
27:23So that's when he uses their assembly in the hall of state here in the palace,
27:28simply to get in front of the parliament to tell them that the nation is threatened,
27:32we need a strong rule, and I'm to take the nation out of this situation.
27:37And then they locked the door. He went out and left them there to discuss whatever should be done.
27:43And they, in the end, realized that there was not very much else to do than to say yes.
27:50After ruling as the most powerful king in Sweden since the disastrous Great Northern War of 1700 to 1721,
27:59Gustav III felt the nation had grown strong enough to take on their biggest neighbor to the east, Russia.
28:08He started a war in 1788 against his cousin, Catherine the Great of Russia.
28:17And, well, this was not good because to have a war, it costed a lot of money.
28:23And a lot of people thought that he had spent a little bit too much money,
28:28first on the culture, on the education system, and also on this war.
28:35In 1790, the unpopular and expensive Russo-Swedish War ended in a stalemate.
28:44The patience of the Stockholm aristocracy had run out.
28:48Gustav could not have met a more dramatic end.
28:54He was assassinated at a masked ball in the Royal Opera House at Stockholm.
29:03There was certainly a senior officer who knew there was a plot against him, who warned him.
29:09He took no notice.
29:11He trusted in his mask, and he was shot in the back with a pistol by a disgruntled nobleman, Captain Johann Jakob Ankerström.
29:23And he thought it was only a scratch.
29:26Unfortunately, the scratch turned out to be a fatal wound.
29:30And unexpectedly, he died.
29:36His last words were, I think I will feel better for a little sleep.
29:41And he never woke up.
29:43That kind of assassination had never taken place in Sweden.
29:50They considered him to be a tyrant.
29:52And just as in 18th century theory, Brutus was entitled to kill Caesar.
29:59When Caesar's political ambitions became too big for the country,
30:03the murder of a tyrant was an acceptable act.
30:06They were apprehended rather quickly.
30:12Ankerström, who fired the shot, was beheaded.
30:15But he was the only one.
30:16The other ones were exiled.
30:18So it was rather surprisingly lenient treatment of the members of the plot.
30:27Gustav III died in his bed at the Royal Palace of Stockholm on the 29th of March, 1792.
30:35He was succeeded by his son, Gustav Adolf.
30:38But the new king came to power at a pivotal time in European history.
30:45Gustav Adolf IV had a quite hard time when he became of age
30:51and started to rule the country by himself.
30:54Well, I do have to say that this is the early 1800s.
30:59This was during the Napoleon Wars.
31:02So it was troubled times in entire Europe.
31:05So it was not easy for him to govern the country.
31:09We lost Finland in 1808.
31:11Not to Napoleon, but to Napoleon's allied Russia.
31:15And in spring 1809, when the king still wanted to go on with the war, there was a coup.
31:23Some officers went up into the king's quarters here in the palace and simply told him that he was deposed.
31:30Due to his inept leadership during the catastrophic Finnish war, the Riksdag forced Gustav Adolf to abdicate in favour of his uncle in 1809.
31:43But Charles XIII was 60 years old with no legitimate heirs.
31:48Thus began the search for a new dynasty.
31:52Charles first adopted Danish Prince Christian August to be the heir presumptive, but he died just a few months later in May 1810.
32:02This led the Swedish government to look towards their great adversary for a future ruler.
32:12One nobleman appealed to Jean-Baptiste Jules Bernadotte, a Frenchman, a great French military officer, to come and be the king.
32:21Now, this man was really very linked with Napoleon.
32:24Essentially, he had married Napoleon's ex-girlfriend, Desiree Clary.
32:29So he was Napoleon's right-hand man.
32:31He was very close to Napoleon.
32:32Napoleon was always very close to Desiree.
32:34In fact, Napoleon's brother married Desiree's sister, so it was all very close.
32:38It was hoped that Bernadotte could bring a new age of prosperity to Sweden after its defeat to Russia in the Finnish War of 1808.
32:48At that point in 1810, it looked like an eventual French hegemony in Europe.
32:55Napoleon seemed to be invincible.
32:58And a good French field marshal might actually be able to get Finland back.
33:03Finland that we'd lost only two years earlier.
33:06Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte was adopted by King Charles XIII, and the Frenchman became the Crown Prince of Sweden.
33:15Before arriving at the Royal Palace of Stockholm in November 1810, a portrait was commissioned.
33:21The portrait we see here was painted by François Chirat.
33:26And it's a state portrait of the first Bernadotte, Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, who, as a king, called himself Karl XIV, of Sweden and Norway.
33:35He had never been to Sweden.
33:37The portrait was painted in Paris before we left for Sweden, the very first time we would set foot on Swedish land.
33:45While heir to the Swedish throne, Bernadotte resided in the Royal Palace of Stockholm and took control of the government.
33:54He became a major strategical power in the army of his adopted nation.
34:00Bernadotte was well received when he arrived.
34:03He was obviously a powerful man and regarded as a hope for the future.
34:09To the big surprise of the Swedes, he sided with Napoleon's adversaries.
34:15Napoleon may have thought that Bernadotte would be his puppet, but that wasn't the case.
34:20Bernadotte renounced Catholicism and became completely Swedish and actually chose what was best for Sweden.
34:26And as Napoleon began to fall, he really became one of those who was pushing against him.
34:34So, the big plan to defeat Napoleon, it was discussed in a Polish castle,
34:41where the leaders, the Austrians, the Russians, Bernadotte, the English,
34:46and it was decided already in 1812 that Napoleon should be driven to the vicinity of Leipzig
34:54and somewhere around Leipzig should be a decisive battle.
34:57And the battle of Leipzig is the big thing.
35:01And that strategy was what Bernadotte proposed to the Allies.
35:06It was his plan.
35:08After helping to defeat his old ally, Napoleon,
35:12Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte was crowned King Charles XIV John of Sweden in 1818.
35:20A gallery at the palace is named after the great leader.
35:25Since then, we have not been in war because he made a foundation for Sweden in a way that we have been a neutral country
35:35and we had been living in very good ways.
35:40Another thing is, of course, that he was founder of the dynasty, which still is on the Swedish throne.
35:49And he is also in many ways a kind of legendary person who comes from France and becomes actually a very competent ruler.
36:01King Charles XIV John ruled Sweden for 26 years.
36:09His son, Oscar I, ascended to the throne in 1844.
36:14The new king asked Swedish architect Pierre Axel Nyström to update the royal palace of Stockholm.
36:23One of his creations, completed in 1850, was the White Sea Ballroom.
36:29We have several explanations why we call it the White Sea.
36:35Something obviously is the white marble circle that are covering these walls.
36:41And another reason for the name is that it's sometimes rather cold here in this room.
36:47It's like the White Sea.
36:49But this was made to be the ballroom.
36:52So you should not sit down and be lazy here in this room.
36:57You should dance instead.
36:59The ballroom is on the second floor in the northeast corner of the royal palace.
37:04Nyström knocked down an adjoining wall to create the space.
37:11If you see over there, you can see a soldier's head up in the decoration.
37:19This room were two rooms.
37:22The area up here belonged to the queen and it was the queen's dining room.
37:28The other room was a room for her corpse to guards.
37:32But when this was made into a ballroom in the 1850s, they did not take away the soldier's head.
37:39They were gilded instead.
37:41So that is quite interesting.
37:44The White Sea ballroom is still used when Sweden's modern royals are hosting dignitaries.
37:50The current king of Sweden, Karl XVI Gustav, has been on the throne since 1973.
37:57The royal family is extremely popular.
38:02It's measured every year by some sort of poll.
38:06And the confidence in the king and the queen always weights extremely high.
38:12So they are personally popular and regarded as great assets to the nation.
38:20The monarchy is in good shape.
38:23The future heirs to the throne, Princess Victoria, is a wonderful woman.
38:29The crown princess, she got married in 2010.
38:33And that was extraordinary.
38:35I mean, there were thousands of people outside the palace.
38:39I think they counted about 500,000 people on stock in that day.
38:44That was extraordinary.
38:47And then they had a dinner in the hall of state.
38:50And after that, they were washing up in the apartments.
38:56The state apartments where Princess Victoria celebrated her wedding
39:00are still used when heads of state from around the world visit the Royal Palace of Stockholm.
39:08The state visit nowadays usually lasts three days.
39:11It could be shorter, it could be longer, but approximately three days.
39:15And during that stay, this apartment is the home of the visiting president, king or queen coming here.
39:23Quite recently, also, the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall stayed here.
39:29And I also would like to mention that Queen Elizabeth stayed here in 1956 for the first time,
39:35and then also back in 1983.
39:41As well as the classic decor on show around the palace,
39:44one location exhibits Sweden's modern style.
39:48The Jubilee Room was designed for the king in 1998 to celebrate his 25 years on the throne.
39:56When we have heads of states and ambassadors coming to visit the royal family,
40:02we also want to show them something which is contemporary.
40:05So it was really important for the royal palace to have that kind of story,
40:10to add on to the actual storyline of the whole palace.
40:14The royal palace, under the stewardship of King Carl XVI Gustav, continues to modernize.
40:26Every Swedish king has to choose a motto by themselves.
40:29And our present king, he chose for Sweden with the times,
40:34to show that he wanted to be a modern king, he wanted to be contemporary,
40:38he wanted to be part of daily life in Sweden.
40:42The king has a great interest in keeping of the building from an environmental view.
40:48So we've had some thoughts of how we can meet that.
40:52And in the end, we, this summer, inaugurated a solar panel plant on the roof of the royal palace.
41:00And it's about a thousand square meters of solar panels.
41:05The mix of the new and the old make the royal palace of Stockholm a fascinating place.
41:12It will host many future royals, yet remains a reminder of Sweden's compelling past.
41:19I think that the palace is the creation of Tasin, the architect,
41:28is really the most impressive thing.
41:30How this building still manages to dominate central Stockholm.
41:37Not through loud architecture that yells to everyone,
41:42but having a character and sort of an aesthetic backbone of its own.
41:48And that, I think, is impressive.
41:52Through these rooms, you've always had something that we call the tree rings.
41:57So you have different added tree rings that show that the actual interiors have evolved through time.
42:05So long was the construction's period that what had originally been a medieval castle,
42:09which of course has gone, to the baroque of the late 17th century,
42:13through the rococo to the neoclassical at the end.
42:17But we also have interior spaces today that are added in the modern flavor.
42:23It gives you sort of like a circular aspect of the palace in a constant evolution through time.
42:30Although it's the official residence of the king, the royal palace of Stockholm can still be visited by tourists.
42:42And almost half a million people per year flock to Sweden to bask in the wonder of one of the most opulent palaces in Europe.
42:51For the king today, it's really important to make people feel welcome to the royal palace.
42:58That's also one of the reasons why we keep so many different parts of the palace open to the public.
43:04Well, it's really important for Sweden as a whole to show itself as an open country where we can invite people to come.
43:12The palace is still key to the royal family in Sweden. It's something that every Swedish person sees.
43:18The royal family have a very important role as constitutional monarchs.
43:21They are much loved in Sweden, much supported, much talked about.
43:25And the palace really is at the center of constitution and political life.
43:32They are much loved in Sweden and such playing a really small part of the palace because this has been a little clever-ã…‹ã…‹ã…‹ã…‹ Thor.
43:42It's a very, very very modern dance societies in Sweden.
43:45The palace has a great sense of many.
43:48Dear packs of witnesses and the royal family as well to obey Scripture.
43:50It's possible, it's actually quite a formidable family.
43:53It's...
43:55Was a very special when I was invited for the palace and for the palace.
43:59The palaceольше is a little bit twisted.