after the gates came down
/plan proposed by Conrad Seidelin in 1857
a plan for the new art museum, in its park setting, and the college of technology and the museum of mineralogy on the edge of the botanic gardens
This series of posts on the development of Copenhagen in the late 19th century was inspired by the reopening of the Museum of Copenhagen, in the Overformynderiets or trustee or guardianship office …... a major building on Stormgade, just to the south of the city hall, that was designed by H J Holm and was completed in 1894.
It had been altered over the years and part of the programme of work for the museum was to remove some of the later additions and subdivisions and to restore the interior and the result is impressive.
This period in the history of the city, from 1850 through to the first world war, is extraordinary for the speed with which the city grew but, generally, the architecture and interiors seem to be under appreciated now, in part, perhaps, because the relatively ornate styles of these works, often looking back to earlier periods for inspiration, do not seem to fit easily with 'modern taste'.
The history of this period is clearly known and well understood. Until the middle of the 19th century, Copenhagen was protected by impressive and necessary defences with high embankments and wide outer stretches of water with a distinct series of bastions that provided covering fire across and along those ditches. These works defended the city but tightly constricted growth.
With a series of political, economic and military events but also because the city had a population that was growing rapidly in number, the decision was made to remove the main city gates that were the only points of access, and fill some of the ditches and remove the high banks.
This was no easy task. The ditches or moat was around 2.5 metres deep and many metres across and backed, on the city side in most sections, by a high and steep embankment and at the top, as the inner defence, there were banks that were 10 to 12 metres wide and up to 3 metres high with a wide inner road so soldiers could be moved around the city rapidly to defend points under attack.
Controls that were in place to stop building immediately outside the city walls were lifted and Søerne - the lakes - became the new demarcation line.
The gates were removed in 1857 but by the time a demolition committee was formed and the Committee of State had ratified a plan in 1868, much of the land outside the defences was in private ownership and several new roads already laid out so, although this was a major development, the sequence and the final form was not always controlled in a rational way.
A major plan had been drawn up by Conrad Seidelin in 1857 but the final development of new streets and squares and civic buildings and new apartment buildings was rather less rational.
The distinct feature of the development of the city, as it evolved, was the retention of sections of the water-filled defence as a series of public parks with lakes. This might be construed as amazing insight for public good but, being cynical, it must have been obvious from an early stage that levelling all the ditches would be an almost impossible task. It's obvious that Seidelin had drawn up his plan as if the site of the city was level and that was another reason for it not being adopted as a master plan.
With the public parks there is an extraordinary group of civic buildings from this period and, along with a large new City Hall, there were new hotels and theatres, two major new art galleries - a new National Gallery and the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek - a conservatory of music and a national academy - a learned society - a Technical University and a new museum of geology or mineralogy and an exhibition hall to show the best of Danish industry and agriculture as well as a museum of decorative arts - the precursor of the Design Museum - in a purpose-built gallery close to the city hall in what is now known as Tivoli Castle or Slottet.
These buildings and the wide boulevards laid out at this time and all the large apartment buildings set the character of the city as much as the tightly-packed buildings and squares of the old city or the 18th-century palaces and buildings around the royal palace and the Marble Church.
It is clear that many of these 19th-century buildings are now being developed or 'restored' and not always in the most sympathetic way but current events also seem to have made these posts more relevant.
By the middle of the 19th century the city, was tightly packed with people but could not expand outwards because it was constrained by the defences that acted like a corset. Defeat in wars with Germany showed that the defences, as they were, could no longer defend the city and certainly, from a more practical point, the city gates actually inhibited trade and business. But, and much more important, with the outbreak of Cholera in the crowded city in 1853, 5,000 people died over the summer. It was obvious that the had to expand and crowded housing in the centre had to be rebuilt with drains, better supplies of fresh water and improved living conditions. It is significant that one of the first civic buildings completed outside the old defences was a large new hospital where work began in 1859 and was completed in 1863.
The map shows the sequence and the extent of major building work around first the north and then the west sides of the city after the city gates and defences were removed in the second half of the 19th century.
① Municipal Hospital, Christian Hansen, 1859-1863
② Palm House, Peter Christian Bønnecke, 1872-1874
③ Søtorv, Vilhelm Valdemar Petersen, 1873-1876
④ Botanisk Museum, HN Fussing, 1877
⑤ Industriforeningen, Vilhelm Klein, 1870-1872 (demolished)
⑥ Central Hotel, Vilhelm Klein 1873-74 (demolished)
⑦ Dagmarteatret, Ove Petersen 1881-1883 (demolished)
⑧ Dronning Louises Bro, Vilhelm Dahlerup, 1885
⑨ Den Polytekniske Læreanstadt / Technical and Engineering College,
Johan Daniel Herholdt, 1889
⑩ Entrance to Tivoli, Richardt Bergmann and Emil Blichfeldt, 1890
⑪ Firestation, Ludvig Fenger, 1889-1892
⑫ Holckenhus, Nikolai Albert Schlodan and Philip Smidth, 1891-1893
⑬ Slottet - Museum of Decorative Arts, Vilhelm Klein, 1892-1893
⑭ Mineralogisk Museum, Hans Jørgen Holm, 1893
⑮ Helmerhus, Knud Arne Petersen and Henrik Ole Hagemann,
1892-1893
⑯ Søpavillonen, Vilhelm Dahleriup, 1893-1894
⑰ Overformynderie / Trustees Office, Stormgade 18, Hans Jørgen
Holm, 1893-1894 (now Museum of Copenhagen)
⑱ Ny Rosenborg, Louis Clausen and Henrik Hagemann, 1895
⑲ Museum of Fine Arts, Vilhelm Dahlerup and E V Møller, 1889-1896
⑳ Glyptotek, Vilhelm Dahlerup, 1892-1897
㉑ Det Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab / Royal Academy,
Vilhelm Petersen, 1894-1898
㉒ Bristol Hotel, Vilhelm Fischer, 1901-1902
㉓ Livsforsikringsselskabet / Life Insurance Company, Martin Borch,
1903 (now Nobis Hotel)
㉔ Langebro - swing bridge 1903 (replaced by present bridge)
㉕ Copenhagen City Hall, Martin Nyrop, 1892-1905
㉖ Det Kongelige Danske Musikkonservatorium,
HC Andersens Boulevard 36, 1906
㉗ Grundtvigshus, Rolf Schroeder, 1906-1908
㉘ Politiken Hus, Philip Smidth 1906
㉙ Palace Hotel, Anton Rosen, 1907-1910
㉚ Railway Station, Heinrich Wenck, 1904-1911
㉛ Studenterforeningens Bygning, Ulrik Plesner and
Aage Langeland-Mathiesen, 1909-1912
