Huset KBH is a cultural centre located at Rådhusstræde 13 in central

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a population of 1.4 million in the Urban area of Copenhagen, urban area. The city is situated on the islands of Zealand and Amager, separated from Malmö, Sweden, by the ...

Denmark Denmark is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe. It is the metropole and most populous constituent of the Kingdom of Denmark,, . also known as the Danish Realm, a constitutionally unitary state that includes the Autonomous a ...

. It occupies three old townhouses at Rådhusstræde 13 and Magstræde 12–14 as well as a former warehouse. The building at Rådhusstræde 13 was listed in the Danish registry of protected buildings and places in 1945.

History

The building at Rådhusstræde 13 was built in 1730–34 after the previous building at the site had been destroyed in the

Copenhagen Fire of 1728 The Copenhagen Fire of 1728 was the largest fire in the history of Copenhagen, Denmark. It began on the evening of 20 October 1728 and continued to burn until the morning of the 23rd of October 1728. It destroyed approximately 28% of the city (me ...

. It just escaped the

Copenhagen Fire of 1795 The Copenhagen Fire of 1795 (''Københavns brand 1795'') started on Friday, 5 June 1795, at or around 3 pm by the Navy's old base south east of Kongens Nytorv on Gammelholm, in the Navy's magazine for coal and timber, the so-called Dellehave. As t ...

and was in 1802 heightened by one storey. The building at Magstræde 12 was built for brewer

Peder Børgesen Peter is a common masculine given name. It is derived directly from Greek , ''Petros'' (an invented, masculine form of Greek ''petra,'' the word for "rock" or "stone"), which itself was a translation of Aramaic ''Kefa'' ("stone, rock"), the new na ...

in 1830–31. It was heightened by one storey in 1920. The physicist

Ludvig Lorenz Ludvig Valentin Lorenz ( ; 18 January 1829 – 9 June 1891) was a Danish physicist and mathematician. In 1867, he gave completely general integral solutions to the differential equations of electromagnetism, which contain retardation effects re ...

(1829–1891) was a resident in the building at Magstræde 14 in 1860–61. The building was in 1881 acquired by the wholesaler Sthyr & Kjær. The company bought the two adjacent properties at Magstræde 12 and 14 in 1903 and a new warehouse was at the same time constructed at the site. The entire complex was in 1969 acquired by Copenhagen Municipality. It was adapted for its new use as youth house with the assistance of the architect Georg Rotne in 1973. Rådhusstræde 13 was at the time of the 1906 census only home to a single family. Jens Henrik Petersen, Sthyr & Kjær's warehouse manager, resided in the garret with his wife Eleonora Benthine Mathilde Petersen, their four children (aged 11 to 22) and the 18-year-old warehouse worker Carl Ferdinand Nielsen.

Architecture

The building at Rådhusstræde 13 was originally a two-storey townhouse with a four-bay wall dormer. This building was in 1802 heightened by one storey and a roof with five dormer windows. The facade was adapted in the

Neoclassical style Neoclassicism, also spelled Neo-classicism, emerged as a Western cultural movement in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that drew inspiration from the art and culture of classical antiquity. Neoclassici ...

with inspiration from

Karl Friedrich Schinkel Karl Friedrich Schinkel (13 March 1781 – 9 October 1841) was a Prussian architect, urban planning, city planner and painter who also designed furniture and stage sets. Schinkel was one of the most prominent architects of Germany and designed b ...

's architecture. Smaller rooms on the two lower floors were in the 1900s merged into one large room on each floor. Sections of the original stucco decorations from the 1740s were copied and used for creating the current stucco ceilings. They are in the

Rococo Rococo, less commonly Roccoco ( , ; or ), also known as Late Baroque, is an exceptionally ornamental and dramatic style of architecture, art and decoration which combines asymmetry, scrolling curves, gilding, white and pastel colours, sculpte ...

style and have details inspired by

François de Cuvilliés François de Cuvilliés, sometimes referred to as ''the Elder'' (23 October 1695, Soignies, Hainaut14 April 1768, Munich), was a Bavarian decorative designer and architect born in the Spanish Netherlands. He was instrumental in bringing the Roco ...

References

{{Authority control Listed buildings and structures in Copenhagen Neoclassical architecture in Copenhagen