of the clergy usually held their meetings in Storkyrkan. Still today, a sermon in Storkyrkan traditionally marks the opening of the Riksdag every autumn. During the Middle Ages the church was also used for meetings of the city council of Stockholm. Architecture Exterior The building material of the church is brick. The base of the church is strengthened with sandstone and granite. Storkyrkan is "of modest proportions"; it is long and wide. The exterior of the church is uniformly Baroque, and only the stairwell added by Palmstedt is in a slightly different style. The north and south facades are divided by buttresses treated as pilasters. Otherwise, the elements of the exterior are oriented horizontally rather than vertically. The tower and the gables of the church are decorated with pilasters and mouldings, in a simplified version of Carlberg's original proposal. At the south east corner of the church, a sundial from the 16th century is attached to the wall. A large memorial plaque with an inscription in Latin is placed in the middle of the east wall of the church, commemorating the rebuilding of the church in the 18th century. 28 windows supply the interior with light. The main entrance is in the base of the tower at the west end of the church. Another entrance is located in the north wall, and there are two lesser entrances to the south. Interior Storkyrkan is a hall church, five bays wide and eight bays long. The plan is that of an irregular rectangle, as the form of the building had to be adapted to pre-existing adjacent streets. Brick vaults supported by pillars and richly articulated compound piers cover the entire interior. The eight central bays are covered with rib vaults of a complex and unusual design. The rest of the church has groin vaults. The interior space is divided by the central nave, with open benches on either side. The choir floor is three steps higher than the rest of the church and limited by wrought iron fences to the north and south. Three galleries are placed in the west of the interior, one of which contains the church organ. Most of the windows are clear, but the north westernmost window is decorated with stained glass made by Einar Forseth in the 20th century. The stained glass rose window in the east wall was donated to the church in 1858. It was