Harsdorff, Caspar Frederik

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Harsdorff, Caspar Frederik (1735–99). Danish architect. A pupil of N. -H. Jardin and J. -F. Blondel, he was an accomplished designer in the Neo-Classical style. He was responsible for the Mortuary Chapel of King Frederik V (1746–66) in Roskilde Cathedral (1768–78), one of the purest works of Neo-Classicism in Europe for its date, with octagonal coffering derived from the basilica of Maxentius in Rome. For this project he was assisted by C. F. Hansen, his pupil for several years, who completed the work (1821–5). He also designed the propylaea between the Royal Palaces, the Doric Hercules pavilion, and a house in Kongens Nytorv, all of the 1770s, and all in Copenhagen. The house, intended as an exemplar of Neo-Classicism, is extraordinary for its engaged Ionic capitals that show not the usual fronts of the volutes on the façade, but the pulvins or baluster-sides.

Bibliography

Middleton & and Watkin (1987);
Jane Turner (1996)