Rosenborg Castle Gardens
Kongens Have | |
---|---|
Type | Urban park |
Location | Copenhagen, Denmark |
Coordinates | 55°41′06″N 12°34′44″E / 55.685°N 12.579°E |
Area | 12 hectares (30 acres) |
Created | 1606 |
Visitors | 2.5 million |
Status | Open all year |
Rosenborg Castle Gardens (Danish: Kongens Have literally The King's Garden) is the oldest and most visited park in central Copenhagen, Denmark. Established in the early 17th century as the private gardens of King Christian IV's Rosenborg Castle, the park also contains several other historical buildings, including Rosenborg Barracks, home to the Royal Guards, as well as a high number of statues and monuments. The park also holds art exhibitions and other events such as concerts in the summer.
History
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The Renaissance gardens
The park traces its history back to 1606 when King Christian IV acquired land outside Copenhagen's East Rampart and established a pleasure garden in Renaissance style which also delivered fruit, vegetables and flowers for the royal household at Copenhagen Castle. The garden had a relatively small pavilion which was later expanded into present day Rosenborg Castle which was completed in 1624. In 1634, Charles Ogier, secretary to the French ambassador to Denmark, compared the gardens to the Tuileries Garden in Paris. A drawing by Otto Heider from 1649, the oldest dated garden plan from Denmark, provides knowledge about the layout of the original garden. The garden contained a pavilion, statues, a fountain and various other features. Its plants included mulberries, wine, apples, pears, and lavender.[1]
The Baroque gardens
Later in the century, as fashions changed, the garden was redesigned. A garden plan from 1669 show a garden maze, a typical feature of the Baroque garden. It had an intricate system of paths which led to a central space with an octagonal summerhouse in its centre. From about 1710, after Frederiksberg Palace had been built, Rosenborg Castle, as well as its gardens, was largely abandoned by the royal family and the gardens were instead opened to the public.
Johan Cornelius Krieger was appointed gardener of the Orangery in 1711 and after becoming head gardener in 1721 he redesigned the garden in the Baroque style.
Layout
The 12-hectare park is bounded by the streets Gothersgade, Øster Voldgade, Sølvgade and Kronprinsessegade. Rosenborg Castle is located in the north-western section of the park and is surrounded by a moat on three sides. The two main entrance are the King's Gate at the corner of Gothersgade and Kronprinsessegade, and the Queen's Gate at the corner of Øster Voldgade and Sølvgade. There are also four other entrances to the park.
A dominant feature of the scenery are the two diagonal lime tree avenues which intersect near the centre of the park and are known as the Knight's Path (Danish: Kavalergangen) and the Lady's Path (Danish: Damegangen), while the rest of the paths are laid out in a grid pattern. The tree-lined avenues were planted as part of Krieger's Baroque garden but the underlying network of paths can be seen in Heiders' plan from 1649.
Special sections include the PerennialsGarden in front of the wall along Sølvgade and the Rose Garden.
Buildings
Rosenborg Barracks
Rosenborg Barracks is located on the corner of Gothersgade and Øster Voldgade and was originally a pavilion and two long conservatory buildings built by Lambert van Haven for Christian V. In 1709 they were built together to form one large orangery complex and in 1743 it was redesigned into the Baroque style by Johan Cornelius Krieger. From 1885 to 1886 it was converted for use by the Royal Life Guard by Engineer Officer Ernst Peymann. In 1985 they moved to new premises at Høvelte between Allerød and Birkerød and since Rosenborg Barracks has only housed guards on duty at Copenhagen.
Commandant's House
The Commandant's House is located just left of the main entrance to Rosenborg Castle and faces a lawn. It was built from 1760 to 1763 to designs by Jacob Fortling. The building is today used as an exhibition space.
Slotsforvalterboligen
Slotsforvalterboligen fronts Øster Voldgade. It was built in 1688 and extended with an extra story in 1777. The gateway affords access to the park.[2]
The Gartner's House is attached to Slotsforvalterboligen. It was built around the same time
Hercules Pavilion
The Hercules Pavilion stands at the end of Kavalergangen and takes its name from a statue of Hercules positioned in a deep niche between two Tuscan columns. It is flanked by two smaller niches with statues of Orpheus and Eurydice. The three statues were made by the Italian sculptor Giovanni Baratta and acquired by Frederik IV during his visit to Italy.[3]
Wrought-iron grill and pavilions
Along Kronprinsessegade and parts of Gothersgade, the park is enclosed by a wrought-iron grill incorporating 16 small pavilions, which opens to the street side.
After the
The pavilions are built to a Newclassical design and are six ells wide, six ells deep and six ells high.[4]
Among the goods which were sold from the pavilions were cakes and stockings. Later they were available to architects and artists from the Roydal Arts Academy as a sort of grant. Today they are rented out by the Palaces and Properties Agency on two-years leases with possibility of extension. There is a required minimum opening time of 20 hours per week and the use need be relevant to the site's history and in the same time put it in a contemporary context.[5]
Public art
The oldest sculpture in the garden is The Horse and the Lion, commissioned by Christian IV from Peter Husum in 1617 and completed in 1625. A near copy of an antique marble sculpture at
The 17 marble balls surrounding the Matzen Lawn are believed to come from the never completed St. Ann's Rotunda, a monumental church which was under construction on a nearby site but never completed, and have been placed in the park since at least 1783.
The Boy on the Swan is a fountain consisting of a 148 cm tall bronze sculpture of a small boy riding on a swan which sprays water from its beak, resting on a granite plinth in the middle of a depressed basin. The bronze sculpture was created by H.E. Freund and replaced a sandstone figure with the same motif which was made by the French sculptor le Clerc and placed in the garden in 1738.[7]
The monument to
Image gallery
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The flower lawn
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The perennials garden along Sølvgade
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Flowering rhododendrons in the southern part of the park
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Tree near the castle
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A tree-lined path
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The Rose Garden
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Fountain
See also
References
- ^ "Gasværket". AOK. Retrieved 2010-01-04.
- ^ "Øster Voldgade 4b" (in Danish). indenforvoldene.dk. Retrieved 2014-07-17.
- ^ "The Hercules Pavilion". Palaces and Properties Agency. Retrieved 2011-02-02.
- ^ a b "Meyers Deli i Kongens Have". Meyers Deli. Archived from the original on 2011-07-19. Retrieved 2011-02-16.
- ^ a b "Hvad er der i pavillonerne?". AOK. Retrieved 2011-02-16.
- ^ "Hesten of Løven=Danish". Styrelsen for Slotte of Kulturejendomme. Retrieved 2012-01-25.
- ^ "Drengen på svanen" (in Danish). Styrelsen for Slotte oog Kulturejendomme. Archived from the original on 2012-05-27. Retrieved 2012-01-25.
- ^ "The Hørup Monument". Agency for Palaces & Cultural Properties. Archived from the original on 2010-02-13. Retrieved 2012-01-17.
External links
- Orangeriet, official website