Background When Copenhagen was still a fortified city, Frederiksborggade, passing through the Northern City Gate, used to be one of the main roads leading in and out of town, taking travellers north toward
Frederiksborg Castle. After the Northern City Gate was demolished in 1853 and a law definitively provided for the decommissioning of the fortifications in 1868, redevelopment of the land outside the gate began and the present day
Nørrebro district emerged with
Nørrebrogade, the continuation of Frederiksborggade on the other side of
The Lakes, as its central artery.
Construction The Søtorvet development was built from 1873 to 1875 by the
Copenhagen Building Company, a
real estate company founded the previous year by
Carl Frederik Tietgen together with a circle of prominent citizens including
Carlsberg-founder
J. C. Jacobsen, manufacturer
Lauritz Peter Holmblad, later Prime Minister
Tage Reedtz-Thott, and later Speaker of the Danish
Landsting Carl Christian Vilhelm Liebe. The architects were
Ferdinand Vilhelm Jensen and
Vilhelm Petersen under supervision of
Ferdinand Meldahl, one of the leading Danish architects of the period.
After the inauguration When the buildings were completed,
Johanne Luise Heiberg was one of the first residents. At this point, the Queen Louise Bridge had still not been built. It was constructed a decade later to the design of
Vilhelm Dahlerup, another leading architect of the time. In about 1900, the
Café de la Reine opened at Søtorvet 2, further contributing to the French ambiance of the locale. It had outdoor service under a roof and was therefore nicknamed Café la' det regne ("Café let it rain"), a play on how the French name sounds in Danish. In the 1930s, the café became a hangout for poets such as Sigfred Pedersen and
Otto Gelsted who would often recite their poems standing on the tables.
Niels Clemmensen sat behind the piano. When
Nazi Germany occupied Denmark in 1940, the café closed. ==Architecture==