Lur Blowers

The 1901 mock-up

A monument featuring a lur blower on the new City Hall Square was first proposed by Lorenz Frølich in circa 1890.[1] Martin Nyrop, who had designed the new Copenhagen City Hall, adopted the idea and originally envisioned two columns flanking the entrance to the City Hall Square from Vesterbrogade, each topped by a Heimdallr figure with a gjallarhorn.[2]

A mock-up of one column was installed in front of the Central Hotel in 1901. It consisted of a wooden column designed by Nyrop and a plaster model of the Heimdallr figure designed by Anders Bundgaard. The idea was later abandoned.

Carlsberg's victory column seen in an illustration from Illustreret Tidende

At the 1909 Danish National Exhibition in Aarhus, Carlsberg was represented both with a display in the Industry Hall and a victory column. The latter revived the idea of a column carrying a sculpture of a lur blower. The victory column was designed by Anton Rosen, the leading architect of the exhibition, who also designed a triumphal arch for Tuborg on an adjacent site. Both structures were built in white-painted wood. They were demolished after the exhibition.

Rosen's 1911 plan for placement of the column

The final Lurblæserne monument photographed by Peter Elfelt in 1930

The Carlsberg Foundation and New Carlsberg Foundation later decided to donate a permanent lur-blower monument to the City of Copenhagen to mark the centenary of the birth of J. C. Jacobsen on 2 September 1911. The project was moved to the small plaza next to the City Hall. Rosen designed the column, and the sculptor Siegfried Wagner was charged with the design of the sculpture group. The monument was inaugurated in 1914.