Christiansborg Palace

The basements under the Palace still contain the remains of Bishop Absalon’s Castle dating from 1167, the first castle to be erected on the island.

In 1369, the Hanseatic League took the Castle into their possession and decided to tear it down. Shortly afterwards, the Castle of Copenhagen was erected and in 1443 the King took up residence at the Castle.

However, as time went by the Castle became too small to serve as a royal residence so Christian VI had it torn down, and in 1736 the erection of a beautiful rococo Palace, the first Christians-borg Palace, was begun. It was devastated by a fire in 1794. Only the Riding Ground premises and the Palace Church were saved.

The second Christiansborg Palace, a somewhat more modest edifice was built on the same site and in 1850, the Danish Parliament, the Rigsdag, was accommodated in one of the Palace wings. But the Palace was burnt down a second time in 1884.

The Present Christiansborg Palace

A heavy fire broke out in 1884 while the constitutional crisis, the most serious crisis in Danish politics was at its highest point. The Liberal wing and the Right wing (then entitled Højre and Venstre) found themselves locked in a political deadlock and found no rules on conciliation in the Constitutional Act to help solve their problems.

For a number of years, the right wing government backed by the Upper Chamber (the Landsting) the Members of which were mainly large estate owners passed a number of provisional laws without consulting Parliament which had a Liberal majority at that time. And it was only after a change on the political scene in 1901 which brought the first Liberal cabinet into power that the political parties could agree to rebuild the Palace.

Since 1918, the present Christiansborg Palace built in neo-baroque style has been setting the framework for Danish democracy.
Also in more recent times has Christiansborg Palace suffered a fire. In 1992, part of the Warehouse was destroyed by a fire that started during the renovation of the 400-year-old building. And during the same year, a carnival rocket fired during the Copenhagen carnival hit the Palace Church and occasioned a violent fire.