Nordic Museum

Artur Hazelius, who also started Skansen, founded the museum to collect what industrialisation was destroying, and the building Isak Gustaf Clason designed for it opened in 1907 - a red brick and sandstone hall in Danish Renaissance manner, so large that the plan was scaled down from something larger still. The main hall is dominated by Carl Milles's painted oak Gustav Vasa, over six metres seated. The collections run from the sixteenth century onward across furniture, dress, textiles, table settings, toys and folk art, with a permanent Sami exhibition and rooms on how Swedes have lived, eaten and dressed. It is next to Skansen and the Vasa museum.

Background

The Nordic Museum stands on Djurgården in central Stockholm and covers Swedish cultural history and ethnography from the early modern period, which in Swedish history is said to begin in 1520, up to the present. Artur Hazelius, who also created Skansen, founded it in 1873, and the two were run as one institution until they became independent in 1963. In 2015 it had 237,964 visitors, and it can be reached by the Djurgården tram line and ferry.

Source: Wikipedia, "Nordic Museum"

The main sights

• Milles's oak Gustav Vasa - over six metres, in the main hall.
• Five hundred years of daily life - dress, furniture, table settings.
• A permanent Sami exhibition - one of the main collections.
• Clason's 1907 building - a hall in Danish Renaissance manner.

When to go

Year round; it is indoors. Two to three hours.

Practical notes

The building is bigger than the exhibitions, and the main hall can feel empty. Some galleries are dated. Djurgarden is crowded in summer. Combined with Vasa and Skansen it becomes a very long day.

Nearby

The Vasa museum is next door; Skansen is a short walk.

Key facts