(b Holmsland, W. Jutland, 11 Nov 1849; d Copenhagen, 18 May 1921). Danish architect. He was apprenticed to a carpenter in Copenhagen and then studied at the Academy of Arts there from 1870 to 1876. In 1874 he began working for Vilhelm Dahlerup (1836–1907), remaining in the latter’s studio until 1879. Around this time he designed Denmark’s first gasometer for the Østre gasworks in Copenhagen, a circular yellow-brick building with a flat dome topped by a lantern. In 1880 he won the Academy’s major gold medal and with it a two-year travel scholarship that allowed him to tour Europe. His first major project after his return was to design the buildings for the Nordic Exhibition of Industry, Agriculture and Art in Copenhagen in 1888. The buildings were of wood, a material Nyrop valued more highly than iron, although he had seen iron and glass exhibition buildings in Paris and London. Although many European influences were evident in these designs, it was his adaptation of motifs from Viking art and Danish Romanesque architecture as well as from Norwegian stave churches that aroused the enthusiasm of his contemporaries. Decorative elements were cheerfully combined without excessive regard to their origins. Coloured paints and an extensive use of glass and light-weight vaulting made the buildings light and bright, and the exhibition made a lasting impression on the following generation of architects.

• Nyrop, Martin
  • works
    • Copenhagen, §1(ii): History and urban development, 19th and 20th centuries
    • Denmark, §II, 3: Architecture, after 1840
    • Denmark, §V, 2: Interior decoration, c 1750 and after
    • Town hall, §3(iii): Town halls in the 19th century: Continental Europe