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The style, colouring and structure of Bindesbøll’s town hall in Thisted set it apart as a unique piece of Danish design and an outstanding example of historicist provincial architecture.
Thisted’s impressive town hall was built in 1853 and designed by the architect Michael Gottlieb Bindesbøll. The building’s architecture is historicist and clearly inspired by the Dutch Renaissance.
The property originally fulfilled multiple functions as a council hall, jail, jailer’s residence, engine house and savings bank. In fact, the building was designed in such a way that the jail could function entirely independently of the building’s other activities.
The building is the equal of a number of Bindesbøll’s other works from the same period and shares the same style. It is often mentioned in the same breath as e.g. the pharmacy in Næstved, built in the same year, the psychiatric hospital in Aarhus built in 1850, the manor houses Wrams-Gunnarstorp and Marsvinholm in Skåne (1854-56), as well as the town hall in Stege, constructed in 1854.
A typical town hall in Bindesbøll's time often housed diverse functions such as city council, court, police authority and arrest, whereby the local legislature, judiciary and executive usually lived under the same roof. Photo credit: Helene Høyer Mikkelsen
Architect Michael Gottlieb Bindesbøll
1853
Northern Jutland
Historicism