Hallwylska palatset, Stockholm

Hallwylska palatset is a historic house museum, and the building itself is the remarkable exhibit. Built for Count Walther and Countess Wilhelmina von Hallwyl, it became their Stockholm home and was designed by Isak Gustaf Clason with Albert Collett. The palace rose between 1893 and 1898, combining references to medieval buildings and Renaissance Venice with unusually modern domestic equipment.

Its original comforts included electricity, central heating, telephones and bathrooms, while a passenger lift arrived during the construction period. Look at the stonework around the entrance and the enclosed courtyard: the street elevation uses sandstone, while granite appears in the base and architectural surrounds. Inside, the preserved rooms show how an affluent Stockholm household lived around the turn of the twentieth century.

The house contains around 40 rooms across five floors, including reception rooms, offices, bedrooms, bathrooms and an attic once fitted with a bowling alley and a picture gallery. Wilhelmina von Hallwyl built her collection through journeys around the world, gathering art, antiquities, weapons, porcelain and silver. She gave the house and its contents to the Swedish state in 1920, with the condition that everything remain unchanged.

The museum opened to the public in 1938, and its collection now includes more than 50,000 objects. What you see is both a grand residence and a carefully preserved domestic world.