Sønder Boulevard ( lit. "South Boulevard") is a boulevard in the Vesterbro district of

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a population of 1.4 million in the Urban area of Copenhagen, urban area. The city is situated on the islands of Zealand and Amager, separated from Malmö, Sweden, by the ...

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, whose broad central reserve has been turned into a

linear park A linear park is a type of park that is significantly longer than it is wide. These linear parks are strips of public land running along canals, rivers, streams, defensive walls, electrical lines, or highways and Esplanade, shorelines. Examples o ...

with various facilities for sports and other activities. It runs from Halmtorvet next to

Copenhagen Central Station Copenhagen Central Station (, ; abbreviated ''København H'', colloquially usually referred to as ''Hovedbanegården'' or simply ''Hovedbanen'') is the Central station, main railway station in Copenhagen, Denmark, and the largest railway station ...

in the north east to the Carlsberg district in the southwest.

History

Sønder Boulevard follows the initial stretch of Denmark's first railway, the Copenhagen–Roskilde railway line between Copenhagen and

Roskilde Roskilde ( , ) is a city west of Copenhagen on the Danish island of Zealand. With a population of 53,354 (), the city is a business and educational centre for the region and the 10th largest city in Denmark. It is governed by the administrative ...

, which opened in 1847. In 1864, the railway line was moved to a more northern course, through

Frederiksberg Frederiksberg () is a part of the Capital Region of Denmark. It is an independent municipality, Frederiksberg Municipality, separate from Copenhagen Municipality, but both are a part of the region of Copenhagen. It occupies an area of less tha ...

, before being moved to its current position just south of Sønder Boulevard in 1911. The portion of the abandoned railway terrain closest to the city was transformed into a broad street in the emerging Vesterbro district. A direct continuation of Stormgade the street was given the name Ny Stormgade (New Storm Street).In 1905., the street was refurbished and renamed Sønder Boulevard. The name complemented those of Vester Boulevard (West Boulevard, now H. C. Andersens Boulevard and Nørre Boulevard (North Boulevard, now Nørre Voldgade). Sønder Boulevard was long a dilapidated thoroughfare dominated by traffic. The elm trees which originally lined it were hit by Dutch elm disease and had to be removed. After Halmtorvet was refurbished between 1999 and 2003, Sønder Boulevard was given similar treatment from 2005 to 2007. The project was designed by SLA.

Design and facilities

The boulevard has sections with different forms of vegetation such as lawns and perennial gardens. Facilities include a playground with a

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theme, a ball cage, a track for BMX bikes and seating areas with very different ambiences.

Buildings

Most of the boulevard is lined with typical Copenhagen five-storey residential buildings from the late 19th and early 20th century. Absalon's Church (No. 73) was completed in 1934 to design by Arthur Wittmaack. Wittmaack had already designed the cinema Boulevard Teatret which opened at No. 79–81 in 1924. In 1965, it was taken over by Peter Refn og Knud Hauge and operated as Copenhagen's first

art cinema An art film, arthouse film, or specialty film is an independent film aimed at a niche market rather than a mass market audience. It is "intended to be a serious, artistic work, often experimental and not designed for mass appeal", "made prima ...

under the name Camera. It closed after Refn took over Grand Teatret in 1974.

Public art, monuments and memorials

A plaque on No. 106 commemorates that a stray British bomb hit No. 106 and exploded during Operation Carthage on 21 March 1945, killing 11 people in the building.

Transport

and Carlsberg station are located close to each end of the street. Enghave Plads Station on the Copenhagen Metro City Circle Line close to the junction with Flensborggade and Istedgade opened in 2019.

Cultural references

The Camera cinema (Sønder Boulevard 81) was used as a location in the 1967 film '' Fantasterne'' and again in the 1968 film '' Min søsters børn vælter byen''.

References

External links

Sønder Boulevard
on SLA's website
Sønder Boulevard
with images on online architecture guide {{DEFAULTSORT:Sonder Boulevard Streets in Vesterbro/Kongens Enghave Parks in Copenhagen Linear parks