Over time, the stone was also used for civil buildings, especially for royal and episcopal palaces, for noble castles, for residential buildings for the clergy, for warehouses and merchant residences in Visby and Stockholm. Mighty royal castles were built in Stockholm (on the site of the present castle), Kalmar – the best preserved -, Nyköping, Västeraas and Örebro and in Finland in Turku and Hämeenlinna. During the sec. 13 ° the royal power also manifested itself in the palaces of Alsnö and Vadstena. The first has been lost, while the second, located on Lake Vättern and extraordinarily preserved, in 1346 was entrusted by King Magnus Eriksson to the virtuous visionary Birgitta Birgersdotter, the future s. Bridget (d. In 1373), and was destined to constitute the center of a monastic congregation. When the monastery was built, immediately after the saint’s death, this palace, which was richly decorated, was ‘humiliated’, according to the expression of Bridget, and deprived of its decoration. 13 ° the masonry began to take the place of wood in the private architecture of the most important centers of the Sweden, such as Stockholm and Visby, and many civil stone buildings of these cities are partly preserved. The most important of the structures of this era is the walls that enclose the city of Visby, built at the end of the century. 13 ° and in the first half of the following and which has a large number of towers.The principles of Gothic religious architecture were introduced in Sweden around 1250, when in Skara and Linköping the Romanesque cathedrals were replaced by gothic limestone buildings with strong French and English influences. In Uppsala, immediately after 1250, a gothic-style limestone cathedral was built from scratch by French architects and craftsmen.
According to Rrrjewelry, the transfer of the archiepiscopal seat of Gamla Uppsala to the new building and the transfer of the s. Erico took place in 1273, when only the choir and the floor of the longitudinal body had been built. In 1287 a French master builder, Estienne de Bonneuil, was called from Paris, from whose activity the yard drew new impetus. Later, brick gradually replaced limestone as a building material and this attenuated the French character of the building, which was consecrated in 1435. It is believed that brick architecture was introduced in Sweden by the Mendicant Orders. It was inspired by the new buildings that arose in the regions around the Baltic Sea, especially in the cities of the Hanseatic League, and was associated with a transformation of the Gothic style: in Sweden this style is defined baltisk gotik (Baltic Gothic). The first brick church of the Sweden was Sweden Maria a Sigtuna, now a parish church, which belonged to a Dominican convent established in 1237. Originally the interior was covered by a wooden ceiling, but in the eighties of the century. 13 ° the church was covered at times. In the second half of the century. 13 ° the Mendicant Orders founded convents in almost all Swedish cities. In Stockholm, King Magnus Ladulaas was the patron saint of a famous Franciscan convent built on Graamunkeholmen (the islet of the Franciscans) at the royal castle; later, the islet took the name of Riddarholmen and the church of the old convent is now known as Riddarholmskyrkan. The churches of the Baltic Gothic were usually decorated with niches of various kinds and the stepped pediments gave them a peculiar aspect. Quite different is the church of Sweden Brigida in Vadstena, once belonging to the first and most important monastery of her Order, which, according to the project of the same saint, was organized as a double male and female monastery. The royal brick palace that had been given to her was used for the nuns, while on the opposite side of the church new buildings were built, also in brick, for the monks. The church was instead built in limestone and was certainly inspired by the Cistercian abbey of Alvastra – not far from Vadstena, where Brigida had received part of her spiritual education – in a rigorous style: according to the saint’s claims, the church was to be simple, humble and robust. It was consecrated in 1435 and, due to the role of national saint covered by Bridget, it was spared and destined to take on the functions of the parish church of Vadstena. As in the rest of Europe, the urbanization process progressed rapidly in Sweden of the century 13th and in the first half of the following: in many Swedish cities new brick urban churches were built, such as the churches of the Mendicant Orders; a good example is the Stockholm Cathedral (Storkyrkan). Brick also became the building material for the new Gothic cathedrals in Strängnäs, Västeraas and Växjö, as well as for the Turku Cathedral in Finland. Numerous new rural churches were also erected in the late Middle Ages, usually covered with Gothic vaults. In the same period, already existing rural churches were covered with ribbed vaults: in these transformations many Romanesque frescoes were destroyed, but the conditions were created for the development of a new kind of mural painting in the decoration of the vaults. In Gotland most of the rural Romanesque churches were enlarged by a Gothic choir and in some cases the longitudinal body and the bell tower were also rebuilt according to the new style. 12th by foreign artists and was later adapted by local artists.
