Nikolaj Kunsthal: The art gallery in a church that was never a church

Nikolaj Kunsthal is located between Christiansborg Palace and Kongens Nytorv. 800 years of history is embedded in the atmospheric church that, besides its tower, is younger than it looks.

The church room in the Church of Saint Nicholas in the heart of Copenhagen is breathtakingly beautiful with its whitewashed walls and arches, vast high ceilings and light that floods the room through the enormous Neo-Baroque windows. It’s easy to imagine churchgoers finding peace in this room before it became an art gallery. The thing is, these rooms were never home to a consecrated church. The building was built around 1910 as a form of public and living monument to the church that once stood there. The architect of the building was Hans Christian Amberg, who was more interested restoration than being trendy, which probably made him the perfect choice for the project. The church’s history is deeply embedded in the architecture and craftsmanship of the building, and recreating that spirit was a discipline in itself.

Restoring history

The building’s greatest piece of cultural heritage is the tower, with its verdigris copper spire that gazes across the city’s low rooftops, as if it had been doing so for hundreds of years. But the original tower hasn’t kept vigil over the city since the 1700s. One of Copenhagen’s many fires destroyed the building and its 90-meter-tall renaissance spire, which collapsed and burrowed itself deep into the ground, where it was found hundreds of years later. The only part of the building remaining after the fire in 1775 was the brick tower that had supported the spire. For many years, it was used as a fire lookout tower.

The donation that returned a tower to the city skyline

Early in the 20th century, Carlsberg’s founder, Carl Jacobsen, donated money to have the old tower rebuilt. Carl Jacobsen spent a great deal of his fortune supporting the arts, sciences and cultural assets. However, choosing to invest in rebuilding a church that would not be run by a congregation was still an oddity. Perhaps he felt the collapse of the tower 200 years previously had left a significant gap in the city. The city would certainly be all the poorer should the tower, God forbid, be lost again.

From art to the stomach

The Church of Saint Nicholas is located in a rather small square that has a rare intimate quality to it, despite the bustle of the many visitors to Nikolaj Kunsthal and the restaurant on the ground floor, which overflows onto the square during the summer. Back when only the remains of the tower adorned the square, it became home to the Copenhagen butchers’ market and the area became known as Maven (Danish for stomach), from which the restaurant takes it name.

Near Nikolaj Kunsthal

Within walking distance of Nikolaj Kunsthal, you’ll find an array of cultural gems such as Gammel Strand, Thorvaldsen’s Museum, the Theatre Museum at the Court Theatre, the Danish War Museum and the Black Diamond. Like Nikolaj Kunsthal, they are all part of the 17 cultural institutions that make up the Copenhagen Cultural District.

If you like towers, then it might be a good idea to walk over to Christiansborg Palace. Its tower is only ten years older than the tower on Nikolaj Kunsthal.