Kongens Have – The King’s Garden

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Kongens Have, Copenhagen, Denmark

Kongens Have – The King’s Garden – is the oldest and most visited park in central Copenhagen, Denmark.

Established in the early 17th century as the private gardens of King Christian IV‘s Rosenborg Castle, the park also contains several other historical buildings, including Rosenborg Barracks, home to the Royal Guards, as well as a high number of statues and monuments.

The park also plays host to temporary art exhibitions and other events such as concerts throughout the summer.

The park traces its history back to 1606 when King Christian IV acquired land outside Copenhagen’s East Rampart and established a pleasure garden in Renaissance style, which also delivered fruit, vegetables and flowers for the royal household at Copenhagen Castle.

The garden had a relatively small pavilion, which was later expanded into present-day Rosenborg Castle being completed in 1624.

Rosenborg Castle is located in the north-western section of the park and is surrounded by a moat on three sides.

The garden included a pavilion, statues, and a fountain. Its plants included mulberries, wine, apples, pears, and lavender.

Later in the century, as fashions changed, the garden was redesigned including a garden maze, a typical feature of Baroque gardens.

It had also an intricate system of paths, which led to a central space with an octagonal summerhouse in its centre.

From about 1710 Rosenborg Castle was largely abandoned by the royal family and the gardens were instead opened to the public.

The two main entrances are the King’s Gate at the corner of Gothersgade and Kronprinsessegade, and the Queen’s Gate at the corner of Øster Voldgade and Sølvgade.

There are also four other entrances to the park.

A dominant feature of the scenery is the two tree avenues that intersect near the center of the park and are known as the Knight’s Path (Danish: Kavalergangen) and the Lady’s Path (Danish: Damegangen), while the rest of the paths are laid out in a grid pattern.

Rosenborg Barracks is located on the corner of Gothersgade and Øster Voldgade. Since 1985 the Barracks has only housed guards on duty at Copenhagen..

The Hercules Pavilion stands at the end of Kavalergangen and takes its name from a statue of Hercules positioned in a deep niche between two Tuscan columns.

It is flanked by two smaller niches with statues of Orpheus and Eurydice. The three statues were made by the Italian sculptor Giovanni Baratta and acquired by King Frederik IV during his visit to Italy.

Along Kronprinsessegade and parts of Gothersgade, the park is enclosed by a wrought-iron grill incorporating 16 small pavilions, which open to the street side.

The 14 small shop pavilions were completed in 1806.

The two last pavilions, opposite Landemærket, were not built until 1920.

Among the goods which were sold from the pavilions were cakes and stockings. Later they were available to architects and artists from the Royal Arts Academy as a sort of grant.

Today they are rented out by the Palaces and Properties Agency on two-year leases with the possibility of extension.

There is a required minimum opening time of 20 hours per week and the use needs to be relevant to the site’s history.

The oldest sculpture in the garden is The Lion and the Horse, commissioned by King Christian IV from Peter Husum in 1617 and completed in 1625.

A near copy of an antique marble sculpture at Capitoline Hill in Rome, it depicts a lion with a humanoid face that is tearing apart a horse that it has just brought down.

The statue is located between the two ring riding columns in the southern section of the park.

The 17 marble balls surrounding the Matzen Lawn are believed to come from the never completed St. Ann’s Rotunda, a monumental church that was under construction on a nearby site but never completed, and have been placed in the park since at least 1783.

The Boy on the Swan is a fountain consisting of a 148 cm tall bronze sculpture of a small boy riding on a swan, which sprays water from its beak, resting on a granite plinth in the middle of a depressed basin. The bronze sculpture was created by H.E. Freund.

The monument to Viggo Hørup was designed by Jens Ferdinand Willumsen and installed at the initiative of the newspaper Politiken which Hørup co-founded in 1884.

While the eye rejoices, food can be enjoyed. There are several places in the garden where you can eat.

Quench your thirst at outdoor cafe tables or in sun loungers on the Hercules Pavilion.

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