Copenhagen City Hall

This guide to Copenhagen City Hall centers on a strange machine hidden behind glass inside it: the astronomical world clock built by Jens Olsen, a locksmith turned watchmaker who was inspired by Strasbourg Cathedral's clock as a young man and spent decades working out its calculations alone. You'll hear how construction finally began in 1943 under German occupation, using brass melted down from Danish households' kitchenware, and how Olsen did not live to see it switched on. It follows the project through to the day his family and a king pressed the button together, and the twelve separate movements that keep it running today.