Nytorv

From Royal Marketplace to Urban Crossroads

Nytorv, literally “New Square”, was laid out in the early 17th century when King Christian IV cleared space behind the old city hall to create a dedicated market for butchers. For centuries, hanging carcasses, stalls and the shouts of traders defined this part of Copenhagen, while vegetables and other goods were sold across the way on Gammeltorv. The two squares have always been closely linked, forming a single open space at the core of the medieval city. The calm you encounter today conceals a far harsher past. Public executions once took place here, and until the late 18th century a pillory stood on the square, where branding and whipping were carried out in front of assembled crowds. These darker episodes are long gone, but they add a layer of drama to what might otherwise feel like a purely pleasant urban plaza.

Fire, Reinvention and a Monumental Courthouse

Much of what surrounded Nytorv was destroyed in the catastrophic Copenhagen Fire of 1795, including the city hall that once separated the square from Gammeltorv. In the rebuilding that followed, the two spaces were visually fused, and Copenhagen gained one of its most imposing Neoclassical façades. Completed in 1815, the Copenhagen Court House dominates the western edge of Nytorv with tall Ionic columns and a sober, temple-like front. The courthouse was designed by Christian Frederik Hansen, a leading architect of the time, and served not only as a court but also as the city hall until the early 20th century. Its clean lines and strict symmetry still convey authority and order. Look up and you will also notice enclosed bridges linking the main building to former jail facilities behind; these passageways once carried prisoners to and from their hearings and have been dubbed a local “Bridge of Sighs”.

Architecture in the Details

Beyond the courthouse, a closer look at the buildings around Nytorv reveals a patchwork of architectural eras. Many façades date from the early 1800s rebuilding period, with restrained classical ornament, tall windows and muted colours typical of Copenhagen’s historic centre. Ground floors have long been given over to shops and cafés, while upper floors remain residential or house small offices. Although the square itself is fairly austere—a broad cobbled surface with only a few trees and simple seating—it invites you to take in the vertical frame of the city: cornices, rooflines and dormer windows stacked around its edges. The slight slope towards Gammeltorv helps you grasp how both squares are really one continuous urban room.

From Traffic Choked to Pedestrian Calm

In the early 20th century, the age of the automobile transformed Nytorv from marketplace into traffic space, with cars cutting across the square and parking encroaching on the cobbles. That changed in the 1960s, when Copenhagen pioneered the Strøget pedestrian zone. With motor vehicles diverted, Nytorv was reimagined as part of a generous car-free corridor stretching across the inner city. Today the square functions as a breathing space along this pedestrian spine. Office workers cross it at speed, shoppers thread between buskers and street performers, and small clusters of people linger at the edges with takeaway coffee. Seasonal decorations and occasional temporary installations animate the open expanse without overwhelming its simple layout.

Everyday Life at the City’s Historic Core

For visitors, Nytorv is less about a single must-see monument and more about atmosphere. It is a place to pause between museums and boutiques, to feel the layered history of Copenhagen underfoot while still immersed in daily city life. The soundscape blends footsteps on stone, fragments of conversation in Danish and many other languages, and the distant rattle of bicycles. Wander slowly and you begin to notice small details: the worn edges of paving stones, subtle level changes between the two squares, and the way sunlight finds its way between façades at different times of day. With Gammeltorv’s ornate Caritas Fountain just a few steps away and the constant flow of Strøget on either side, Nytorv offers a compact lesson in how Copenhagen has grown, rebuilt and reinvented itself over four centuries.

Stories Hidden in a Modest Square

Nytorv has also been home to writers and thinkers, including Ludvig Holberg, who lived on the border between the two squares in the 18th century and wryly contrasted elegant Gammeltorv with the more macabre scenes linked to Nytorv’s pillory and scaffold. Such stories add a literary dimension to the space and hint at the conversations that have unfolded here over generations. Standing in the middle of the square, it is easy to imagine carts rolling in with meat from the countryside, guards leading prisoners under the courthouse arch, or civic officials hurrying to debates that helped shape the modern city. Yet despite this weight of history, the square remains unpretentious—a modest, workaday heart to a capital that continues to evolve around it.