Højbro Plads

This guide to Højbro Plads in Copenhagen opens with banker Axel Heide's 1902 gift of a bronze statue of the warrior-bishop Absalon, sculpted by Vilhelm Bissen, and the controversy that erupted when he invited literary critic Georg Brandes to give the unveiling speech. It follows Crown Princess Louise's furious response and traces the square's own origin in the Great Fire of 1795, which leveled the block and gave the city room to rebuild. Listen for how the statue itself is positioned, deliberately looking somewhere other than the palace.