The history of the our neighborhood - Frederiksstaden 
 

Frederiksstaden is a neighborhood in central Copenhagen between the streets Bredgade and Store Kongensgade. Several houses on the south side of Store Kongensgade, were however built at the same time as Frederiksstaden. Frederiksstaden includes most of the Sankt Annæ Øster neighborhood and is characterized by the rococo style. Most older houses in the district are protected.

The construction of Frederiksstaden was started in 1749 on the occasion of the Oldenburg family's 300th anniversary. It was 300 years ago in 1748 that the Oldenburg family took over the throne in Denmark (1448). The first time the project was mentioned was 21 August 1749, when Johan Ludvig Holstein, chief secretary of the Danish Chancellery, sent a letter to the College of Admiralty and General Commissioners. In this, it was announced that the king was considering letting the Amalienborg area be built on, and therefore he wanted a report from Admiral Ulrik Frederik Suhm. A few days later, Suhm sent his opinion with an accompanying project for the development of the areas. The plan was carried out by Andreas Bjørn, who was the head of the city's leading merchants. Suhm advised that the existing timber yards be removed and that bakers, brewers, distillers, and merchants not be allowed to settle in the new district. The traces from the fire of 1728 are still frightening. As early as 5 September 1749, the plan was approved by the Council with corrections, and on 12 September the Copenhagen Magistrate was informed. The latter then had a council room poster printed, which announced the project to the public. The process may have gone too far, because on 9 November 1749, the commander of the Kastellet, Colonel Wolfgang Ernst Paurnfeind, protested that there should be free fire from the fortress, also at the city. However, this silly objection was overheard.
 

Frederik V appointed Adam Gottlob Moltke as the main person responsible for the construction. The responsibility for the architectural and town planning work was given to Nicolai Eigtved. Only the remains of the burned castle Sophie Amalienborg and a large baroque garden that belonged to the castle lay on the site.

Eigtved's urban planning was a continuation of the regular checkerboard pattern that had been used in the neighboring district of New Copenhagen a century earlier, but where New Copenhagen had never had its monumental square and church, Frederiksstaden became more monumental and solid. The center of the new district became a central octagonal square with four noble mansions (now Amalienborg) and Frederik's Church, known as the Marble Church. Frederiksgade became a transverse axis, while Amaliegade became a longitudinal axis.
 

The idea for an octagonal square was not Eigtved's, but came from Marcus Tuscher, who had executed a sketch of a square with a centrally placed equestrian monument. However, Tuscher, who died in 1751, had no influence on either the square's proportions, the monument, or the architecture. The skeleton in Eigtved's plan was the monumental axis, which begins at Frederikskirken and ends with the equestrian statue of Frederik V, which was first erected in 1771. The king looks towards the dome of the church. The church and the four noble mansions and the bourgeois settlement of Frederiksstaden symbolized the social hierarchy: The all-powerful king has his power from God and distributed it via the nobility and his earthly regiment. Back then there were timber yards by the harbor and the harbor side was the unattractive side, which is why the two mansions farthest from the church, Brockdorff's and Schack's, were the least desirable. The axis used to run between the church and the equestrian statue, but it has since been extended to Amaliehaven and the Opera, respectively, and has taken on a changed meaning.

​

​