Christiansborg Palace: Denmark’s Parliamentary and Royal Complex
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.6
- Popularity
- Very High
- Country
- Denmark
- Primary era
- Modern
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- Danish
- Site type
- Civic
- Remains
- Palace
On this page20 sections
History
Christiansborg Palace is a historic palace complex in Denmark, on Slotsholmen in central Copenhagen. The present building, completed in 1928 in a historicist Neo-Baroque style, is the third Christiansborg raised on a site occupied by castles and palaces since 1167. It houses the Folketing, the Prime Minister’s Office, and the Supreme Court, while the monarch uses its Royal Reception Rooms, Chapel, and Stables. Since the early fifteenth century, the buildings here have also served as a base for Denmark’s central administration.
Absalon’s Castle
Bishop Absalon of Roskilde founded the first castle on the site in 1167, according to the medieval Danish chronicler Saxo Grammaticus. The fortified complex contained a bishop’s residence, a chapel, other buildings, and a stone curtain wall, a defensive wall enclosing a castle compound, that stood roughly five metres high. Absalon bequeathed the castle to the Bishopric of Roskilde in 1182, while retaining the right to use it during his lifetime. After his death in 1201, possession passed to the bishopric, although the castle and Copenhagen remained contested by the crown and the church for almost two centuries.
Wendish raiders and forces of the Hanseatic League repeatedly attacked the castle. The Hanseatic League was a powerful association of north German and Baltic trading cities whose conflict with King Valdemar IV contributed to the castle’s destruction. The complex was besieged and damaged during 1249 to 1259. After Valdemar’s defeat by the league, forty stonemasons were sent to demolish the castle in the late fourteenth century.
Copenhagen Castle and the first Christiansborg
Copenhagen Castle was built over the earlier castle’s ruins and earthworks in the late fourteenth century. A curtain wall and moat enclosed it, and a large tower provided the entrance. King Eric VII took control of the castle from the Bishop of Roskilde in 1417. By the middle of the fifteenth century, it had become the principal royal residence and a governmental centre.
Frederick IV completely rebuilt Copenhagen Castle in the 1720s. The new construction placed excessive weight on the older foundations, causing the walls and foundations to settle and crack. After Christian VI became king in 1730, he ordered a new palace, and the old castle was demolished in 1731.
Christian VI commissioned Elias David Häusser to design the first Christiansborg. Construction began in 1731, and the king laid the foundation stone on 21 April 1733. Most of the complex was complete by 1745, with Lauritz de Thurah and Nicolai Eigtved carrying out much of the interior and associated architectural work. The palace was ready for occupation in 1740, and the royal family moved in on 26 November. Its stables were ready for royal horses and carriages on 5 October of the same year.
The first Christiansborg was then the largest palace in northern Europe. Its construction consumed almost two-thirds of one year’s royal income, an amount comparable to the value of all estates on Zealand. The palace hosted active court life for approximately fifty years. Christian VII’s anointing and accession ceremony took place in the chapel on 1 May 1767.
Fire and the second palace
A fire probably started near a chimney beside the crown prince’s apartments on 26 February 1794. It destroyed the first Christiansborg, including the chapel, the royal music library, much of the royal valuables, and many works of art. The riding-ground complex and stables survived, and they were used during efforts to fight the fire.
Christian Frederik Hansen designed the second Christiansborg in a strict Neoclassical style. It was built between 1803 and 1828, incorporating much of the earlier palace’s surviving masonry and internal walls. The tower and the large wing beside the riding ground were removed or altered. During construction, the royal family lived at Amalienborg. Frederick VI did not return permanently to Christiansborg, and Christian VIII also remained at Amalienborg. Frederick VII was the only monarch to live in the second palace, using it mainly as a winter residence from 1852 to 1863 and housing the court administration there.
Denmark’s transition from absolute monarchy to constitutional monarchy changed the palace’s ownership and purpose. Following the Constitution of 1849, Christiansborg passed into state administration. From 1850, its south wing housed the two chambers of the bicameral Rigsdagen, Denmark’s former parliament, consisting of the Folketing and Landsting.
The second Christiansborg burned on 3 October 1884 after a fire began near the Rigsdagen hall. Fire walls, iron doors, guards, and firefighting equipment could not stop flames spreading through structural voids. The chapel and riding-ground complex survived, while people rescued many furnishings, records, books, and silver objects.
The present palace
Political disputes delayed rebuilding for more than two decades. Several competitions and debates addressed whether royal and parliamentary functions should share one building before Thorvald Jørgensen’s design was approved in April 1906. Construction began in 1907, and the foundation stone was laid on 15 November that year.
The third Christiansborg was erected on the earlier foundations and reused substantial wall sections from the 1730s palace and C. F. Hansen’s building. It was planned for the royal family, Parliament, the Supreme Court, and the executive government. The parliamentary wing was ready for use in 1918, and the Supreme Court moved into its designated rooms in 1919. The state formally received the palace on 16 December 1927, while the king’s reception rooms were handed over on 12 January 1928.
King Christian X initially intended to live in the new palace after his accession in 1912, but decided in 1922 to remain at Amalienborg. The royal rooms therefore continued mainly as representative spaces. Today the Danish state owns Christiansborg and the Palaces and Properties Agency administers it. The palace is described as the only building housing a country’s executive, legislative, and judicial branches under one roof. Its name is also used as a metonym for Denmark’s political system, in the informal expressions Rigsborgen and Borgen.
Excavation and conservation
Excavations during construction of the third palace revealed remains of Absalon’s Castle and Copenhagen Castle. Specialists from the National Museum of Denmark investigated the ruins, which were conserved rather than reburied. The remains beneath the inner courtyard were covered by a reinforced-concrete structure in 1908, while those beneath Palace Square were excavated in 1917 and covered in the same way. Both areas, together with a historical exhibition, opened to the public in 1924. The ruins exhibition was restored between 1974 and 1977.
Christiansborg has been legally protected since 1918. The protection includes the main palace, riding-ground buildings, Marble Bridge, Palace Chapel, three passage buildings, and the palace and Supreme Court facades facing Prince Jørgens Gård. The Palace Chapel suffered severe fire damage on 7 June 1992, when fireworks launched during a carnival probably ignited it. Its roof, dome, dividing floor, walls, interior, and inventory were affected. Building archaeology and surviving evidence of the former roof and dome guided a historically accurate reconstruction, which reopened on 14 January 1997 and received a Europa Nostra award for heritage conservation.
The Marble Bridge and its pavilions were restored between 1978 and 1996, and the riding-ground complex was restored between 1985 and 1996. The Royal Stables were renovated from 2007 to 2009 to meet Danish animal-welfare requirements. The Court Theatre has housed the Theatre Museum since 1922. It ceased to operate as a performance venue in 1881, after concern about the safety of old theatres following the Ringtheater fire in Vienna.
Remains
Palace structure and royal rooms
The present palace has three wings, six levels arranged differently from those of its predecessors, and two principal entrances. The King’s Gate connects the inner courtyard with Palace Square, while the Queen’s Gate connects the courtyard with Prince Jørgens Gård. The building combines three architectural periods: surviving facades from the 1740s are Baroque, the 1826 chapel is Neoclassical, and the main palace completed in 1928 is historicist Neo-Baroque.
Reinforced concrete forms the structural basis, and granite-clad facades give the palace its solid exterior. The lower floors facing Prince Jørgens Gård retain sandstone from C. F. Hansen’s second palace. Stone collected from more than 700 Danish parishes was used in the ground and basement levels, creating varied colours and a relatively unworked, castle-like appearance. The central tower rises 106 metres and remains Copenhagen’s tallest tower. Its reinforced-concrete frame made it one of Denmark’s earliest concrete structures. A weather vane with two crowns was added in 1934, and the original black roof tiles were replaced by copper in 1937 and 1938.
Thorvald Jørgensen’s revisions introduced or adopted the curved sections facing Palace Square, the granite cladding, and the mansard roof. The Queen’s Gate is the principal entrance to the Royal Reception Rooms. From the King’s Stairway, the Hall of the Halberdiers leads toward the reception rooms, while the smaller Queen’s Stairway reaches the higher floors. The Audience Chamber and State Council Room stand at the foot of the King’s Stairway.
The Royal Reception Rooms occupy the first and second floors of the northern wing. They include the Tower Hall, Throne Room, Knights’ Hall, Picture Hall, Alexander Hall, Fredensborg Hall, and parts of the Queen’s Library. Furnishings and artworks rescued from the two earlier palaces remain here alongside works by Nikolaj Abildgaard, Bertel Thorvaldsen, Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg, Laurits Tuxen, Joakim Skovgaard, and Bjørn Nørgaard.
Throne Room and Tower Hall
The oval Throne Room faces Palace Square and contains two thrones made by C. F. Hansen that survived from the second Christiansborg. A balcony connected to the room is used for proclaiming Danish monarchs. Kræsten Iversen’s ceiling painting shows the Danish flag falling from the sky before the Battle of Lyndanisse in Estonia in 1219. The Tower Hall contains tapestries based on motifs from Danish folk songs and woven from designs by Joakim Skovgaard.
Knights’ Hall and Alexander Hall
The Knights’ Hall is about 40 metres long and 10 metres high, with room for approximately 400 guests. Its marble floor came from the Royal Library. Stucco and paintings by Kræsten Iversen decorate the ceiling, while seventeen tapestries depicting Danish history were woven from Bjørn Nørgaard’s designs.
Alexander Hall takes its name from Bertel Thorvaldsen’s marble frieze, Alexander the Great Enters Babylon. The work was made for the second Christiansborg. Parts survived the 1884 fire, were restored, and were installed in the present room.
Parliamentary wing and passages
The parliamentary wing is organized around a lobby. The Folketing chamber and the former Landsting chamber occupy opposite ends, with the Speaker’s office, administrative offices, and apartments for the speakers of both houses along the connecting passage. The Folketing became Denmark’s sole legislative chamber in 1953.
The Folketing chamber has a horseshoe-shaped seating arrangement and galleries on several levels for the press, royal family, former parliamentarians, and public. Oak-panelled walls extend through three floors. The Speaker’s chair stands on a large oak platform that formerly belonged to a mill on the Isle of Man. Stucco decoration, voting boards, a tapestry by Berit Jegolt, and two landscapes by Olaf Rude complete the room.
Three concealed passageways connect the palace with adjacent buildings. The Church Passage leads from the chapel, the Cavalry or Treasury Passage runs toward the former State Archives, and another passage is associated with the former Kunstkammer. Apartments for the speakers of both Folketing houses occupy the passage buildings.
Riding-Ground Complex
The Riding-Ground Complex is the principal surviving part of the first Christiansborg. It consists of two symmetrical wings. Each wing contains a straight, low stable building, a higher and broader building, curved stables, and a narrow one-storey end building closing the complex toward Frederiksholm Canal.
Stables and Riding School
The north wing was completed in 1742. Work on the south wing began in June 1740, stopped because of technical and supply difficulties, and resumed in January 1744 under Nicolai Eigtved. In 1746 the stables held 87 riding or hunting horses and 165 carriage horses; the total reached 270 in 1789. Approximately twenty horses are now kept there. Some rooms retain marble columns and their original arrangements, while others have become a carriage museum, offices, and garages.
The Riding School occupies the northern wing opposite the Court Theatre. Its interior remains largely unchanged from the 1740s and includes a balcony and royal box. It is used for equestrian exercises and shows, and occasionally for theatrical and operatic performances. The royal box is the only surviving royal room from the first palace.
Court Theatre
The Court Theatre occupies the upper floor above the stables in the southern wing. It was formed in 1766 and 1767 from a former harness store, designed by Nicolas-Henri Jardin, and opened in January 1767 by Christian VII and Caroline Matilda. Jørgen Hansen Koch rebuilt it in 1842, leaving little of the original theatre.
Christian IX monument
An equestrian monument to Christian IX stands in the Riding-Ground Complex. It was commissioned after his death in 1906, and Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen won the design competition in 1907. The monument was unveiled in 1927 on a pedestal designed by Andreas Clemmensen, twenty-one years after the king’s death. Carl-Nielsen first proposed reliefs of contemporary figures, including Carl Frederik Tietgen, Jakob Brønnum Scavenius Estrup, Jens Peter Jacobsen, and Holger Drachmann, but these were later removed. The horse was modelled on an animal found in Hanover, Germany, after the sculptor searched throughout Denmark, a choice that dissatisfied Danish horse breeders.
Bridge, chapel, and surviving structures
Marble Bridge
The Marble Bridge crosses Frederiksholm Canal and was completed with two portal pavilions in 1744. Nicolai Eigtved developed the alternative design, replacing Häusser’s proposed drawbridge with a permanent bridge and open entrance. Sandstone forms the bridge, which has marble paving and a cobbled roadway. Louis August le Clerc supplied the medallions, while the pavilions are faced with Saxon sandstone. Johan Christof Petzoldt decorated their concave roofs with royal monograms and four symbolic figures on each roof, and Jacob Fortling carried out the interior stonework. Large iron gates once stood between the pavilions but were removed in the 1830s after rusting.
Palace Chapel
The Palace Chapel is the only complete building surviving from the second Christiansborg. Nicolai Eigtved designed the first chapel, built between 1738 and 1742, with a distinguished Rococo interior. The chapel was destroyed in the 1794 fire, although its remains were not demolished. From 1813, C. F. Hansen rebuilt it on the surviving foundations and masonry.
The present chapel has a dome, four solid walls, and four columns at the entrance. Its restrained Neoclassical interior includes scagliola, a decorative plaster technique made to imitate polished stone, restored with assistance from the German specialist Manfred Siller. The chapel is connected to the palace and is used for royal baptisms, confirmations, official lying-in-state ceremonies, and parliamentary services associated with the opening of Parliament.
Former carriage depot
The former carriage depot survived the 1794 fire. C. F. Hansen redesigned it as two parallel wings with end wings and a short passage. It was extensively altered in 1839 when it became the Thorvaldsens Museum.
Facades, sculpture, and Palace Square
Four granite Atlases support a balcony above the Folketing entrance. An atlas is a sculpted human figure used in architecture instead of a column. Anders Bundgaard made the composition, officially titled Daily Toil and popularly called the “Gate of Pain.” The figures’ distressed expressions produced popular nicknames associated with earache, headache, stomachache, and toothache.
Granite masks of Danish historical figures decorate the facades, chiefly above the first-floor windows. The Palace Square facade includes masks representing figures such as Absalon, Tycho Brahe, Niels Juel, Hans Tausen, Søren Kierkegaard, Ludvig Holberg, Adam Oehlenschläger, Bertel Thorvaldsen, and C. W. Eckersberg. The parliamentary-courtyard facade carries masks of political figures including Orla Lehmann, C. Hall, L. N. Hvidt, and D. G. Monrad. The riding-ground facade includes J. Ewald, N. F. S. Grundtvig, H. C. Ørsted, H. C. Andersen, Niels Finsen, and Niels W. Gade, while the masks above the Supreme Court windows represent earlier legal and political figures.
Palace Square contains equestrian statues of Frederick VII and Christian IX. Four bronze figures near Prince Jørgens Gård represent Hercules, Asclepius, Minerva, and Nemesis. Thorvaldsen began the commission, and H. W. Bissen completed it after Thorvaldsen’s death, using his sketches.
