Skokloster Castle

Skokloster Castle
The castle in 2015
Location within Sweden
General information
Architectural style	Baroque
Town or city	Håbo Municipality
Country	Sweden
Coordinates	59°42′11″N 17°37′17″E / 59.70306°N 17.62139°E / 59.70306; 17.62139

Skokloster Castle is a Swedish Baroque castle built between 1654 and 1676 by Carl Gustaf Wrangel, located on a peninsula of Lake Mälaren between and Uppsala. It became a state museum in the 1970s and displays collections of paintings, furniture, textiles and tableware as well as books and weapons.

The castle was built in the Baroque style between 1654 and 1676 by the wealthy military commander count Carl Gustaf Wrangel on a peninsula of Lake Mälaren between and Uppsala. It was designed mainly by architect Caspar Vogel, and other architects involved were Jean de la Vallée and Nicodemus Tessin the Elder.

The castle is a monument to the Swedish Age of Greatness, a period in the middle of the 17th century when Sweden expanded to become one of the major powers in Europe. The death of Wrangel in 1676 meant that the castle was never truly completed. The Brahe family who inherited the castle after Wrangel's death, had their own family castles and did not complete the interiors. Thus a large banqueting hall remains largely in the same condition as the builders left it in the summer of 1676. It is now called the Unfinished Hall. Skokloster Castle is the only building in Europe with a complete 17th-century building site of equal authenticity. Alongside the Unfinished Hall there are a number of other related items from the same period, as several hundred tools and about a dozen books on construction.

In 1967, the Brahe family sold the castle and its contents to the Swedish government; Skokloster Castle became a state museum and government agency named the Royal Armoury and Skokloster Castle with the Hallwyl Museum Foundation (LSH). the family still resides in the vicinity. In the 1970s, architect Ove Hidemark renovated the castle by using the same materials and building techniques as in the 17th century, constituting a benchmark in Swedish conservation techniques.

The interiors of the castle are thought to be especially well preserved, considering that it is without modern heating in a cold climate. A thorough renovation of the roof was undertaken with a second stage of the renovation commencing in March 2015, as the roof had leaked resulting in mould and damage especially to the paintings.