Historicism

When an architect designs a building, it is not just four walls with a roof. The architect also builds in a particular style. Until around the mid-18th century, each period had only one style, and all buildings were constructed accordingly. Nobody questioned this, because there was only that one way of building. But from then on, people began to take an interest in the different styles that had appeared throughout history.

The study of styles

This study of architectural styles took place at the art academies that emerged during the 17th and 18th centuries. Here, students examined the forms of historical styles and the meanings they once carried. These included ancient Egyptian art, classical antiquity, Gothic, Renaissance, and Baroque styles.

A free choice of styles

This new interest gave architectural forms a different role. A style was no longer tied exclusively to its own period. Instead, it became a symbolic language that could be used to give a building a particular meaning. For example, columns from antiquity signaled classical education and dignity. Gothic pointed arches around windows gave a building a medieval look. And pyramid-like forms could lend it a sense of Egyptian mystery.

There was also no problem with mixing forms from several styles in the same building. Little regard was paid to how those forms were originally used.

“The building is finished – which style should we give it?”

Historicist buildings were often very large. Facades were constructed over iron frameworks – a completely new technique at the time. Once the basic facade was finished, elements from any style could be added on. An entire industry grew up around producing prefabricated architectural components.

These included cornices, pediments, and especially stucco decorations, which could be ordered from catalogs and then pasted onto completed buildings. This was particularly common in Copenhagen’s apartment blocks, which were given a more pompous appearance than their structures alone would allow.

At the same time, the Danish writer Herman Bang published his novel Stuk (Stucco), using stucco decoration as a symbol of surfaces that covered emptiness and deceit.

Architects copied and reused as they pleased, without necessarily inventing anything new. Their work often consisted of choosing which style to apply to a building. Even craftsmanship faded into the background, since most elements could simply be ordered from catalogs.

A Danish example of historicism is the University Library in Copenhagen, which was inspired by Italian medieval churches. The choice of that style reflected the medieval tradition of monasteries serving as centers for large collections of books.

National Romanticism

Danish architects also drew inspiration from old Nordic building types, such as stave churches and Romanesque churches. Ornamentation and decoration were often copied directly from traditional Nordic designs.

This branch is called National Romanticism, because it sought to give buildings a distinctly national character by using historical forms. National Romantic buildings were especially constructed between about 1850 and 1920.