and
Gustav III's Pavilion The First Plans and Designs for a palace at Haga In 1771, king Gustav III acquired the old Haga farm. He started to develop here an
English landscape garden, the Haga Park. It was doubled in size in 1785, when he purchased an adjoining farm as well. The first proposals for a palace at Haga were made at the end of 1770s, first by Gustav III himself and later when
Carl Fredrik Adelcrantz made a proposal for a small
palace, somewhat modest compared to the later designs. Adelcrantz most likely used
Nicodemus Tessin the Younger's proposal for the Apollo Temple at
Versailles as a model. The French-inspired style and the caution that characterized contemporary Swedish
Rococo drew heavily on
Late Baroque features. Gustav III asked
Fredrik Magnus Piper, the royal architect and park architect, to make another design for a smaller pleasure palace on the site of Haga farm. The proposal was included in Piper's master plan presented in 1781 and had, in its basic design, the same form as Adelcrantz's proposal. The king provided clear instructions in the form of his own sketches. The building, referred to as
The Casino, had distinct features of
Marie Antoinette's
Petit Trianon, a pleasure palace to the northwest of
Palace of Versailles. In 1783, Piper sent several revised plans to the king, who was on a trip to Italy. However, the king did not like Piper's various proposals and relieved him of the task. After Piper, Gustav III hired the French architect
Léon Dufourny, but he took too long to complete his work, and Piper was asked to submit another proposal. In November 1785, the king bought the Brahelund area, which significantly increased the park's size to the north. Piper's second palace proposal was rejected in 1786 (as compensation, he was asked to design the
Turkish Kiosk). Instead, the city architect
Erik Palmstedt was consulted for the royal building in the newly purchased Brahelund area. However, the king changed his mind once again regarding the choice of architect, and finally,
Olof Tempelman was given the task. His proposal bore clear features of
Villa Rotonda in
Vicenza as well as
St. Peter's Basilica and
Pantheon in
Rome. The
Haga Great Palace project, with its evolving designs from a modest country house to a large palace and changing architects, not only reflects Gustav III's shifting architectural ideals but also underscores its role as a deliberate political statement, that would take increasingly monumental forms.
Gallery: The first designs Image: Haga Palace - The first design 1770s.png|The first design for a palace, inspired by Swedish renaissance and baroque castles Image: Haga Palace design by Carl Fredrik Adelcrantz.tif|The design proposal made by Carl Frederik Adelcrantz Image: Haga Palace The Casino Design by Piper.png|The
Casino proposed by Fredrik Magnus Piper Image: Haga Palace Design by Olof Tempelmann 1785-1787.png|Design by Olof Tempelman inspired by the Villa Rotunda Image: Haga Palace Design Louis Jean Desprez 1780s.png|A redesign of Tempelman's proposal by Desprez
Start of the Construction: the Foundation After the
foundation stone ceremony, with music and poetry by
Carl Michael Bellman on 19 August 1786,
Hedvig Elisabeth Charlotte of Holstein-Gottorp, who was present at the ceremony, wrote in her diary: The foundation stone was likely placed under the central pillar of the foundation, which was intended to be the central domed room of the castle. The foundation documents from Gustav III are preserved. The second part of the text reads: Immediately after this, extensive work began on the foundation and basement of the castle, based on designs by
Olof Tempelman. Only after the project had been underway for some time did Gustav III, who was deeply interested in architecture, personally become involved with the design, adding wings to the sides of the building with long rows of 70
Corinthian columns. The palace was to house an art museum, where the king wanted to display his collection of ancient sculptures and paintings he had brought back from Italy and France. In addition, the palace was to have a theater, banquet halls, and housing for the entire court.
Another change in Architect: Louis Jean Desprez Once again, Gustav III began to doubt the architect's proposal, and in 1787, the project was handed over to
Louis Jean Desprez. The king had met Desprez in Rome and invited him to Stockholm, where Desprez had been responsible for the decoration of Gustav III's Opera () since 1774. In Desprez's final facade drawing for the main palace facade, the building's mighty row of columns can be seen. To the south, a monumental free-standing staircase is flanked by two
obeliskes. In one version of the design, Desprez replaced the obelisks with two equestrian statues. The palace has often been said to be planned as the endpoint of a visual axis stretching from
Stockholm Palace via
Sveavägen,
Bellevue Park, and
Brunnsviken to
Hagaparken, a distance of nearly five kilometers. This is a misconception that was debunked in 1929 by
Ragnar Josephson. By 1790, construction was in full swing, despite an expensive war with
Russia at the same time. Work on the "Great Stables" was halted to free up all available resources for the palace construction. Due to the steep terrain, substantial foundation walls were built with quarried stone. At the beginning of the 1790s, the plans grew further. A fold-out section was added to the already established floor plan. Desprez's drawings showed a grand new staircase to the north, with an open space framed by 18 columns. The plans also included a large forecourt in front of the northern facade of the castle. The model for this was
Giulio Romano's
Palazzo del Te in
Mantua. At its peak, nearly 800 people worked on the
Haga Great Palace project. The workforce consisted of approximately 650 soldiers, supplemented by around 150 Russian prisoners of war who were housed at the
finnstugorna. According to contemporary sources, these prisoners "formed a more numerous than valuable reinforcement".
Gallery: How would have Desprez's final design looked like? Image: Haga Palace - The first monumental design by Desprez 1788.jpg|The first monumental design by Desprez, half palace, half museum (1788) Image: Stora Haga slott ritning 1790a.jpg|The final design by Desprez (1790) Image: Haga Stora Slott design - Louis Jean Desprez 1790.png|Crossection of the 1790 design, where the building is still aimed to be half museum, half palace Image: Drawings for Stora Haga castle of the 1790s.jpg|The final plan and design of the palace, less museum and more palace with space for state rooms and royal apartments Image: Haga Palace final design Desprez, 1789.jpg|Front and back of the palace Image: Haga Grand Palace stair hall Desprez 1790.jpg|Cross section of the staircase and the main hall of the palace Image: Haga Great Palace design by Louis Jean Desprez crossection and side facades.tif|Cross section of the palace and the side facades Image: Haga Great Palace seen from a distance by Desprez.png|Sketch by Desprez showing the palace from a distance Image: Haga Stora Slott Design - Carl Christoffer Gjorwell 30 August 1794.jpg|A drawing by Carl Christoffer Gjorwell (30 August 1794)
Construction halts Construction of the palace came to a halt following the king's assassination in March 1792, leaving the
Haga Great Palace unfinished. The palace foundation was covered with wooden planks, and by the autumn of 1792, the large stockpile of bricks already delivered to the site was repurposed for building the wings of the military academy at
Karlberg Palace. According to Gustav III's estate inventory, there were also large quantities of unused finely hewn stone intended for the building's plinths and moldings, which were likely used in the construction of the Queen's Pavilion (
Haga Palace) ten years after the king's death. ==Panorama==