Aarhus City Hall

Aarhus City Hall - City Hall building in the city of Aarhus , Denmark . The modern city hall is the third in the history of the city. It was erected in 1941 according to a design developed by Arne Jacobsen and Eric Möller.

The first city hall was built in Aarhus in the 15th century and was part of the Aarhus Cathedral. This building was destroyed in 1859. The second building of the town hall was built in 1856-1857 according to the design of Ferdinand Tielemann at the intersection of Cathedral Square and Meilgade Street ^[2] . This building simultaneously served as a court and prison for 28 prisoners, and also served from 1856 to 1906 as a meeting place for the city council. After the construction of the new building in 1941, it was used as a police station until 1984, then the Museum of Women was housed in it. Aarhus City Hall announced a competition for the construction of a new town hall building on April 28, 1937; since by August 2 the number of applications exceeded 53, their acceptance was closed. The project of Jacobsen and Möller was chosen on August 14, but not everyone agreed with this decision, which led to heated debate in the national press, including the Copenhagen newspapers, as a result of which the construction project was temporarily frozen. At a meeting with representatives of the mayor’s office on October 28, architects were asked to give the future building a more monumental look in order to obtain approval for the approval of the project. As a result, on November 15, a tower 60 m high was added to the project, which was absent in the original plan ^[3] . In addition, for the construction of the building it was planned to use 6000 m² of marble from the Norwegian Porsgrunn ^[4] . This tower was the last town hall tower built in Denmark ^[3] . On November 18, 1937, the City Hall approved a new building project, the construction of which was to be carried out at the expense of the city budget. The first stone in the foundation of the new town hall was laid September 24, 1938.

In 1940, it was decided that in 1941, on the 500th anniversary of the city, a carillon made at the expense of the townspeople would be installed in the town hall, however, the Second World War prevented the implementation of this plan and it was only possible to produce a carillon in 1948 ^[5] . The total construction cost of the building was 8 million Danish kroner, of which 1.5 million went to the manufacture of furniture by designer Hans Wegner ^[6] ; this work was his first experience of collaboration with two architects of the building ^[7] . On August 7, 1948, the bell tower of the town hall was consecrated ^[8] . On March 13, 1995, the Town Hall was recognized as a building of unique architecture ^[9] , and in 2006 it was included in the Danish cultural canon ^[3] .