L’architecture au début de l’absolutisme danois (1675-1725) : Fredensborg et Marly

• Main Author: Ulla Kjær
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Centre de Recherche du Château de Versailles 2006-03-01
• Series: Bulletin du Centre de Recherche du Château de Versailles
• Subjects: absolutisme; Fredensborg; Frédéric IV; Johan Cornelius Krieger; palladianisme; Marly
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/crcv/11933

Palace Fredensborg, thirty-five kilometres north of Copenhagen is the summer residence of the Danish queen. The original building, which was built at the suggestion of King Frederik IV and with Johan Cornelius Krieger as its architect, was erected 1720-23, but in the next sixty years a series of extensions were made. According to the French envoy in Denmark the Danish king in 1727 compared the surroundings of Fredensborg to the landscape around the French palace of Marly, which he had visited as crown prince in 1693. But the original Fredensborg differed in many ways from Marly. Frederik IV had travelled not only in France, but also in England and Italy, and the buildings he had seen included several villas designed by the Italian architect Andrea Palladio. His architect Johan Cornelius Krieger was familiar with an architectural style from Northern Europe inspired by Palladio, that is Palladianism, which had its centre in the Netherlands. Danish art historians have disagreed on the possible origins of the style of Fredensborg: France, Italy or the Netherlands? The palace is well known and beloved, yet it is not possible to find any Danish patterns. When the palace was built, it was hardly possible to point to any specific Danish style of architecture. Danish absolutism, which was introduced in 1660, had established itself firmly, but it had not yet found a suitable style to symbolize the regime. This article investigates how the importance Frederik IV attributed to Marly came to influence the shaping of the Danish palace. The comparison with Marly reveals the ideology and the symbolism which characterize Fredensborg, and it turns out that there are a good many resemblances between the Danish and the French palace.