Roskildekrukkerne (The Roskilde Jars)

A monumental gateway to Roskilde

Standing on Hestetorvet just outside Roskilde’s railway station, Roskildekrukkerne form a sculptural gateway that every arriving visitor passes on their way into the city. The three colossal jars soar to about five metres in height and together weigh roughly 24 tons, making them among the largest ceramic sculptures ever created. Their sheer scale immediately shifts the square from a functional transit space into an open-air art plaza, where trains, buses and everyday life move around a fixed, almost timeless presence. The jars are arranged in a shallow, circular basin of water, which captures reflections of their curves and colours along with the surrounding station façade. On calm days the surface acts like a mirror, visually doubling their height and giving the impression that the vessels are floating. In wet or wintry weather the water’s shimmer and the changing light emphasise the textures in the glazes, so the work feels slightly different each time you pass.

Art, technique and world-record ceramics

Roskildekrukkerne are the work of Danish abstract sculptor and ceramic artist Peter Brandes, known for monumental pieces that draw on classical forms and religious imagery. Here he took the ancient amphora as inspiration, stretching it to contemporary urban scale. Two of the jars are glazed in deep blue tones, while the third has a bronze-like surface, creating a strong contrast against the brick station buildings and the often-grey northern sky. Technically, the jars are remarkable. Each is built from several hundred ceramic sections that were individually fired at temperatures up to around 1,300°C before being carefully stacked and joined on site. This modular construction pushed the limits of what a ceramics factory could produce at the time and has been cited in connection with world records in large-scale pottery manufacture. Knowing this adds an extra layer of appreciation when you’re up close, tracing the subtle joints and imagining the precision required to keep the tall forms stable.

A thousand years in three jars

The jars were presented to Roskilde in 1998 to mark the city’s 1,000th anniversary, a gift from local food company Stryhn’s Leverpostej. The commission was conceived not just as decoration, but as a contemporary monument linking present-day Roskilde to its long past as a royal and ecclesiastical centre. Placing the work at the transport hub rather than by the cathedral underlines that this is a living city still in motion, not a preserved historic stage set. One of the jars carries inscribed fragments of the poem "Junker Kristoffer" by Danish poet Henrik Nordbrandt. The text references a medieval nobleman buried in nearby Roskilde Cathedral, connecting the modern artwork with the city’s Gothic landmark and the royal graves inside it. The verses, set against the sinuous ceramic surface, invite you to circle slowly, reading and re-reading as different lines slide into view, making the jars a literary as well as visual encounter.

Experiencing the square throughout the day

Because Roskildekrukkerne are in an open public square, you can experience them at any time of day and in any season. In the morning, soft light picks out the jars’ subtle colour gradations and the commuter flow provides a sense of scale. At midday, the square fills with people crossing between the station, shops and cafés, and the water in the basin often sparkles, throwing flecks of light onto the curved surfaces. Towards evening the ambience shifts. As the station lights come on and traffic thins, the jars take on a more contemplative feel, their reflections becoming clearer in the darkening water. In snow or frost they can appear almost sculpted from ice, while in rain the glazes deepen to near-black blues and metallic browns. A short stop here can be surprisingly meditative: the gentle sound of water, the rumble of trains, and the play of light on ceramic all combine into a compact urban calm.

A convenient pause between journeys

Most visits are brief, often combined with a walk up towards the cathedral or the Viking Ship Museum, yet it is worth lingering for a few extra minutes. Step back towards different corners of Hestetorvet to frame the jars against the 19th-century station building, or move in close to inspect the firing marks and tiny imperfections that hint at the intense heat of the kiln. If you are interested in photography, the square offers multiple angles, reflections and human scale to play with. Because there is no entry fee or formal boundary, Roskildekrukkerne feel woven into daily routines: people arrange to meet here, sit on nearby benches, or simply pass by without a second thought. For a traveller, that ordinariness is part of the charm. The jars are both landmark and local backdrop, an artwork that is constantly reanimated by the city life flowing around it.