Carl Fredrik Adelcrantz

Carl Fredrik Adelcrantz (30 January 1716 – 1 March 1796) was a Swedish architect and civil servant. Adelcrantz's style developed from a rococo influenced by Carl Hårleman, the leading architect in Sweden in the early years of his career, to a classical idiom influenced by the stylistic developments in France in the mid-to-late 18th century. As överintendent, he headed the royal and public building works from 1767 until his retirement in 1795.

Adelcrantz was born in 1716 in Stockholm and was the son of the architect , who had changed his name from Törnqvist at his ennoblement four years earlier. As a student in Uppsala, Göran Josua Törnqvist had been a member of the student theatre troupe known as Den Swänska Theatren that later performed in the Lejonkulan theatre in Stockholm. He came into the employment of Nicodemus Tessin the Younger in 1697, the year the disastrous fire at the old Castle of Stockholm took place and the planning for the began. Törnqvist had studied architecture before this and may have been discovered by Tessin for his scenographies. Göran Josua Adelcrantz remained in the shadow of the dominant Tessin; his most significant work was the cupola for the Katarina Church in Stockholm.

Through his marriage in 1711 to the young widow Anna Maria Köhnmann, daughter of a wealthy businessman, Törnqvist's finances improved considerably. Among other things, he became the possessor of the manor of Signhildsberg near Sigtuna. The next year Charles XII ennobled him, on the recommendation of his patron Tessin. Born in Stockholm, Carl Fredrik was the third child of the marriage.

The elder Adelcrantz did not intend for Carl Fredrik to follow in his professional footsteps; he had, for political reasons, lost his positions as court architect and city architect of Stockholm in 1727, and, under the circumstances, he regarded architecture as too insecure a profession for his son. After a short time of study in Uppsala, Carl Fredrik began his career as a low-level civil servant in the Kammarrevisionen court (the future Kammarrätten, the Administrative Court of Appeals in Stockholm).

Göran Josua Adelcrantz did not attempt to suppress the artistic inclination of his son. Carl Fredrik took lessons in drawing and assisted his father in some tasks; he designed an altar for the Katarina Church that was under reconstruction after its first fire, and a tower for the Finnish Church that never came to execution. Half a year after his father’s death in 1739, Carl Fredrik Adelcrantz left his employment in Kammarrevisionen, and on 11 August 1739 he left Stockholm for France and Italy. Although his notes from the journey have been lost, it is known that he spent two years in Paris and several months in Rome. In December 1741, while he was still in Rome, Adelcrantz was given a position within the palace construction project. Count Carl Gustaf Tessin, to whom he had turned for a recommendation, had still to become convinced that his talent equaled that of his father, but Carl Hårleman made sure that Adelcrantz would get the appointment. In late summer 1743, he started on his return journey to Sweden, arriving in Stockholm in November.

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