Martin Nyrop
Martin Nyrop designed Copenhagen City Hall, one of the masterpieces of Danish National Romanticism. He combined Italian models with Norse mythology and Danish craft traditions and influenced architects throughout the Nordic countries.
Martin Nyrop was born in 1849 on Funen, the son of a clergyman. He first trained as a carpenter and then studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen. He worked for several architects of the day and travelled in Europe, including Italy, where he studied medieval town halls. He was interested in vernacular building and craftsmanship and worked with timber construction, among other things for the Nordic Industrial Exhibition in Copenhagen in 1888.
Nyrop’s masterpiece is Copenhagen City Hall, for which he won the competition in 1888 and which was built in 1892–1905. It is built of red brick with details in granite and limestone and has a tall tower inspired by the town hall of Siena. The façades and interiors are filled with artistic details, with motifs from Norse mythology, Danish nature and the history of Copenhagen. He also designed hospitals, churches and schools, among them Bispebjerg Hospital in Copenhagen, a large complex of pavilions in a park.
Nyrop died in 1921. He was a professor at the Academy and an important teacher for the next generation of Danish architects. Copenhagen City Hall influenced National Romanticism throughout the Nordic countries, and Ragnar Östberg drew on it when he designed Stockholm City Hall. Nyrop’s way of gathering artists and craftsmen around a building became a model for the Nordic total work of art around 1900.