Architecture in Copenhagen and the Øresund

Copenhagen's best-known buildings are Martin Nyrop's City Hall of 1905, a major work of Danish National Romanticism; Peder Vilhelm Jensen-Klint's Grundtvig's Church in yellow brick; and the Police Headquarters, with its circular colonnaded courtyard from the 1920s. North of the city lie the art museum Louisiana, dating from 1958, beside the Øresund, and the Renaissance castle Kronborg in Helsingør, Hamlet's castle. Brick, craftsmanship and simple, carefully made details recur, and the same attitude marks Danish design.

Facts

The City Hall: National Romanticism in red brick

When Copenhagen grew out beyond the old ramparts, the city needed a new town hall. Martin Nyrop won the competition in 1888, and the City Hall was built in 1892–1905 on the line where the ramparts had once run, at what became Rådhuspladsen (City Hall Square). Nyrop took his model from Siena's town hall, the Palazzo Pubblico, but gave the building a Nordic character: red brick with details in granite and limestone, façades covered in shields, figures and animals from Norse mythology and Danish nature, and a gilded statue of Bishop Absalon, the city's founder, above the entrance.

The tower is about 105 metres high. Inside is a large hall with a glass roof and Jens Olsen's World Clock, which was inaugurated in 1955. The City Hall influenced architects throughout the Nordic countries, among them Ragnar Östberg when he designed Stockholm City Hall. Compare the two: the same Italian models, the same brick and the same craftsmanship, but Östberg's building stands by the water with its tower rising directly above Riddarfjärden.

Grundtvig's Church: six million yellow bricks

Grundtvig's Church in Bispebjerg was built in memory of the priest, hymn writer and educator N.F.S. Grundtvig. Peder Vilhelm Jensen-Klint, who had been an engineer and painter before becoming an architect, won the competition in 1913, and construction took place in 1921–1940. He died in 1930, and his son Kaare Klint completed the church.

The form is based on the Danish village church with a stepped gable, but on a monumental scale, and the west façade has been compared to an organ. Everything is built of roughly six million yellow bricks, including the interior, where the vaults reach a height of about 22 metres. The nave is bright and almost without decoration; it is the brickwork, laid with great care, that forms the ornament. The housing blocks around the church are built in the same brick, so that the whole becomes a small town.

Kaare Klint also designed the chairs for the church, and he became the teacher of an entire generation of Danish furniture architects. The period is described in the history of design under Klint and Functionalism.

The Police Headquarters: classicism around a circular courtyard

Soon after the First World War, Danish architects, like their Swedish counterparts, turned from National Romanticism to a severe classicism. The Police Headquarters, Copenhagen's police headquarters, was designed by Hack Kampmann and built in 1918–1924. Kampmann died in 1920, and the work was completed by his son and three other architects.

The façades are austerely rendered and almost entirely without decoration, just rows of windows. Inside, the triangular building encloses several courtyards, and the best known is the circular one with a colonnade of paired columns, one of the most photographed architectural spaces in the city. The same style is found in Sweden in the buildings of Asplund and Tengbom, and the difference from 18th-century classicism is explained in the guide to Gustavian Neoclassicism and 1920s classicism.

Louisiana and Danish Modernism

Louisiana in Humlebæk, a few tens of kilometres north of Copenhagen, opened in 1958. Jørgen Bo and Vilhelm Wohlert linked an old villa with low, whitewashed pavilions by means of glazed corridors that wind through a park down towards the Øresund. The architecture is so discreet that the landscape and the art take the leading role, and the museum became a model for how an art museum can sit in nature.

Denmark's post-war period is as famous for design as for architecture. Architects such as Arne Jacobsen designed both buildings and furniture, and chairs by Hans J. Wegner and Finn Juhl became world-famous. The period is described in the history of design under Danish Modern. Jørn Utzon, who designed the Sydney Opera House, later built Bagsværd Church in the suburbs of Copenhagen, and the practice that Henning Larsen founded in Copenhagen in 1959 is known for its work with daylight.

Kronborg and the Øresund

At the narrowest point of the Øresund, in Helsingør, stands Kronborg. In 1574–1585 Frederick II rebuilt a medieval fortress as a Renaissance castle in the Dutch style, with sandstone façades and gables and towers of varying shape and height. The castle controlled shipping and the Sound Dues, which were levied until 1857. The Great Hall is about 62 metres long. Shakespeare set his Hamlet here, and the castle became a World Heritage Site in 2000.

From Copenhagen the Turning Torso in Malmö is visible on the other side of the sound, and since the Øresund Bridge opened in 2000 the region has formed a whole. The Scanian side is described in the guide to architecture in Skåne, and the Nordic countries in general in the history under the Nordic countries. The buildings are on the map below.

What to look for

Exercise

Which building in Copenhagen influenced Ragnar Östberg when he designed Stockholm City Hall?