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In the City Museum’s depository, signs hang in long rows from some of the city’s defunct businesses. Photo: Johan Stigholt.
Collections
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.
Explore the web
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
The City Museum’s artifacts collections include archaeological finds which are the numerically largest group among the artifacts collections. They have been found in archaeological excavations from the 1930s to the present day and in terms of time, they are objects from prehistoric times up to and including the year 1850.
The architectural history collection includes tiled stoves, panels, wallpaper, ceilings, doors, windows and shutters as well as building decorations made of stone saved from demolitions and renovations of buildings from the end of the 19th century until today.
In the city history collection there are artifacts that have been used in various activities of Stockholm or that have been donated to or purchased by the museum. The artifacts tell about Stockholm’s fire and police services, street maintenance, health and social care, school system, various artisan workshops, factory production, street sales, shop interiors, cafe and restaurant life, individual homes and municipal institutions.
Some of all the works of art in the City Museum’s collections. Photo: Annika Holmér.
Art
The City Museum’s art collection consists of approximately 35,000 works including approximately 1,400 oil paintings and the rest are watercolours, graphics and drawings on paper. The paper-based art is currently being cataloged and photographed.
The pictures are from the 16th to the 20th century and shed light on the appearance of the city through street scenes and views; life in the city environment through scenes and satires; and the city’s inhabitants through 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.
