Søtorvet, Copenhagen

Søtorvet
Søtorvet seen from Nørrebro
General information
Architectural style	Historicism (Châteauesque)
Town or city	Copenhagen
Country	Denmark
Construction started	1873
Completed	1875
Client	Copenhagen Building Company
Design and construction
Architect	Ferdinand Vilhelm Jensen Vilhelm Petersen

Søtorvet (lit. "The Lake Square") is an elegant late 19th century residential development facing The Lakes in Copenhagen, Denmark. It flanks the end of Frederiksborggade, where it turns into the Queen Louise Bridge, at the intersection with Øster and Nørre Søgade.

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.

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.