The Royal Library Gardens are located on Slotsholmen in the middle of Copenhagen's political, literary and financial area - between Christiansborg Palace (Parliament) and the Royal Library - and in the immediate vicinity of the Ministry of Finance and Christian IV's old Stock Exchange building.
The garden constitutes a small oasis in the heart of the city and is popular with locals and tourists all year round. Only the shallow pool in the middle of the gardens reveals that this was once the site of a harbour. Today, it is the site of blossoming beds of flowers and large shadowy trees. The silence is broken occasionally, however. The new water sculpture in the middle of the central pool spouts out cascades of water every hour on the hour.
History
The gardens were designed in 1920 by landscape gardener Jens Peder Andersen and castle architect Thorvald Jørgensen. They were built on top of Christian IV's old naval port, Tøjhushavnen. As a reminder of its maritime past, a small pond has been retained in the middle of the gardens and an old mooring ring of the type used by ships in the 17th and 18th centuries has been built into the masonry at the end of the gardens.
Statues and Sculptures
A 1918 bronze statue of Søren Kierkegaard by the sculptor Louis Hasselriis is found in the middle of the gardens. Kierkegaard appears absorbed in his own thoughts with his gaze directed towards a point on the other side of the wall where his fiancée, Regine Olsen, is said to have lived.
The Water Sculpture
In the summer of 1999 the Palaces and Properties Agency unveiled a brand new sculpture in the old gardens. The sculpture is an eight-metre-high copper column that rises from the middle of the garden pool and operates as a fountain. Water shoots up every hour on the hour. It was designed by sculptor Mogens Møller as a monument to the book and the written word. The sculpture was donated by the New Carlsberg Foundation to the Danish Royal Library on the occasion of the opening of the library’s annex, the Black Diamond.
Vegetation
The wide variety of flowers in the gardens change with the seasons. Visitors can enjoy the view from rows of benches in the shade of the trees or from others out in the sun along the wall between the gardens and the yard to the Danish National Archives. Column plinths from the old Christiansborg serve as epergnes in the four grassy corner pieces and the principal axis through the gardens creates a link between the yard to the Danish National Archives and the main entrance to the Royal Library.
Last updated:: Thursday, May 27, 2010
