The Chinese Pavilion

This guide to the Chinese Pavilion at Drottningholm in Stockholm opens on a July morning in 1753, when seven-year-old Crown Prince Gustav, dressed as a Chinese mandarin, handed his mother Queen Lovisa Ulrika a golden key to a miniature palace built and assembled in secret overnight. You'll hear why that first pavilion had to be rebuilt within a decade, and what architect Carl Fredrik Adelcrantz raised in its place between 1763 and 1769. It follows the imported Chinese lacquer, silk and porcelain that still fill its rooms, and the trade routes that paid for them.