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architectural ideals. Meldahl headed a traditional European line in the art of
construction, and Nyrop favoured the modern regional and even national
endeavours of the time. And Nyrop’s proposed project was the only representative
of this attitude in the open competition that Nyrop managed to bring off in spite
of Meldahl’s dictatorial dislike and animosity.
The other proposals to a much higher degree resembled mainstream construction
in their suggestions of neo-Gothic city halls like in the major European cities,
especially those of Vienna and Manchester. Roughly speaking, when the first
phase of the competition was arranged, the ideal was that Gothic or Dutch
Renaissance styles became the locally based and strongly limited economic
democracy best, while the Classical style was preferred for governmental buildings.
In the Copenhagen competition the external appearance of the many proposed
projects vary greatly concerning spires, profiles and reliefs, looking alternately
like both German town halls, the 17th-century Stock Exchange in Copenhagen
or the Arsenal in Vienna. The latter project was arrogantly designed, or rather
redrafted, by an aging Theophilius Hansen outside the competition. Earlier he
had excelled in the capital of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, creating both a
parliament, a stock exchange and an academy of fine arts.
As the competition progressed, it was evident that Martin Nyrop’s projects were
modelled on historical buildings, first of all Italian, for example on the city hall in
Siena and the tower in Verona, but reworked and rearranged in a personal - and
in Denmark - typical manner that fitted the modern times. And even though the
main disposition and plan were decided on, Nyrop developed major changes on
the outside of the City Hall. The slender Pigeon Tower replaced a square clumsy
construction without a tower between the roofs of the wings on the façade facing
Tivoli, the City Hall Tower was made higher, and on the main front facing the
square two low-set quadrangular bay windows were transformed into two high-set
curved bay windows. These changes were caused by practical reasons plus an
overall desire to balance the composition of the building in proportion to the
height of the surrounding buildings and the space of the city.
In 1893 it was finally decided that Nyrop should be in charge of the construction
of the City Hall, which was more or less ready for use at the turn of the century,
and in the following five years it was completed inside and furnished with
decoration and ornamentation.
Outdoors Nyrop fought his own architectural battle concerning the Mussel
Shell. Inspired by the City Hall Square in Siena, he lowered the immediate access
area to Copenhagen City Hall. The latter is placed on a hill made of rubbish and
earth, so there is actually a difference in height of one floor between the front
and the back of the City Hall and a span between the low foundation of the long
sides and the high position of the entrance stairs in the front.
The lower lying delimited Mussel Shell was designed to emphasise this
phenomenon monumentally by visually raising the building in proportion to the
square. However, the result met with criticism, and Nyrop himself did not find
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