Neighborhood Profile: Nyboder

During the 16th and 17th centuries the Danish state went through a period of expansion and consolidation of state power, symbolically culminating in 1648 with the elevation of Danish throne to the status of an absolute monarchy. Kings during this period undertook major building projects, building fortresses, ports, palaces, public buildings and expanding the size of Copenhagen by more than half by reclaiming land from Copenhagen’s shallow harbor. These were top-down state-driven projects, and they employed a rigid, formal spatial approach which contrasted sharply with the disorder of the older parts of the city.

One of the main expressions of the expansion in state power was the growth of the Danish navy, which was one of the most powerful in northern Europe in this period. The personnel of this navy needed homes, so the state built Nyboder, or “new booths”.

Nyboder is shown by the red vertical lines on the right side

These houses are arranged in long straight rows in along a grid of perpendicular streets. They were initially one story with a back yard for each house. Over time the neighborhood was expanded and most of the houses were rebuilt to two stories. Following defeat by the British in 1807 Denmark’s naval power declined, and suddenly the need to maintain a large military population in Copenhagen abated. About half of the neighborhood was demolished in the mid 19th century. The remaining houses continue to be inhabited, and are owned and managed by the Danish Defense Forces.

Today 319 of the row houses remain containing 605 dwelling units (DU) in an area of 6.31 hectares. This gives the neighborhood a density of about 96 DU per hectare (38.8 per acre). However, the neighborhood’s population of about 2000 means that the household size of 3.3 in Nyboder is nearly double the national average of 1.7.

Nyboder is now a well-known feature of old Copenhagen, and despite the age of the houses they are highly sought-after. Nyboder stands out as the first instance of state-sponsored, state-planned housing constructed on a massive scale in Denmark. Though such a phenomenon would not reappear for several centuries, similarly rigid, formal, functional qualities would also characterize state-sponsored housing projects in the 20th century.