Christiansborg Palace, Copenhagen, Denmark

Christiansborg Palace is the seat of the Danish Parliament, the Danish Prime Minister's Office and the Danish Supreme Court. Also, several parts of the palace are used by the monarchy, including the Royal Reception Rooms, the Palace Chapel and the Royal Stables.

The palace is thus the house of Denmark's three supreme powers: the executive power, the legislative power, and the judicial power. It is the only building in the world that houses all three of a country's branches of government. Christiansborg Palace is owned by the Danish state, and is run by the Palaces and Properties Agency.

The present building, the third to be built on the site, is the last in a series of successive castles and palaces constructed on the same site since the erection of the first castle in 1167. The first castle on the site was Absalon's Castle. According to the Danish chronicler Saxo Grammaticus, Bishop Absalon of Roskilde built a castle in 1167 on a small island outside Copenhagen Harbour. Since the early fifteenth century, the various buildings have served as the base of the central administration; until 1794 as the principal residence of the Danish kings and after 1849 as the seat of parliament.

The palace today bears witness to three eras of Danish architecture, as the result of two serious fires. The first fire occurred in 1794 and the second in 1884. The main part of the current palace, finished in 1928, is in the historicist Neo-baroque style. The chapel dates to 1826 and is in a neoclassical style. The showgrounds were built 1738-46, in a baroque style.

References:

Wikipedia

User Reviews

Michael Lykke Vad Olsson (14 months ago)
The Danish parliament. fantastic old building with lots of history. book a tour. check out the queen's museum. come up to the tower and see amazing copenhagen. a must see.

Karolina Dabrowska (14 months ago)
Loved the view from the tower. We got lucky to have absolutely no queque but usually there is some waiting time. Recommend on a nice and sunny day.

Abeer K (15 months ago)
Such a wonderful experience. Impressive palace, amazingly organized and super clean. All the rooms have something special. It’s like a museum of art, with paintings and sculptures and spectacular ancient furniture. The great hall is stunning with all the colorful pieces visualizing the history of Denmark. The queen’s library is beautiful. The part of the kitchen is super cute. There’s a smell of cake baking in there! The part of the ruins is interesting, especially the story of Leonora Christina. The royal stables are nice too. The staff is super friendly. Highly recommend.

Camille V (16 months ago)
Beautiful architecture and amazing view on Copenhagen. Beautiful place full of history. I could spend hours inside ?

O Everything (16 months ago)
This castle is a must-see when in Copenhagen. It is split into 4 paid parts, as well as the Tower. The Ruins under Christiansborg Palace is a ~20-30 minute long exhibition of the ruins found during the rebuilding of the castle in the early 20th century. They are quite interesting to learn about, and definitely worth a visit if you’re into that kind of stuff. The Royal Reception Rooms were by far my personal favorite. To enter, you need plastic under your shoes to protect the floors there. It consists of many beautiful rooms in the palace, with paintings, tapestries, and beautiful design. The Royal Kitchen is the smallest of the four (significantly smaller) and is just some pots and pans and some other minor things. You can get through this in under 10 minutes depending on how much you decide to read. My personal least favorite and worth a skip if you don’t have much time to spare. The Royal Stables I’m sure would be nice, we’re the horses not out for the summer. Without them, it is a room with exhibits on mainly saddles and a large room with many beautiful carriages. The Tower is free of charge. Be patient as there will be a long wait because of the singular elevator and security check, even without a queue. The view of the city is great, in my opinion better than the Round Tower’s view. (*My favorite part of the round tower was the history on the way up, not the view itself.) Access to all of these is free with the Copenhagen Card, so I recommend getting it if you’re coming here.

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The Church of St Eustace was built between 1532-1632. St Eustace"s is considered a masterpiece of late Gothic architecture. The church’s reputation was strong enough of the time for it to be chosen as the location for a young Louis XIV to receive communion. Mozart also chose the sanctuary as the location for his mother’s funeral. Among those baptised here as children were Richelieu, Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson, future Madame de Pompadour and Molière, who was also married here in the 17th century. The last rites for Anne of Austria, Turenne and Mirabeau were pronounced within its walls. Marie de Gournay is buried there.

The origins of Saint Eustache date back to 13th century. The church became a parish church in 1223, thanks to a man named Jean Alais who achieved this by taxing the baskets of fish sold nearby, as granted by King Philip Augustus. To thank such divine generosity, Alais constructed a chapel dedicated to Sainte-Agnès, a Roman martyr. The construction of the current church began in 1532, the work not being finally completed until 1637. The name of the church refers to Saint Eustace, a Roman general of the second century AD who was burned, along with his family, for converting to Christianity, and it is believed that it was the transfer of a relic of Saint Eustache from the Abbey to Saint-Denis to the Church of Saint Eustache which resulted in its naming. Jeanne Baptiste d"Albert de Luynes was baptised here.

According to tourist literature on-site, during the French Revolution the church, like most churches in Paris, was desecrated, looted, and used for a time as a barn. The church was restored after the Revolution had run its course and remains in use today. Several impressive paintings by Rubens remain in the church today. Each summer, organ concerts commemorate the premieres of Berlioz’s Te Deum and Liszt’s Christus here in 1886.

The church is an example of a Gothic structure clothed in Renaissance detail. The church is relatively short in length at 105m, but its interior is 33.45m high to the vaulting. At the main façade, the left tower has been completed in Renaissance style, while the right tower remains a stump. The front and rear aspects provide a remarkable contrast between the comparatively sober classical front and the exuberant rear, which integrates Gothic forms and organization with Classical details. The L"écoute sculpture by Henri de Miller appears outside the church, to the south. A Keith Haring sculpture stands in a chapel of the church.

The Chapel of the Virgin was built in 1640 and restored from 1801 to 1804. It was inaugurated by Pius VII on the 22nd of December, 1804 when he came to Paris for the coronation of Napoleon. The apse chapel, with a ribbed cul-de-four vault, has at its centre a sculpture of the Virgin and Child of Jean-Baptiste Pigalle that the painter Thomas Couture highlighted by three large paintings.

With 8,000 pipes, the organ is reputed to be the largest pipe organ in France, surpassing the organs of Saint Sulpice and Notre Dame de Paris. The organ originally constructed by P.-A. Ducroquet was powerful enough for the premiere of Hector Berlioz" titanic Te Deum to be performed at St-Eustache in 1855.

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