City Hall Aarhus
Aarhus City Hall Building
The city hall in Denmark's second-largest city was built according to the winning design by Arne Jacobsen and Erik Møller from 1937. It was completed during World War II, which it weathered unscathed. The new town hall was intended as a seat of democratic governance while the city was occupied by the Germans. The total costs, including the land, amounted to 9.5 million Danish crowns. Since 1994, it has been a protected monument and in 2006 it was included in the Kulturkanon among twelve architectural works representing Danish cultural heritage.
Jacobsen and Møller's winning design featured a composition of three basic volumes asymmetrically arranged in Rådhusparken, which originally served as a cemetery. The four-story entrance section contains the main lobby, a ceremonial hall, and the city council meeting room. At the opposite end lies the lowest three-story block of the information center with a slightly curved roof and a separate entrance from the side street. Between the front entrance section and the rear building lies a five-story block with two rows of offices and a central corridor with skylights. The entire composition is completed by a slender sixty-meter tower with two massive clock faces measuring 7 meters in diameter. The original design did not include the tower at all, and it was created at the request of the citizens.
From the outside, the town hall displays a clear arrangement and construction logic. The façade unfolds from a regular square grid. Six thousand square meters of marble panels from Porsgrunn in Norway were used for the outer shell. The slightly sloped roof is made of copper sheets. In contrast to the cold exterior, the interior has a much more welcoming impression. The town hall combines the ideas of modernism with a Scandinavian sensitivity to natural materials and landscapes. Visitors move from the austere building into a friendly lobby, where the architect's attention was given to every detail, from the mosaic on the floor, the painting and cladding of the walls to the details of the railings, light fixtures, and door handles. The walls are made of beech cladding, and the floor consists of oak parquet. The main foyer can accommodate up to 600 visitors. The slightly vaulted ceiling with slits provides ample southern light, while the north-facing glass wall, over four stories high, opens to the park (now to the art museum). The main foyer is bordered on three sides by gently undulating balconies, providing access to meeting rooms on the upper floors.
Jacobsen and Møller's design can be compared in many ways to the expansion of the town hall in Gothenburg, Sweden (1913-37) by Erik Asplund, where a bright interior with soft lines and composed of warm materials is hidden behind the strict external grid with sharp lines.
Jacobsen and Møller's winning design featured a composition of three basic volumes asymmetrically arranged in Rådhusparken, which originally served as a cemetery. The four-story entrance section contains the main lobby, a ceremonial hall, and the city council meeting room. At the opposite end lies the lowest three-story block of the information center with a slightly curved roof and a separate entrance from the side street. Between the front entrance section and the rear building lies a five-story block with two rows of offices and a central corridor with skylights. The entire composition is completed by a slender sixty-meter tower with two massive clock faces measuring 7 meters in diameter. The original design did not include the tower at all, and it was created at the request of the citizens.
From the outside, the town hall displays a clear arrangement and construction logic. The façade unfolds from a regular square grid. Six thousand square meters of marble panels from Porsgrunn in Norway were used for the outer shell. The slightly sloped roof is made of copper sheets. In contrast to the cold exterior, the interior has a much more welcoming impression. The town hall combines the ideas of modernism with a Scandinavian sensitivity to natural materials and landscapes. Visitors move from the austere building into a friendly lobby, where the architect's attention was given to every detail, from the mosaic on the floor, the painting and cladding of the walls to the details of the railings, light fixtures, and door handles. The walls are made of beech cladding, and the floor consists of oak parquet. The main foyer can accommodate up to 600 visitors. The slightly vaulted ceiling with slits provides ample southern light, while the north-facing glass wall, over four stories high, opens to the park (now to the art museum). The main foyer is bordered on three sides by gently undulating balconies, providing access to meeting rooms on the upper floors.
Jacobsen and Møller's design can be compared in many ways to the expansion of the town hall in Gothenburg, Sweden (1913-37) by Erik Asplund, where a bright interior with soft lines and composed of warm materials is hidden behind the strict external grid with sharp lines.
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