The move from Gamla Uppsala took over a century to accomplish. When fire damaged the old cathedral in 1204, church officials petitioned Rome for permission to relocate. Pope Alexander IV agreed in 1258, on one condition: the name Uppsala must follow. By 1272, French architects had begun raising walls near the River Fyris, on the exact spot where Saint Eric had been killed. Progress was painfully slow. The cold Swedish climate, waves of plague, and chronic financial difficulties stretched construction across 150 years. Etienne de Bonneuil, a master builder from Paris, arrived in 1287 with promissory notes covering his travel expenses, and spent years working on the chancel and transepts. When Archbishop Olaus Laurentii finally consecrated the cathedral in 1435, it still wasn't complete. The west end wouldn't be finished until mid-century, and the towers took decades more.

Unlike the stone cathedrals of northern France that inspired its design, Uppsala Cathedral rose in red brick. Stone had to be imported from distant Gotland, while bricks could be made locally. This practical choice gave the cathedral its distinctive warm color but required thicker walls since brick and mortar cannot match stone's strength. The building witnessed Sweden's religious transformation: built under Roman Catholicism, it became Protestant after the Reformation, its medieval frescoes whitewashed over and only uncovered during 1970s renovations. The Sture Chapel memorializes three nobles murdered by King Eric XIV in 1567, their tomb featuring a reredos from 1520 depicting Mary's parents Anne and Joachim. One bell, called Thornan, was seized from the Polish city of Torun in 1703 as war booty during the Great Northern War, its bronze voice once calling Catholics to prayer now summoning Swedish Lutherans.

The Vasa Chapel, once dedicated to the Virgin Mary, became the tomb of Gustav Vasa, the king who made Sweden Protestant and pointed castle cannons at this very cathedral. He lies with his three wives, though only two appear on the sarcophagus designed by Willem Boy. His son John III rests here too, along with John's Polish wife Catherine Jagiellon, who has her own chapel. But royalty shares this ground with intellect: Carl Linnaeus, who created the binomial naming system still used for every species on Earth, has a memorial designed by Tobias Sergel. Nathan Soderblom, archbishop and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, rests at the foot of the altar steps. A small stone commemorates Dag Hammarskjold, the UN Secretary-General killed in a 1961 plane crash, bearing his words: Icke jag, utan Gud i mig. Not I, but God in me.

The great fire of 1702 nearly destroyed the cathedral, melting bells and collapsing spires. Carl Harleman's restoration gave the towers low copper-topped helms, a compromise that lasted until architect Helgo Zettervall's aggressive 1880s renovation. Zettervall sought a French High Gothic appearance, adding the pointed spires that brought the cathedral to its current 118.7-meter height, making it exactly as tall as it is long. Critics accused him of ignoring the building's original Baltic Gothic character, but his spires defined Uppsala's skyline for over a century. The rose window at the north portal survives from the 13th century, unchanged through fires and renovations, its limestone tracery framing light that has illuminated this nave for 750 years. The Treasury Museum in the north tower displays Queen Margaret's golden gown and the burial regalia of the Vasa kings, artifacts from centuries when this cathedral crowned Swedish monarchs and buried their remains.