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THE HEART OF THE CITY
A cross section of Copenhagen
Every major city has a part, where you stop and say to yourself:»This is the city! Here
you can sense its pidse; i f you want the essence of what the city is, stand right here and
watch, observe and feel! In Pans this phenomenon is symbolised by the wide boulevards,
in Berlin it is the intersecting point of Unter den Linden and Friedrichsstrasse, in
London the square by the Bank of England. In modern Copenhagen it is the City Hall
Square.
The building is unpretentious, almost like a private home as if its 600 rooms were
meant to accommodate simple ordinary households and not offices, and it is
incomprehensible why it has not been attempted to link it more closely to the everyday
lives of the citizens by opening a restaurant in the vaults. But the building also
possesses dignity.
And as time goes by, it will acquire more of this. When year has added to year and
grown into decades and centuries, the striking of the quarters and hours from the tower
clock and the watchman’s chime composed by Lange-Müller, sounding at six and at
noon, will tell future generations of those who were alive when the building was erected.
Sounding alike from century to century, never changing, the sound will ring out like a
hymn to eternity itself, defying the vicissitudes of time and fortune. It will seem new
and yet dignified at the same time.
Bu t the City Hall itself will have acquired a patina of history and tradition. The
green verdigris will have settled on its copper ornamentation, the walls will have
acquired the mysterious dark brown tinge that is only achieved through centuries, and
which seems to brood on a long and varied history. Then it will stand as a monument
in a new Copenhagen that stretches its tentacles over half of the island of Zealand, a
city in whose organism electricity will for ever vibrate and glow, and in whose burning
the old City Hall will seem like a peaceful isle in the midst of a for ever rolling ocean,
inviting rest, beckoning peace and quiet.
To us who have seen it grow it will, however, always remain cthe new City Hall’. To
us it is not so much a monument as a new and refreshing organism by which the
vitality of the city can be measured.«
(From »Stor-Kobenhavn«, volume 2, by Albert Gnudtzmann and Helmer Lind, 1907)
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