Uppsala University

The University Main Building was built in the 1880s. Parliament had allocated funding, and King Oscar II laid the cornerstone in pouring rain on a spring day in 1879. The site was formerly occupied by a large academic riding building, which was torn down for the new edifice. On May 17, 1887 the building was inaugurated at a festive ceremony. The architect was Herman Teodor Holmgren.

What he created was a grand and stately structure in a sort of Romanesque Renaissance style. The strange thing is that, despite much modernizing and functional changes, we still experience largely the same building that visitors encountered in the 1880s. Its magnificent and spacious foyer with its light cupolas and the Grand Auditorium, which seats about 1800, gives us a good idea of the best of 19th-century Swedish architecture. Above the entrance to the Aula we read the often-quoted words of the 18th-century philosopher Thomas Thorild: “It is a great thing to think freely, but it is greater still to think correctly.”

There are many other grand rooms in the building. On the ground floor, the University Board convenes in a room with portraits of all the Swedish kings from Gustavus Wasa to Gustavus VI Adolphus. On the upper level there is the so-called Chancellor’s Room, where the University’s rector receives prominent guests. This room, like a series of other connecting rooms, is adorned with numerous portraits depicting kings, cultural figures, and above all professors who have been active at the University over the centuries. In one of the rooms there is a famous group picture representing the Faculty of Theology in 1911, with Nathan Söderblom as dean. The artist was Emerik Stenberg. Uppsala University’s art collection is one of the largest in the country owned by the Swedish state.

The University Main Building is also the venue for many academic ceremonies. Each year between 15 and 25 new full professors are solemnly inaugurated in the Grand Auditorium. Another ceremony steeped in atmosphere and tradition is the conferring of degrees, when the year’s recipients of doctor’s degrees receive their doctor’s hat or wreath of laurels—a tradition harking back to the year 1600.

References:

• Uppsala Universitet

Address

Biskopsgatan 3, Uppsala, Sweden

Details

Founded: 1880's
Category: Palaces, manors and town halls in Sweden
Historical period: Union with Norway and Modernization (Sweden)