Golden Days is an annual festival that explores science, nature and our common culture and history “from a number of different perspectives, professional disciplines and aesthetic starting points.”

This year, the theme is Queens and to mark the jubilee of Queen Margrethe II - who ascended the throne of Denmark in 1972 - Kongens Nytorv - the large public space between the old city and the royal palace - has been renamed Dronningens Nytorv - the Queen’s New Square for the period of the festival.

The garden and the equestrian statue of Christian V have been enclosed by an oval of stark white plinths of graded heights with the tallest on the north side of the oval and the lowest on the south side towards the Royal Theatre.

Forty-nine plinths have plaques with the names of prominent women, selected by a jury, but the tallest plinth has a mirrored surface and is anonymous but will be marked with the name of a prominent or influential woman selected by the public.

One permanent statue to one of the women will be erected.

The installation was designed by BIG - Bjarke Ingels Group.

Golden Days - Queens
2 - 18 September 2022
programme of events

❝ Golden Days conveys history, culture and science with the ambition of making the material relevant and interesting to as many people as possible. The festival experiments with communication, formats and content, so that cultural history is put into play in an involving and actualizing way. ❞

Højbro Plads and the statue of Bishop Absalon looking across to Christiansborg ... the most recent building on the site of his castle

Today Copenhagen celebrates a birthday …

It's 850 years since Bishop Absalon had a castle built just out from the shore, in sheltered water, protected from the wind and the rain from the west by the hill of what is now Fredericksberg and tucked round from the open water of the sound, protected by the low-lying island of Amager …. and the rest - as they say - is history.

The celebrations continue for the next two weeks. The programme is full of information and ten walks planned around the sites and buildings associated with ten figures through the history of the city - from Bishop Absalon to Jan Gehl - and, of course, a full list of all the events.

København 850 - Golden Days