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Big or small, ordinary or unusual. The museum’s collections have it all. Artifacts, photos, artwork and archival material are collected, preserved and displayed in various ways.
The City Museum in Stockholm is one of Sweden’s largest municipal museums with a collection of over 300,000 items, 25,000 works of art, 4 million photographs, and an extensive library and archive. The museum’s collections include artifacts, photos, artwork and archival material which are collected, preserved and displayed in various ways. The collections are stored in depositories located in Frihamnen.
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In the Digitala Stadsmuseet — Digital City Museum — you will find many of the photographs in our collections, as well as art, objects and reports.
Since the beginning of the 1930s, the City Museum has been collecting photographs with a Stockholm connection. The collections contain roughly 4 million images including glass and plastic negatives, slides, photo albums, glass plates and other photographic materials. The oldest photographs date back to the 1840s.
The largest part of the material reflects Stockholm through the ages, but there are also large collections of portraits, press photos, photographs from other administrations in the city and much more.
Yesterday’s everyday objects become the treasures of the future. Photo: Johan Stigholt.
Artifacts
Archaeological finds are the largest group in the collections of artifacts. They have been discovered during excavations from the 1930s onwards. The finds date from prehistoric times up to 1850.
The architectural history collection includes tiled stoves, panels, wallpapers, ceilings, doors, and windows. There are also stone decorations from buildings that have been demolished or renovated since the late 1800s.
The urban history collection contains items from Stockholm’s various activities, such as the fire department, police, healthcare, schools, crafts, factories, street vendors, shops, cafés, restaurants, private homes, and municipal institutions.
Some of all the works of art in the City Museum’s collections. Photo: Annika Holmér.
Art
The art collection at the City Museum consists of about 35,000 works, of which 1,400 are oil paintings. The rest are watercolours, graphics, and drawings on paper. The images date from the 16th to the 19th century and depict the city’s appearance, life, and inhabitants through street scenes, views, portraits, and caricatures.
A menu from the Hotel Continental, December 8, 1889. Photo: Annika Holmér.
Archives
The City Museum’s activities are documented in the archives which include exhibitions, referral responses in building permit and cultural environmental protection cases, building inventories and archaeological reports. The archives also contain theater and entertainment historical material, individual archives, records and memorials. The archive’s maps and drawings tell the story of the city’s expansion and development.
Library
The library in Frihamnen primarily collects Stockholm literature and has approximately 50,000 volumes including large standard works combined with university essays and simple brochures. The library has a lot of material on building history and architecture. Feel free to visit us, but book an appointment first as we have no home loans; the literature is studied on site.
