The Danish army's own church has stood on Sankt Annae Plads since 1706. Garnisonskirken - officially Den Herre Zebaoths Kirke - was built between 1703 and 1706 for Copenhagen's garrison, on ground that had been the southern section of the Sophie Amalienborg palace gardens, granted by Frederik IV after he took the throne in 1699. The design story explains the building's spare look: the plans were drawn in 1697 by Georg Philip Muller, an engineer officer rather than an architect, which shows in the church's strict Latin-cross regularity and almost spartan exterior. Construction began in 1703 under Domenico Pelli, was enlarged mid-build from 1704 under general master builder Wilhelm Friedrich von Platen, and the red-brick cross church with its black-glazed tile roof was consecrated on 24 March 1706. Inside, the room is bright and disciplined, with flattened barrel vaults and two tiers of galleries running along the nave and transepts. The marble altarpiece - a grand architectural composition around a central crucifixion relief, paid for by the Jutland landowner Hans Benzon and finished in 1724 - is by sculptors Didrick Gercken and Just Wiedewelt, while the classicist pulpit and font were designed in 1772 by Georg Erdman Rosenberg. The 1724 organ facade was repainted in festive red marbling with gilded details when a new organ was installed in 1995. A garrison church for its first century, it became a parish church in 1804 and remains an active Church of Denmark parish with a steady concert programme, minutes from Nyhavn and the harbour front. Thrift shaped the project from the start: when the army first planned a church on a donated plot in Dronningens Tvaergade in the 1690s, materials and even chapel furniture were to be reused from the burned Sophie Amalienborg palace, whose chapel had survived the 1689 fire and served the army temporarily. Muller's engineering habits show in the plan's discipline - everything fitted to a module of ten alen - and the 1704 enlargement was driven simply by the need for as many seats as possible for the garrison.

Type: Tourist Attraction

Address: Sankt Annae Plads 4, Copenhagen, Denmark, 1250

Website: https://www.garnisonskirken.dk

Opening Date: 24/03/1706