Banegårdsplads ( Lit. Central Station Square) is a public square in Aarhus,

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, situated in the

Indre By Indre By (lit. English, "Inner City"), also known as Copenhagen Center or K or Downtown Copenhagen, is an administrative district (''by'') in central Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark. It covers an area of , has a population of 26,223, and a po ...

neighborhood. Banegårdsplads is where arrivals from the Aarhus Central Station enters the city and it functions as a central junction for the streets ''Banegårdsgade'', ''Ny Banegårdsgade'', ''M.P. Bruuns Gade'', Park Allé and Ryesgade.

History

Banegårdsplads has been reformed and renovated a number of times and the current setup is the 3rd version. The reason for the many changes is that the square has been altered every time a new central station has been built or expanded. The last major overhaul occurred in the 1920s when the area around it was developed following a unified urban planning design by city engineer Oscar Jørgensen and architect

Axel Høeg-Hansen Axel Høeg-Hansen (27 June 1877 – 30 August 1947) was a Danish architect. Stylistically he mainly worked in neoclassical and functionalist styles. He primarily worked in and around Aarhus at the turn of the 20th century. Background Axe ...

. The pair won an architectural competition in 1920 issued by the city council. The central station was finished in 1929 and at that time the construction of buildings in the surrounding areas had begun. Banegårdsplads has long been a transportation hub in the city. The first four tram lines in the city started here and later it, along with Park Allé, became the central hub for buses. Today the square is the junction for several major streets and contains a parking area for taxis.

Architecture

The buildings surrounding the square were designed to complement the neoclassical central station constructed between 1926 and 1929. The square is delimited at the east and west ends by large buildings and corners projected forward while the square continues more freely northwards toward Park Allé which today functions as a portal to the City Hall constructed in 1938-41. The buildings around the square have the same heights and are constructed of the same building materials, sand colored yellow bricks with

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates ...

used for accentuation. Apart from the

hip roof A hip roof, hip-roof or hipped roof, is a type of roof where all sides slope downwards to the walls, usually with a fairly gentle slope (although a tented roof by definition is a hipped roof with steeply pitched slopes rising to a peak). Thus, ...

of the central station all buildings have mansard roofs with rounded dormers. The first buildings on the north side of ''Sønder Allé'' came to inform the entire construction project; the windows are framed in ashlar and the

parapet A parapet is a barrier that is an extension of the wall at the edge of a roof, terrace, balcony, walkway or other structure. The word comes ultimately from the Italian ''parapetto'' (''parare'' 'to cover/defend' and ''petto'' 'chest/breast'). ...

s are formed with brick patterns. The buildings on Park Allé has a strong vertical expression with massive

loggia In architecture, a loggia ( , usually , ) is a covered exterior gallery or corridor, usually on an upper level, but sometimes on the ground level of a building. The outer wall is open to the elements, usually supported by a series of columns ...

-inspired porches pushed forwards from the main buildings which function as a counterweight to the length of the block. The ground floor is accentuated with horizontal brick patterns, almost a reversed shadow joint, to underline to solid character of the buildings. On Banegårdspladsen the vertical expression is different with brick columns around the main entrances which is also seen in the older ''Regina'' complex. The windows are framed in narrow

lesene A lesene, also called a pilaster strip, is an architectural term for a narrow, low-relief vertical pillar on a wall. It resembles a pilaster, but does not have a base or capital. It is typical in Lombardic and Rijnlandish architectural building ...

s and the cornices of sandstone are carried by corbels. File:Banegårdspladsen (facade) 05.jpg, Neoclassical architecture in yellow brick File:Banegårdspladsen (facade) 01.jpg, facade detail File:Indgang til det tidligere posthus ved Århus Hovedbanegård.jpg, Former post and telegraph center File:Postbygningen (Post og Telegraf) 01.jpg, Architectural detail File:Aarhus Hovedbanegård (april).jpg, Aarhus Central Station in yellow brick File:Banegårdshuset 1.JPG, ''Banegårdshuset'' (newspaper headquarters) in yellow brick

References

External links

{{commons category, Banegårdspladsen, position=left Squares in Aarhus Aarhus C