He showed artistic talents at an early age and was given an education in Mathematics and language at Uppsala, where he must have been influenced by Olaus Rudbeck who was at the time highly engaged in the scientific basis of architecture and botany.

[1] In 1673, 19 years old, he accompanied Marchese del Monte, the Emissary of Queen Christina, to Italy and Rome, where the royal protection ensured he would get the best teachers available; leading architects of the era such as Carlo Fontana and Gian Lorenzo Bernini.

However, the Reduction also meant considerably fewer assignments from the nobility, and when Tessin the Younger succeeded his father in 1681, his main clients was the church and the royal court, with the many ambitious palaces and gardens of Queen Hedvig Elenora as the most important projects.

[1] In the end of the 1680s, King Charles XI commissioned Tessin to modernise the northern part of the Stockholm Palace, why the architect had the opportunity to do a second study tour, including the Netherlands, France, and Italy.

This time, however, he was met with great respect all over the continent, and he later proudly retold the event when King Louis XIV of France had the fountains at the Versailles Palace play upon his visit, a tribute normally only granted foreign princes.

Upon his return he immediately begun his work on the royal palace, and in 1695 his large-scale northern Baroque façade was completed, apparently inspired by Gian Lorenzo Bernini's project at the Louvre.