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Architecture in Copenhagen

The architecture of Copenhagen in Denmark is characterised by a wide variety of styles, progressing through Christian IV’s early 17th century landmarks and the elegant 17th century mansions and palaces of Frederiksstaden, to the late 19th century residential boroughs and cultural institutions to the modernistic contribution of the 20th century such as Arne Jacobsen’s National Bank and SAS Royal Hotel

Copenhagen is recognised globally as an exemplar of best practice urban planning. Its thriving mixed use city centre is defined by striking contemporary architecture, engaging public spaces and an abundance of human activity. These design outcomes have been deliberately achieved through careful replanning in the second half of the 20th century, with notable contributions both by leading international architects and a wave of new successful Danish architects.

Copenhagen is famous for balancing new and old architecture and a homogeneous building stock at 5-6 storeys, and in 2008 the Borger Representation decided that Innerby should be sheltered from high-rise buildings . Thus, large parts of the inner city appear quite well-preserved in spite of historic fires and bombings, although many of the famous towers and spines are of recent date. However, the fires mean that the medieval building mass has largely disappeared, and it is therefore the only era that is poorly represented in the city’s appearance. Unlike, for example, Stockholm , Copenhagen is characterized by punctual renewals of the building stock rather than violent gaps in major neighborhoods. At the same time, the economy has often tied up with the most ambitious projects, which is why knot shooting solutions such as the National Museum of Art and the Black Diamond are widespread. Large parts of Inner City, Christianshavn and Frederikstad are subject to construction .

As in many similar cities, the veneration for the past has followed economic conditions: in good times it has been demolished, while periods of stagnation have resulted in the reuse of buildings. The building fighter has especially been ravaged by the fall of violence in the 1850s and 1860s , in the 1880s and 1900s , in the post- 1950s and 1960s, and in the late 1990s and 2000s , especially growth in housing construction. In the latter period, old industrial plants have been transformed into luxury housing in world class architecture , such as the Carlsberg Silo (1997) by Vilhelm Lauritzens Tegnestue , Torpedohallen (2003), by the Danish Art Gallery Vandkunsten and Gemini Residence (2005) by Dutch MVRDV in collaboration with JJW architects.

Medieval times
The oldest preserved building in Copenhagen’s inner city is considered to be the Church of St. Petri. Its tower, the central nave and the choir date back to the 16th century. The most important medieval building in the Copenhagen area is Roskilde Cathedral from 1170 located in the city of Roskilde west of Copenhagen that used to be the country’s capital before Copenhagen.

Renaissance
Over the centuries Copenhagen grew in importance and a number of important landmarks of present-day Copenhagen date back to the late 16th and early 17th centuries. This can also be attributed to the personal effort of Christian IV which is popularly known as the builder king in Denmark because of his legacy of and involvement in large building projects. Rosenborg Castle and his stock exchange in central Copenhagen as well as Frederiksborg Palace in Hillerød are both build in Dutch Renaissance. Christian IV also founded the neighbourhoods of Christianshavn and Nyboder as well as such important green spaces as King’s Garden and Kastellet.

Baroque
Christian 4. Does not inherit a special place in the history of the city without reason. Not only did he double the city’s area to the east and built Christianshavn, but he was also the capital’s first city planner who, through engineer Johan Semp, introduced a tight and regular Dutch inspired urban plan for Christianshavn (1617) in contrast to the random medieval street. To the east, Sankt Anna Rotunda should have been the center of the new district, which orientation of Nyboders streets still reflects.

Børsen (1619-25) of the Dutch Renaissance style emerges as a unique building of European architecture, including, among other things, all of the royal buildings. your nine end, the stock market disaster and the famous dragon squad .

In the second half of the century, much did not happen. The Swedish wars were hard at the city, and among the few renewals that took place subsequently was the construction of Kastellet (1661-65) by Henrik Ruse . Frederik 3. planned a castle in Kastellet, but it became only Sophie Amalienborg (1667-73) who later had to turn the seat. Under the successor Christian 5. Nyhavn was dug out, King Nytorv landed and Charlottenborg (1672-83) was built. These buildings testified about the changed taste towards Dutch Baroque style, but first with Frederik 4 , the Baroque style really broke through in the form of Frederiksberg Castle (1699 BC) and the Red Building for Danish Kancelli next to the royal castle.

Baroque buildings in Copenhagen include the Round Tower and the Church of Our Saviour as well as Fredensborg Palace.

Rococo
Frederiksstaden was constructed during the reign of Frederick V in the second half of the 18th century and is considered to be one of the most important rococo complexes in Europe. It was developed to commemorated the 300 years jubilee of the House of Oldenburg taking the throne in Denmark. Leading the project was A. G. Moltke, with Nicolai Eigtved as the main architect. Frederiksstaden has Amalienborg Palace and Marble Church at its centre and together they create an axis that was extended with the creation of the new Copenhagen Opera House in 2005 on the other side of the harbour basin . The district is characterized by straight broad streets in a straight-angled street layout. The streets are lined by burgois houses, mansions and palaces. Another important building in the district is the royal Frederiks Hospital was Denmark’s first hospital in the present-day meaning of the word. It now houses the Danish Museum of Art & Design.

After Copenhagen’s fire in 1728, the residences were rebuilt after JC Krieger’s drawings. This was reflected in the so-called ” fire brigade ” with gabled and powerful colors, for example. on Gråbrødretorv 1-5.

The 1700s became a great architectural century for the city. The old Copenhagen castle , a miscalculation of various periodic patches, was torn down by the built-up Christian 6 , who made the first Christiansborg Castle . The castle burned in 1794, but the Ridebane plant with Marmorbroen (1745) originated from the first Christiansborg and was designed by Nicolai Eigtved in Viennese Baroque and French Rococo. It is considered one of Europe’s most beautiful architecture monuments from the mid-18th century.

Eigtved was also the architect of the new town Frederiksstad , initiated by Frederik 5. in 1749, and became a triumph of the Rococo style. Centrally, a large octagonal square, Amalienborg Castle Square , was built with four nobility palaces built in the 1750s in Saxon- inspired rococo. The plant is considered as a main work in Danish and European building art and encircles JFJ Salys masterpiece: The Rytterstatuen by Frederik 5. (1768).

Across the castle square, the one main axis of the district, which originated in Frederikskirken (Marmorkirken), began in 1754 by Jardin and completed in 1894 by Meldahl in a style of Italian baroque. The dome church is considered a successful end to Frederikstad. The church room is 46 meters high and the dome spans 31 meters. At the opposite end of the axis, which was originally completed by the rider statue, Amaliehaven (1983) is next to the harbor, and in 2004 the axis was extended with Henning Larsen’s Opera House – a controversial project that met critics from, among others, Academy Council .

Two other masterful architects created the baroque Copenhagen: Eigtveds competitor Lauritz de Thurah , drawing the famous twisted staircraft on the Tower of Our Savior’s Church (1752) with a three-meter gold-plated figure on the top, and Philip de Lange , who designed Holmen’s buildings, . Mastering Cranes (1750).

After Eigtved’s death, the courage shifted towards Louis Seize and classicalism . CF Harsdorff drew a sophisticated house with pilasters on King Nytorv, which became a “model” for other architects in the time that followed. After the city’s fire in 1795 and the British bombing in 1807, large parts of the city were to be restored, and Harsdorff’s students, Johan Martin Quist and Andreas Hallander , performed this task in his footsteps. It became sparsely decorated, refined houses; often with cut corners. Most of the inner city is characterized by this bourgeois, unpretentious architecture. The city’s city councilor and city builder, Jørgen Henrik Rawert and Peter Meyn , had after the fire drafted a plan indicating how the new Copenhagen street should be constructed, and Crown Princess Street is a particularly nice example of a house from this time.

19th century
The 19th century architect CF Hansen designed the Domhuset (1815), originally combined with Copenhagen’s fifth town hall, and Copenhagen Cathedral, Our Lady Church, in very pure classical style with Dorian and Ionian temple portals respectively. It was in Hansen’s chance to fill the reconstructed city with monumental buildings, which enabled him to construct prestigious ensembles of buildings, among other things. the interaction between the Church of the Virgin and the Metropolitan School .

CF Hansen also exercised great influence over the architecture of contemporary architecture after his death in 1845 , and classicalism was recognized as an ideal until the architects of historicism made up with this legacy. Hansen’s son-in-law, GF Hetsch , became a leader in late classicalism. He gave the style a German touch, which was taken up by, among other things, HC Stilling , PC Bønecke , City Builders Peder Malling and NS Nebelong and PC Hagemann . In contrast to CF Hansen’s design language, the plastic effects were dimmed in favor of the low relief and greater detail on the facades. However, most of these architects moved in the 1840s towards historicism. MG Bindesbøll’s Thorvaldsen Museum (1848) marked both a culmination of classicalism and its final.

By the end of the century, classicalism was thus replaced by historicism, also called eclecticism (style mix). During this period, Vilhelm Dahlerup stood for some of the city’s finest and most popular buildings, from official houses such as The Royal Theater (1874) and the Monumental State Museum of Art (1896) inspired by Italian Renaissance and to small places like the Naval Pavilion (1894) and the Pantomimete Theater (1874) in Tivoli.

The fall of violence (1856) was the start of a wandered and liberalist era, where new labor quarters quickly shot up, built by speculators. The city’s first building law of the same year was very elastic and resulted in the building blocks of the neighborhoods and Gammelholm , where there was a profound difference between the heavily decorated facades facing the street and the dark back yards and small apartments.

Herman Bang’s novel Stuk depicts life in the happy 1880s and parodies the construction worker Hellig-Hansen , who has created large parts of Copenhagen, as we know today, among other things. the neighborhood of Israel’s Square with the festive ornate facades.

The city’s growth plant, caused by the many migrants from the country, increased the need for new schools, waterworks, churches etc. The city’s first waterworks (1859) can still be visited at Vesterport Station , and the first church outside the violence was Skt. Johannes Church in Nørrebro (1862). In 1886 , the city became a city architect, Ludvig Fenger , who had a monopoly on the municipality’s tasks and was to ensure the quality of public construction. It was not popular among the private architects, but in reality many tasks were handed over to others because Fenger could not afford to overcome the workload. Many municipal schools were thus designed by Andreas Clemmensen and Hans J. Holm , and Thorvald Jørgensen was given many church assignments. The city’s biggest task, the new Copenhagen City Hall , did not go to Fenger, whose historical style had in the meantime been old-fashioned.

1900s
The 20th century was thus begun with the building of the City’s Sixth Town Hall, Martin Nyrop’s masterpiece and the breakthrough of National Romanian Art, the City Hall of Copenhagen (1905). It is, in addition to being one of the city’s most distinctive buildings, filled with detail detail both inside and outside with the best craftsmanship. Inspiration spans from Viking art to Northern Italian Renaissance . The gilded statue of Bishop Absalon on the facade was performed by sculptor Vilhelm Bissen , and inside the council hall occupies 1048 sqm.

In 1911, the city got another large building in the same style: Copenhagen Central Station, designed by Heinrich Wenck , the third in the line, was distinguished by its rich wooden structures on arrivals and platforms. Built on an excavation between Reventlowsgade and Bernstorffsgade , all 12 tracks were passed on to the Arrivals Hall on the Boulevard .

At the Town Hall is the Anton Rosens Palace Hotel (1910), which is a main work in Danish Art Nouveau architecture . Especially the swung entrance and the 65 meter tall tower with four mosaics by Johannes Kragh are eye-catching.

The city was characterized by both the incorporation of major new districts (1902) and a completely changed view of town building. The Laissez-Faire position was replaced by city planning. It resulted, on the one hand, in trying to patch the damage of the last century by, inter alia, to lay out Fælledparken (1905-11), Enghaveparken (1929) and Nørrebroparken (1934-35) to create breathtaking areas in the densely populated areas and on the other side in planning the city’s future expansion. The municipality of Copenhagen acquired large land areas for future rational planning. At the same time, after the First World War , homeownership meant that the municipality became the builder of several large blocks of flats, where the apartments were well-placed and comfortable. About the same time, Bispebjerg Hospital (1908-13) was built.

Københavns Politigård (1918-24) by Hack Kampmann and others. is the most prominent example of Nordic neoclassicism in Denmark. The very rough exterior is matched by an inner circular open farm with 44 double columns and a diameter of 44 meters. Opposite the entrance is a square pillar hall, Mindegården, with a top opening and eight corinthian columns.

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Grundtvig’s Church (1921-40) at Bjerget in Bispebjerg is not one of the biggest tourist magnets, but has a unique architecture and impressive size. The church is designed by architect PV Jensen Klint and is performed in expressionist national romance with Gothic features. It is built exclusively in yellow brick as the country’s last large church – the church room is Denmark’s largest. The church appears to be a cathedral-style church with something so rare for a Danish church as a high breakthrough stretcher , and the mighty tower with the third-part staircase is featured as one of the most special buildings in the century. The surrounding low-rise buildings were built in 1924-36 in the same style and emphasize the church’s format.

One of the 20th century architects Arne Jacobsen introduced modernism in Denmark with the Bellevue Theater and residential building Bellavista (1934-37) north of Copenhagen. The city itself is characterized by three buildings: Stellings Hus (1937) at Gammeltorv, adapted to the house, Royal Hotel (1960), where he stood for the hotel’s total design including. furniture, cutlery and color scheme, inspired by Lever House in New York City , and Danmarks Nationalbank (1978), which, like the police yard from the outside, appears very closed and reprehensible, but which both encompass courtyards and gardens behind the walls and glass facades. All three buildings work to be the main works of Danish modernist architecture.

The municipality’s foresighted planning progressed in the 1930’s , 40’s and 50’s in the settlement of the Northwest Quarter and Bispebjerg , Sundbyer and the former railway station at Vesterport. Kay Fisker and Svenn Eske Kristensen accounted for much of the housing construction performed in a human Danish functionalism , where the brick played the lead role, for example. Vestersøhus (1939). These houses all had modern conveniences of the day.

Already around 1905, a renovation of the area around Gothersgade and Old Coin had been started, but the problems with unanimous and wrecked housing were far from being solved. In the 1930s one side of Torvegade on Christianshavn was demolished, and in the 1940s the redevelopment of New Copenhagen took place between the Royal Garden , Nyboder , Frederiksstaden and Gothersgade. The clean-up resulted in a well-organized residential and business district, but met with criticism due to loss of identity and cultural heritage.

The post-war planning of the metropolitan area was supported by the Fingerplan (1947), which is included in the Culture canon . The finger plan stated that in the future, urban congestion should primarily be concentrated in corridors – “fingers” – along the S-network, while the “spaces” between the “fingers” should be cleared to green areas. At the same time, the city’s expansion continued. Tingbjerg in the northwestern outskirts of the municipality was a brand new, fully planned urban area designed by Steen Eiler Rasmussen .

The rising autism had to change the city image, and in the first years, the municipality (with urban engineer Olaf Forchhammer in the forefront) aimed to expand the streets to add traffic flow. The most extreme outcome of this was the City Plan West and the Søringen project (1968) that would replace large parts of the city with new motorways and commercial centers. The artist Bo Bojesen made satire over this by drawing a capital that had disappeared in the car parks . The real effects of this practice were, inter alia, the massive Gutenberghus complex, which looked like a goose-tongue in the inner city. However, around 1970, the municipality changed its policy towards building retention , as it realized that in the long run there would never be enough space in the inner city for the new times. The last drastic grubbing-up of building materials in the inner city was the clearing of the Customs Union in 1973 , where AP Moller-Maersk’s headquarters (1974-79) were raised instead, designed by Ole Hagen , a significant modernist architect in the period. In the same area, Eva and Nils Koppel performed buildings for the Directorate of Customs (1973-75). By virtue of Nils Koppel’s office as royal building inspector, the Koppel couple also put a significant fingerprints on Copenhagen in this decade and the previous one.

In his book about Copenhagen ( 1969 ), architect professor Steen Eiler Rasmussen criticized the absence of a central planning body for the entire capital region. His wish was met when the Capital Council was formed in 1974 , but the council was already closed in 1989 .

The 1970s and 1980s were characterized by international modular architecture without distinctive character, as well as a building sector that was mainly concentrated in suburban municipalities, most often in the form of concrete elementary buildings. In the central parts of Copenhagen during the period, the focus was mostly on urban renovations, this time aimed at the rugged backyard scouts in the neighborhoods. The purification resulted in the removal of parts of Nørrebro ( the black square ) in favor of doubtful replacements.

Exceptions, however, were, for example, the Commonwealth Council’s focus on collective housing developments, the Art Center of Water Art’s postmodernist housing buildings from the late 1980s with imaginative pastel collections, and Jørn Utzon’s elegant white-pillar Paustians Hus (1987), which set the standard for the architecture along the Kalkbrænderiløbskajen in the Nordhavnen .

The 1980s, where the city was on the wallet of the fallit, was characterized by recycling – not only because of the Bz movement , but also via the municipality, which converted abandoned remises to civic homes. In the early 90’s, the city’s places were peacefuled by city architect Otto Käszner . Sankt Hans Torv and Gammeltorv / Nytorv are today popular urban spaces. At the same time, major conservation projects were initiated on Vesterbro and in the Holmbladsgade quarter of Amagerbro . These processes, where it was a policy that small flats should be assembled to larger, and as changed population composition, triggered speech of gentrification .

“Kramer wants to see cranes” was said about Mayor Jens Kramer Mikkelsen , and it was fulfilled. The reluctance to get into construction and the economy meant slight demands on the quality of the first generation architecture projects, including the Cryolit Foundation ( Tietgens Have ), the stadium Parken , the buildings in Copenhagen’s Free Port and along Kalvebod Brygge . Due to the private ownership of Copenhagen Harbor , the port was subject to speculation, now it was emptied of maritime activities.

The construction of Ørestad was the most far-reaching of the projects that would pull the capital out of the hanging film. However, the district was planned after the modernist model of the postwar and has been criticized for being over-planned and inflexible.

Towards the end of the century, a real bloom began in the architecture. Initially, in connection with successful extensions to existing cultural institutions such as the National Museum of Art , as CF Møller’s drawing room stood for 1992-98.

The following year, the Royal Library’s new extension extended its attention. The Black Diamond of the architects Schmidt, Hammer & Lassen distinguished by its sloping facades in black, polished granite and its alleged interaction with the existing library building across Christians Brygge . Both projects were flagships in connection with Kulturby 96 .

21st century: modernist architecture and urban development
Recent years have seen a boom in modern architecture in Copenhagen both for Danish architecture and for works by international architects. For a few hundred years, virtually no foreign architects had worked in Copenhagen, but since the turn of the millennium the city and its immediate surroundings have seen buildings and projects designed by top international architects. At the same time, a number of Danish architects have achieved success in Copenhagen and abroad.

Copenhagen’s urban development in the first half of the 20th century was heavily influenced by industrialisation. After World War II, Copenhagen Municipality adopted Fordism and repurposed its medieval centre to facilitate private automobile infrastructure in response to innovations in transport, trade and communication. Copenhagen’s spacial planning in this time frame was characterised by the separation of land uses: an approach which requires residents to travel by car to access facilities of different uses. This planning scheme largely aligned with the modernist framework endorsed by Le Corbusier in such conceptual projects as the controversial Plan Voisin for Paris.

Ebenezer Howard’s conceptualisation of the Garden City also perforated Copenhagen’s masterplan prior to the 1960s. In 1949, Copenhagen Municipality implemented the Finger Plan: a policy stating that the city should develop urban clusters along its five outreaching rapid public transport arteries. This early example of transit orientated development resonates with Howard’s ideal of developing periphery communities linked with productive urban centres. Due to the significant replanning that commenced in 1962, Copenhagen was fortunate to benefit from the intensification of its rapid transit corridors without suffering from the undesirable urban forms associated with British iterations of the Garden City.

In 1962, Danish architect Jan Gehl shifted the trajectory of Copenhagen’s development by pedestrianising key parts of its city centre with the goal of enhancing the on-street conditions for humans. Rigorous field studies informed Gehl’s conclusion that city spaces perform best when they encourage the use of public spaces. Gehl observed that the quality of life between buildings is diminished when substandard architecture, poor safety and overwhelming car infrastructure limit human engagement in public places. Gehl therefore commenced the replanning of Copenhagen in 1962 by pedestrianising Strøget: the city’s main interior transit artery.

Strøget is today the defining thread of Copenhagen’s urban fabric. In the first year of replanning the number of pedestrians accessing Strøget increased by 35% and the number of baby carriages observed in the street increased by 400%. In the forty years since the project’s commencement Gehl has overseen the conversion of 100 000 square metres of private vehicle space into pedestrian space with fine stone street surfacing, improved ambient street lighting and architecturally designed public furniture. Beyond the streetscape, the urban form is now defined by low rise, mixed use developments that thrive upon the increased pedestrian access.

Gehl’s work in redefining Copenhagen’s urban form is today praised as true innovation, however the redevelopment was informed by several historical planning approaches. Most notably, Gehl drew significant inspiration from the urban forms that featured prominently in Southern European cities prior to the 16th century. These urban environments were woven with intricate street systems where irregular layouts, tights corners and narrow laneways produced engaging pedestrian experiences. Gehl’s desire to implement aesthetically engaging streetscapes in Copenhagen also resonated with the work of Pullman and Lever in Port Sunlight.

Built as a worker’s town, Port Sunlight represented a landmark shift towards an urban planning approach that employed landscape architecture to deliver urban environments of high aesthetic value. Pullman and Lever, and indeed Gehl, intended to enhance public life through design: a key tenant of Jane Jacobs’ seminal urban planning discourse. Jacobs described an ideal human-scale city as having “an intricate and close-grained diversity of uses that give each other constant mutual support, both economically and socially”. The pedestrianisation of Stroget can therefore be understood as an attempt to implement the planning approaches of Jacobs, Pullman and Lever in an engaging urban environment possessing the walkability of a medieval Southern European city.

Buildings in Copenhagen have won RIBA European Awards four years in a row (“Sampension” in 2005, “Kilen” in 2006, “Tietgenkollegiet” in 2007 and the Royal Playhouse in 2008.) The last three are all by Lundgaard & Tranberg Architects. At the 2008 World Architecture Festival in Barcelona, Bjarke Ingels Group won an award for the World’s Best Residential Building 2008 for a house in Ørestad. In 2008 British design magazine Monocle named Copenhagen the World’s best design city 2008.

High rise buildings and towers in Copenhagen
Copenhagen has long been a densely but not very high city. This is due, inter alia, to a great respect for the city’s historic towers , as well as very strict building regulations . For the last 100 years, the overall maximum height of the building has been 6½ floor or approx. 25 meters. This has meant that the tallest buildings in the inner city to date are towers and sprouts in Copenhagen City Hall , Christiansborg and Churches, Vor Frelsers Kirke and Nikolaj Exhibition Building. At Amager, the approach to the airport must also be taken into consideration, so the maximum building height in Ørestad is approx. 85 meters

During the past ten years two distinctive high-rise projects in the lakes have been rejected: The Dutch Erick van Egeraat’s high-rise buildings at Krøyers Plads , and most recently the Norman Foster’s Tivoli- hotel at Rådhuspladsen . In order to come up with skeptics, the City of Copenhagen published a high house strategy and a discussion paper in late 2006, which suggested, among other things, suitable areas for high-rise buildings.

One of the areas in which it is currently built houses are Ørestad , where 2001-2016 include Five high-rise buildings have been built at 75-85 meters, including the Bella Hotel at 76.5 m. Another is the railway train at Vesterbro and Kalvebod Brygge , where there are built 7 buildings of 40-50 meters in 2000-2010.

Marmormolen in Søndre Frihavn is designated as a future high-rise area. Likewise, it is meant that over time 9 high-rise buildings are to be built 50-120 meters on the Carlsberg ground, and in the longer term, Outer Nordhavn and Refshale Island can be developed into urban areas with the possibility of particularly tall buildings (up to 180 meters).

Even though Copenhagen has just gotten reputation as a low city, there are some very high buildings in Copenhagen. With the exception of Aarhus Cathedral’s tower of 93 m, the ten tallest buildings in Copenhagen are also the ten tallest buildings in Denmark. However, the tallest man-made structure in Copenhagen is the Gladesaxesender of 220 meters.

Source From Wikipedia

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