HANSEN, Christian Frederik
(b. 1756, København, d. 1845, Frederiksberg)

Exterior view

1811-29
Photo
Vor Frue Kirke, Copenhagen

During the Napoleonic Wars, the English Royal Navy bombarded Copenhagen, and the city was extremely damaged. The buildings destroyed included the 12th-century cathedral, the Vor Frue Kirke (Church of Our Lady). Hansen presented his first designs for the reconstruction in 1808, and the building was completed in 1829. The architect positioned an antique temple frontage before a rectangular building. The triangular pediment of the façade featured a sculpted scene of Christ's Resurrection, while over this there rose a massive tower whose proportions seemed not to match those of the building itself.

The interior space was divided by rectangular piers, which were provided with niches for figures representing the apostles. A gallery with an Ionic colonnade ran above the piers, and Hansen designed the apse to accommodate a statue of Christ made by Bertel Thorvaldsen.