The Royal Opera

The architect Axel Anderberg designed the Royal Opera, Sweden’s national stage for opera and ballet, which opened in 1898. It stands on the same site as Stockholm’s first large opera building from 1782. Anderberg drew much of his inspiration from the Paris Opera. He gave the new opera house a Neo-Renaissance exterior, while designing the staircase, foyer, and salon in a Neo-Baroque style.

Photo: Sten Jansin

Photo: Sten Jansin

Photo: Sten Jansin

Photo: Sten Jansin

Photo: Sten Jansin

From stage technology to Golden Foyer

Today, the Royal Opera is a national monument. The opera house includes a complex mixture of advanced technology and working areas. Richly decorated, representative environments such as the Golden Foyer with its shimmering stucco, brocades and chandeliers. The twelve floors house a thousand rooms and many different activities – from stage technology in the basement via workshops, rehearsal rooms and dance studios, restaurants, dressing rooms, and all the way up to the costume designer’s colourful studio just above the roof of the salon.

Expertise and continuity

To be the in-house architect for something so amazing as an historic opera house is a great responsibility. In our role as renovation architects, we have to be experts on the building, its history, values and requirements. Our task included architectural, artistic, antiquarian, and technical oversight. We also ensured compliance with all regulatory requirements. Additionally, we made sure that every plan and action aligned with both management’s vision and the business requirements.

To take care of the opera house in the best possible way, long term plans need to be established both for maintenance and restoration. One of our most important tasks was to constantly walk the fine line between today’s requirements and the antiquarian requirements as well as qualities of the national monument.

A masterpiece of coordination

To be the in-house architect for the Royal Opera is in many ways a communicative masterpiece from a coordination stand point. The task requires constant communication with clients, managers, tenants, authorities, specialists, various consultants, contractors and craftsmen. There were many of us who worked intensively on the project – an amazing experience we will never forget.