page_title: Lauritz de Thurah
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: Lauritz de Thurah / Career
caption_attribution_description: Hirschholm Slot var et slot i barokstil beliggende i det nuværende Hørsholm. Slottet blev opført i 1730–44 af hofbygmester Lauritz de Thurah; nedrevet i 1810-11
context_page_description: Laurids Lauridsen de Thurah, known as Lauritz de Thurah, was a Danish architect and architectural writer. He became the most important Danish architect of the late baroque period. As an architectural writer and historian he made a vital contribution to the understanding of both Denmark's architectural heritage and building construction in his day.
  De Thurah was a self-taught architect who learned much of what he knew by studying the inspiring buildings he saw on his travels outside Denmark between 1729 and 1731. He brought home the baroque style, which was then popular, but was quickly losing way to rococo. Throughout his life he maintained a loyalty to the baroque, even as the world around him continued to change and he lost work assignments to others who mastered the newer, more popular styles.
context_section_description: After his return home, Thura rose rapidly up the ranks.  He became resident engineer in 1732.  In 1733 he was named Royal Building Master with supervisory responsibility for royal buildings on Zealand and on Lolland-Falster.  At the same time, he was promoted to captain in the Engineering Corps.
  In 1732–1736, he designed and built the royal palace in Roskilde, also known as the Yellow Palace, on the site of the old bishop's palace east of Roskilde Cathedral.  The four-wing baroque building became the headquarters of the Duke of Wellington during the English siege of Copenhagen in 1807, and now houses the Museum of Contemporary Art.
  In 1733–1739, he worked on the first remodelling and expansion of Hirschholm Palace for King Christian VI and his consort, Queen Sophie Magdalene.
  In 1734–36, de Thurah built the Eremitage Palace, a palatial hunting lodge overlooking  Jægersborg Dyrehave north of Copenhagen, and facing east over the Øresund to Sweden. The grey-stone house with copper-clad mansard roof replaced another hunting lodge named "Hubertus", which had been built nearby in the 17th century. The original design featured an elevator-table, similar to a dumbwaiter, which could be raised from the cellar up to the dining room.  In this way, servants stayed in the cellar kitchen, where they prepared and set the table, and then it could be hoisted up to the dining room through a hatch in the floor.  Diners would then eat unattended by servants or "en eremit", that is  "in the hermit style".  The lodge is still in use to this day for special occasions.
  But already after only a couple of years' service back in Denmark, Thura began to feel that his baroque style had gone out of fashion.  He felt that baroque was losing ground to rococo, a style mastered by another force in contemporary Danish architectural circles, Nicolai Eigtved, who would be Thura's colleague and rival throughout most of his career. Eigtved, who returned to Denmark from his travels in 1735, became the king's preferred architect, and Thura felt himself being more and more set to the side.
  In 1736 Thura was promoted to lieutenant colonel. He participated, along with German architect Elias David Hausser and Nicolai Eigtved, in the interior construction of (the first) Christiansbrog Palace. He designed some of the interiors in the Queen's apartments 1737–1740, but these were lost in the fire of 1794.  He also created plans for the main staircase, the chapel, the marble bridge, the pavilions and the riding grounds, which were never realised.
  On 19 October 1740, he married Anna Rosenørn, daughter of a General Major, and was conferred nobility under the name "de Thurah".
  In 1741, de Thurah elevated the roof of the main building at Fredensborg Palace.  In 1742 he was named to the Building Commission, and took on supervisory responsibility for royal buildings on Zealand and Funen.
  In 1743–1744, he designed the final rebuilding of Hirschholm Palace, the most impressive building project of the period, known as "the Versailles of the North".  The same year, work was completed on the tower and spire for the Church of Our Lady, in Copenhagen, partially after a drawing by Vincents Lerche.  The building, however burned down during the bombardment of Copenhagen in 1807, and was rebuilt by Christian Frederik Hansen.
  In 1744, de Thurah was promoted to colonel. His three-volume work Den danske Vitruvius was published in 1746–1749, containing almost 400 drawings and measurements of buildings in Copenhagen and royal castles and other interesting buildings in Denmark, with Danish, German and French text.
  Frustrated by his losing assignments to Eigtved, he petitioned the king in 1747 for a new non-architectural position, but that was rejected.
  In 1748, de Thurah was asked to assist on the building of a new spire on the Lambert van Haven designed Church of Our Saviour in the Christianshavn district of Copenhagen. He chose a design inspired by the Sant’ivo della Sapienza church he had seen in Rome many years before. The new design however was much more costly than the king's original p
caption: Hirschholm as illustrated in J. P. Trap: Kongeriget Danmark 2nd edition, 1872
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