Thursday 23 April 2009

Crown Princess Victoria and Daniel Westling to live at Haga Palace


It has been announced that Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden and her fiancé Daniel Westling after their wedding will live at Haga Palace in the Haga Park in Solna, just outside the city of Stockholm.
Since 1966 the rather small palace has been at the disposal of the Swedish government, which has used it for meetings and conferences and as a guest house for prominent foreign visitors. It was Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt who made it known at a press meeting earlier today that the government had now decided to return the right of disposal to the royal family, an offer the court had gladly accepted.
The neoclassical Haga Palace was built 1802-1805 by the architect Carl Christoffer Gjörwell on the orders of King Gustaf IV Adolf. Just across the road is Gustaf III’s Pavilion, which had been built by Olof Tempelman for King Gustaf III in 1787-1790, and behind is the ruins of the huge Haga Palace, a Swedish Versailles designed by Louis-Jean Desprez which was being built for Gustaf III. However, the building of this large palace was stopped when Gustaf III was assassinated in 1792. His son, Gustaf IV Adolf, soon found his father’s pavilion too small to accommodate his growing family and therefore ordered a new building from Gjörwell.
Following Gustaf IV Adolf’s deposal in 1809 Haga Palace was put at the disposal of his aunt Hedvig Elisabeth Charlotta, the new queen, and it became known as the Queen’s Pavilion. As crown prince the future Oscar I sometimes stayed there with his family, while his daughter-in-law, Princess Teresia, the widow of Prince August, had her permanent home there until her death in 1914. The next inhabitant was Prince Erik, the mentally handicapped youngest son of King Gustaf V. Prince Erik died in the autumn of 1918 and Haga Palace was thereafter briefly opened up to children who had lost their homes as a result of World War I.
The next – and most famous – royal inhabitants were Prince Gustaf Adolf and Princess Sibylla, the present King’s parents, who moved in following their marriage in 1932. At Haga they raised their four daughters, Princesses Margaretha, Birgitta, Désirée and Christina, thereafter forever known as “the Haga princesses”. In 1946 the family was completed by the birth of Prince Carl Gustaf, but only nine months later Prince Gustaf Adolf was killed in a plane accident.
A few years later Haga Palace was badly in need of repairs and in 1950 the widowed Princess Sibylla and her children temporarily moved to the Royal Palace in Stockholm. They soon found that they liked their new life in the city and chose to remain at the Royal Palace when the renovation of Haga was completed. As a result of this King Gustaf VI Adolf decided to renounce his royal right of disposal in favour of the government.
The pictures show Haga Palace in early March this year.

The royal court's press release:

http://www.kungahuset.se/ovrigt/pressrum/hovetmeddelar/aretsarkivhovetmeddelar/kronprinsessanochdanielwestlingkommerattbopahagaslott.5.6b0698e911fa8f90058800010932.html

The government's press release:

http://www.regeringen.se/sb/d/11817/a/125035

Articles in Dagens Nyheter and Svenska Dagbladet:

http://www.dn.se/nyheter/sverige/kronprinsessan-flyttar-in-pa-haga-1.850599

http://www.svd.se/nyheter/inrikes/victoriaochdaniel/artikel_2784881.svd

No comments:

Post a Comment

Comments are welcome, but should be signed - preferably by a name, but an initial or a nick will also be accepted. Advertisements are not allowed. COMMENTS WHICH DO NOT COMPLY WITH THESE RULES WILL NOT BE PUBLISHED.