The Chinese Pavilion (Swedish: Kina slott), located in the grounds of the Drottningholm Palace park, is a Chinese-inspired royal pavilion originally built between 1753 and 1769. The pavilion is currently one of Sweden’s Royal Palaces and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The first building was a simple pavilion with two wings in Chinese style. The buildings were prefabricated at Arsenalsgatan in Stockholm. They were made in the log cabin technique and shipped to Drottningholm, where they were assembled. The architects were probably Carl Hårleman and Carl Johan Cronstedt. Everything was finished and in place in time for Queen Lovisa Ulrika’s birthday on 24 July 1753. The pavilion was a surprise gift to the Queen from King Adolf Frederick. At the presentation, she received the gold key to the castle from the young Crown Prince Gustav (later King Gustav III), seven years old, dressed as a Chinese mandarin.

Having been built in haste and secrecy, the small castle did not endure the harsh Swedish climate. After ten years, rot had begun to attack the wooden frame and the King and Queen commissioned Carl Fredrik Adelcrantz to create a new and bigger pavilion made from more durable materials.

The second and current structure replaced the old wooden pavilion from 1753. Designed by Carl Fredrik Adelcrantz, construction began in 1763 and was completed in 1769.

Interior

The royal court’s chief supervisor, Jean Eric Rehn, led the interior design work. The architecture is essentially rococo and was intended to have an exotic character, containing Chinese elements, which were considered the height of fashion at the time.

The rooms of the pavilion are full of luxury items brought to Sweden from China by the Swedish East India Company: porcelain, silk, lacquers, etc. China had become a mythic land, a paradise, a fascination, to Swedes and every nobleman wanted to have a Chinese room or just some objects to get a glimpse of this fabled, but to Europeans, forbidden land.

The walls in the Yellow Room are covered with Chinese lacquered panels, at the time a fascinating technique since no parallel craft existed in Europe. The panels depict relations between Asia and Europe in the 1700s. The motifs are scenes from Canton (now known as Guangzhou) by the Pearl River and the European Thirteen Factories separated from the city by double walls.

Exterior and garden

The wings are connected to the main building by a series of curved rooms. Lacquer-red walls used for the façade and the sculptural ornamentation show good knowledge of Chinese buildings, but the structure of the building is characterized as clearly European. The interior is among the foremost in Swedish Rococo design.

There are four houses, also in Chinese style, just north of the pavilion. The east one, northeast of the pavilion, is called The Billiard. It used to house a billiard table which is now gone. Instead, two of King Adolf Frederick’s lathes are on display together with tools from the lathe chamber. The house to the west, northwest of the pavilion, is known as The Silver Chamber.

A bit further north, resting on a high base, is the Adolf Frederick’s Studio (to the right) and the Confidence (to the left). The Confidence is a dining room building where the tables (dining and serving table) are fixed on a lift device. The tables were set on the floor below the royal dining room and on a given signal they were hoisted up through the floor. This meant that the royals could eat their dinner without the presence of servants, en confidence (French for “in confidence”). North of The Confidence is the old kitchen. As of 1957 it houses a café in the summers. In the park east of the Chinese Pavilion is a pagoda-like gazebo called The Volière (French for aviary).

The Pavilion underwent exterior renovations in 1927–1928, 1943–1955 and an interior in 1959–1968. Another thorough restoration of the exterior was made in 1989–1996.

Photo: CEphoto, Uwe Aranas, Wikimedia
Source: Wikipedia