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Cooperation in the modern sense of the word between architect and engineer
was rare as the two disciplines were sharply separated. This found a radical
expression in the critic of architecture John Ruskin’s reaction to the manorial
gardener Joseph Paxton’s famous glass- and cast iron construction Crystal Palace
for the Great Exhibition in London in 1851. Was this really the answer to
centuries of architectural endeavours, Ruskin asked - a hothouse!
But already twenty-three years earlier Martin Nyrop had been open to new
and modern options, also when it came to heating, ventilation and technology.
The Boiler House was constructed further down Vester Voldgade and had its
own chimney, and the steam pipes were led in an underground tunnel to the
vaults of the City Hall, which functioned as one large exchange chamber with air
shafts and humidifying systems.
The hot air was conducted through channels in the walls, and the ventilation
system disembogues into the characteristic battlements of the City Hall roof. In
principle the entire system functions that way even today, only now
Copenhagen’s ordinary power supply provides the steam.
The Main Hall serves two functions, namely those of directing part of the traffic
through the building and of being a public assembly hall for bigger events than
the Banqueting Hall proper can accommodate. Probably this accounts for part
of the explanation why the hall has such an extraordinary and peculiarly mixed
appearance.
The hall underneath the glass roof can simultaneously be perceived as a
medieval square and the inner courtyard of an Italian Renaissance palace.
If the hall is viewed as a square, the balustrade on the first floor and the arches
on the second can be perceived as the very stately balconies or loggias of the
surrounding reserved buildings. However, if one pretends that the hall is a stately
palace yard, it does seem strange that the arches do not form loggias on the
ground floor too.
In other words, the entire lay-out is a very free historical interpretation or
combination of the models that may lie behind the shape of the Main Hall.
Martin Nyrop undertook a European Grand Tour in the early 1880ies and
visited a number of Italian cities. He himself mentions Theoderik’s Palace in
Ravenna and St. Zeno in Verona when it comes to the inspiration for the arches
and balustrade in the Main Hall. However, the palaces of Florence too appear in
his sketchbooks from the long architectural tour de force.
An unusual installation, a paternoster, led the employees and the visitors to the
City Hall right through the open floors of the Viking-inspired back of the building.
This elevator has later been replaced by a more ordinary lift, but it was very
entertaining to see bodies appearing and disappearing, up and down, in the
many years the paternoster functioned in the red, open-space decorated wing
underneath the narrow glass roof.
The back entrance, as it is called somewhat derogatorily, gives access to the
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