S_BilledeborgenKøbenhavnsRådhus_1905-2005

GREAT DANISH FLORA JenS'Møller-JenserVs scrolls and flourishes

The tall Copenhagen City Hall Tower with the golden dials, resembling almost the old-fashioned tram tickets, was difficult for Arne Jacobsen, that international advocate of functionalism, to compete with when he was forced to add a tower to Århus City Hall a generation later. In contrast, the atmosphere of blood and earth that during the Second World War prompted such a political demand from the locals in Jutland was quite acceptable at the time when Martin Nyrop and the decorative painter Jens Moller-Jensen found mental, artistic and spiritual inspiration on the refreshing Danish sea shores in the effort to give Copenhagen City Hall its identity. In this they were not alone at the turn of the century. In his novel »Einar Elkær« from 1898 the Danish writer Johannes V. Jensen created several sentimental farming tableaux contrasting with the spleen and technology of the new century: »Now and then something would move in the dark forests of sea weed reached by the sun, an olive-coloured fish was winding in and out down there - Betty called Einar over and showed him a school of large plaice moving across the sandy sea bed, the red spots could be seen through the green colour of the water.« Both colours and shapes could be a description of Jens Moller-Jensen’s ornamentation in Martin Ny rop’s City Hall. At first sight the architect’s obvious desire for some Danish characteristics seems strange, for why should the building be more democratic for sporting motifs inspired by domestic strands? However, the then 50-year-old Danish constitution from 1849 was also more Danish in spirit than French or Greek, was it not? So no Roman acanthus leaves or Parisian Pantheon masks were chosen to adorn the façades and halls but rather bladder wrack and blossoming thistles to lend life to the monument. These, as well as stone portraits of the involved workmen or officials with large ears, made this Italian-inspired building into a vigilant and thoroughly Danish symbol of administration. The City Hall, with its profusion of ornamentation and reliefs, seems inspired by John Ruskin and the Socialist William Morris’ English Arts-and-Crafts Movement from the 19th century, but in Martin Nyrop’s City Hall the emulation of Oxford colleges is transformed into a Viking-like ambience in the back wing and an Italian festive atmosphere under the huge modern glass roof in the Main Hall in the front of the building. Ornamentation was the thing, or decoration, which by no means should be confused with frippery and finery, but which at its best can be perceived as representing a manifesto, a view of life and society. And Martin Nyrop showed the way with drafts for furniture and lamps and decorative details. And that is why Copenhagen’s new city hall never came to resemble the international Glyptotek, built by the Carlsberg Breweries on the other side of the boulevard.

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