a walk from Nørreport to the harbour

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If visitors, new to the city, know any one street name then it’s likely to be Strøget - the Walking Street - even though Strøget is not one street but a series of old streets and squares between the square in front of the city hall and the large square of Kongens Nytorv …. a route from the site of the old west gate of the medieval city to the site of the old east gate.

So it’s an easy and popular route across the width of the old city and, because it was pedestrianised in 1962, it is a good way to get a feel for the city and it’s streets and squares.

However ….. if you are new to Copenhagen and want to get a less crowded so quieter feeling for the size of the city and of its topography and its architecture, then perhaps a better route for a first walk would be to start from the metro or suburban railway station at Nørreport - the site of the old north gate - and walk down to the harbour.

The first part of Nørregade does not look promising. It’s fairly narrow with ordinary houses and shops from the late 18th and 19th centuries. There are interesting buildings like the Folk Theatre, on this first part, pavements but street furniture does not appear to be as carefully kept as on some of the other and more popular streets. 

The first major building is the fine brick church of Sankt Petri, on the west or right side of the road. Set back in a quiet churchyard, it dates from the 16th century, but is on the site of an earlier church.

Opposite are the old buildings of the university and then the cathedral - Vor Frue Kirke.

Then, on to Gammeltorv - considered to be the oldest market square in the city - with an ornate fountain and then - crossing the line of Strøget - you drop down past the site of the medieval city hall - destroyed by a catastrophic fire in this part of the city in 1795. The outline of that old city hall is marked in the paving. 

Below is Nytorv - a relatively new square created in 1610 by clearing houses below the city hall - and the new city hall, built after the fire, was designed by C F Hansen and with it the city prison was completed in 1811 …. some of the most dramatic classical architecture in the city. 

From Nytorv it’s on down to the canal with views along the wharf of Nybrogade and Gammel Strand - approximately the line of the foreshore of the medieval settlement. 

Stormbroen is the bridge that crosses the canal from Slotsholmen. The name - The Storm Bridge - is because this was the area, at the south corner of the city, that was attacked by the Swedish army in 1659 when they nearly took Copenhagen.

From the bridge, there are the first views of the most important civic architecture on Slotsholmen - with Christiansborg - the site first of the castle of Absalon, the Bishop of Roskilde, which became a royal castle and is now the parliament building. 

To the right is a large 18th-century palace built for a Crown Prince and now the national museum and then down the canal with fine palaces and apartment buildings to the harbour and to the new Danish Architecture Centre on one side and the old brewhouse in red brick on the other - built for Christian IV in the 17th century so his navy could have a generous and certain supply of beer.

① Vor Frue Kirke, by CF Hansen, 1811-1829 - from the south
② Sankt Petri
③ Sankt Petri
④ Telefonhuset and Sankt Petri - from the north
⑤ gateway to the churchyard of Sankt Petri and Telefonhuset
⑥ Krystalgade - from Nørregade with the Round Tower
⑦ Vor Frue Kirke - the cathedral - from the north
⑧ Bispetorvet and the monument to the Danish Reformation
⑨ from north of cathedral with Gammeltorv and Nytorv beyond
⑩ looking down Gammeltorv from the north end
⑪ the Caritas Fountain on Gammeltorv installed in 1608
⑫ from Gammeltorv - looking north to the cathedral
⑬ the city hall on Nytorv, by CF Hansen, 1805-1811
⑭ the archway between the city hall and the prison by CF Hansen
⑮ Magstræde from Rådhusstræde
⑯ the canal with the houses of Nybrogade and Gammel Strand

note:
from Nørreport to the harbour is a walk of 1.35 Kilometres

Rådhuset-1479-1728-RES-1.jpg

the north front of the old city hall that was destroyed in the fire of 1795

 

this is an experiment ….
if anyone wants to follow the walk, then this image can be opened, saved as a jpg file and printed on A4 paper without margins

 
 

① the city hall by CF Hansen, on Nytorv (now court house)
② along canal to Gammel Strand and Thorvaldsens Museum
③ the houses of Nybrogade
④ Marmorbroen / Marble Bridge, by Nicolai Eigtved, 1733-1745

⑤ Christiansborg from Marmorbroen / the Marble Bridge
⑥ apartment building by H C Stilling 1850
⑦ Frederiksholms Kanal, looking south towards BLOX
⑧ Bryghus / Brewhouse built for Christian IV in 1608

 

lighting the square at Christiansborg

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Back at the end of November, there was a short post about extensive work across Slotsplads - the public square in front of Christiansborg - the parliament building in the centre of Copenhagen.

The main reason for remodelling this large and important public space was to bring some order to the area where, as a temporary security measure to thwart attacks with vehicles, a line of rough boulders had been set out in an arc on the outer edge of the square. The boulders have been replaced with large granite spheres and new setts were laid across the whole area. Security barriers were in place that drop down into the ground for access to the front of the building but work was ongoing - particularly along the canal in front of the square where new paving has been laid and a line of new trees have been planted.

Plans for this work showed the old lights but in a new arrangement in a straight line across the facade. There were electric cables in place with a rough gap in the cobbles where each light was to go but, given the time of year, there was a line of large Christmas trees here across the front of the building and all strung with fairy lights.

Now, with the new year, the Christmas trees have gone and the new lights have been installed in a straight line across the front, regularly-spaced and just out from a line of shallow steps. Ornate historic iron lamps are set on simple grey, marble bases and the effect is good … ordered and appropriate in a down-played but monumental sort of way.

a load of balls

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There is an ongoing threat of terrorist attacks in cities around the World and in Copenhagen public spaces and pedestrian streets have been protected with different forms of barrier to keep out unauthorised vehicles. Across the entrance front of Christiansborg, the palace and the Danish parliament buildings in the centre of Copenhagen, a barrier of large, roughly-cut blocks of stone was a short-term solution to stop vehicles driving across the large public square.

Now, work on a permanent solution is almost finished.

At Slotsplads or Castle Square the large apron of cobbles in front of the castle with its equestrian statue of Frederik VII has been re-laid with new granite setts. There are now electric security barriers at entry points that drop down into the pavement to give official vehicles access and in a curve around the edge of the public space there is a sweep of very large stone balls - spheres in light grey granite 110 centimetres in diameter that are set close together.

It is not quite finished but recently temporary wire fences around the work site and plastic sheeting, that protected the stone spheres as work on laying the paving was completed, have all been removed.

Walking home the other evening just as it got dark was probably not the right time to take the best photograph but it does show one slightly odd thing: possibly because the fences have only just been removed or possibly because the spheres are actually set so close together but, for whatever reason, pedestrians do not seem to have reclaimed the space. Nobody was taking the short cut across the front of the building. Everybody was keeping to the edge of the square and keeping to the pavement outside the stone balls.

Steps across the front of the building in concrete have been rebuilt in the same pale granite and there are other changes that, although not dramatic, are important. Ornate, historic lamp standards will be moved back to the square but now to form a line straight across the façade and trees on the square that were felled for the work are not to be replanted where they were before but there will now be a line of 12 new trees on the far side of the road that runs across the front of the space between the square and the canal. With trees on the far side of the canal, this will create a new avenue flanking not a road but here a waterway and this will create a formal but natural edge to the public area. Parking bays for buses and coaches have been moved away so they intrude less.

Design work here is by GHB Landskabsarkitekter and there are interesting and important aspects to the new scheme. The work was extensive and features like felling the trees seems right now to be drastic but as soon as work equipment is moved away and people start reusing the space, it's likely that few will actually remember the earlier arrangement. Replacing the cobbles has changed the character of the space particularly as the previous pattern that radiated out from the entrance has been replaced with a regular and consistent arrangement of the granite setts making it perhaps starker but also more discrete and less in competition with the building to make the space grander and the high quality of the materials and the quality of the new work are also important as this respects and reinforces the significance of this major public and national space.

GHB Landskabsarkitekter