The Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts occupies a palace that has burned twice and been reborn three times. The house at Fredsgatan 12 began in 1671-72 as the Sparre Palace, a classicist mansion by Nicodemus Tessin the Elder for governor Axel Carlsson Sparre; fire destroyed its state floor in 1693 and the great Klara fire of 1751 left only the walls. Cannon-foundry director Gerhard Meyer bought the ruin in 1754, rebuilt it as a rococo palace, and in 1775 donated it to the academy, which moved in by 1780 - the nickname "Mejan" (Meyer's house) follows the institution to this day. The academy itself descends from the Royal Drawing Academy founded at the palace in 1735 by Carl Gustaf Tessin to raise the standard of artists working on the new Royal Palace, taking its present name in 1810. The building grew with it: Fredrik Blom rebuilt it monumentally in 1842-46, and Erik Lallerstedt's 1893-97 expansion gave it the current Italian neo-renaissance form with exhibition halls, studios and fireproof concrete floors, inaugurated in May 1897. Today the house holds exhibition galleries, a celebrated art library and collections, event halls and the restaurant Fredsgatan 12, with the entrance on Fredsgatan and a lift entrance from Jakobsgatan 27C. The Royal Institute of Art - the teaching school it once ran - moved to Skeppsholmen in 1995, but the academy's exhibitions and public programme keep the palace open to the city, two minutes from Gustav Adolfs torg. A fire in June 2025 - almost 275 years to the day after the 1751 blaze - damaged parts of the building and made national news, adding a further chapter to its dramatic history. A calendar of exhibitions, prize presentations, concerts and open lectures keeps the halls in public use through the year, and the entrance hall's limestone plaque crediting Tessin still greets visitors on the way in.

Type: Tourist Attraction

Address: Fredsgatan 12, Stockholm, Sweden, 111 52

Website: https://www.konstakademien.se