Børsen is a building on Slotsholmen

Slotsholmen

Slotsholmen is an island in the harbour of Copenhagen, Denmark, and part of Copenhagen Inner City. Bishop Absalon constructed the city's first castle on the island in 1166-67 at the site where Christiansborg Palace, the seat of the Danish Parliament lies today...

 in central Copenhagen

Copenhagen

Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...

, Denmark

Denmark

Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...

. It is built by Christian IV in 1619–1640 and is the oldest stock exchange in Denmark. It is particularly known for its Dragon Spire shaped as the tails of four dragon

Dragon

A dragon is a legendary creature, typically with serpentine or reptilian traits, that feature in the myths of many cultures. There are two distinct cultural traditions of dragons: the European dragon, derived from European folk traditions and ultimately related to Greek and Middle Eastern...

s twined together, reaching a height of 56 metres.

History

Christian IV had ambitions to turn Copenhagen into a metropolis

Metropolis

A metropolis is a very large city or urban area which is a significant economic, political and cultural center for a country or region, and an important hub for regional or international connections and communications...

 and to strengthen the city's position as a commercial centre, he wanted a stock exchange along with the new merchant town Christianshavn

Christianshavn

Christianshavn is an artificial island neighbourhood located in Copenhagen, Denmark. It was founded in the early 17th century by Christian IV as part of his extension of the fortifications of Copenhagen. Originally it was laid out as an independent privileged merchant's town with inspiration from...

 he was constructing on the other side of the harbour. He asked Lorentz and Hans van Steenwinckel the Younger

Hans van Steenwinckel the Younger

Hans van Steenwinckel the Younger was a Flemish-Danish architect who specialised in the Dutch Renaissance style, typical of prestigious Danish buildings from the first half of the 17th century...

 to design a building in Dutch renaissance

Renaissance architecture

Renaissance architecture is the architecture of the period between the early 15th and early 17th centuries in different regions of Europe, demonstrating a conscious revival and development of certain elements of ancient Greek and Roman thought and material culture. Stylistically, Renaissance...

 with 40 small stalls at the ground floor and one big room at the upper floor.

The building was restored by Nicolai Eigtved

Nicolai Eigtved

Nicolai Eigtved, also known as Niels Eigtved, , Danish architect, introduced and was the leading proponent of the French rococo style in Danish architecture during the 1730s-1740s. He designed and built some of the most prominent buildings of his time, a number of which still stand to this day...

in 1745 and internally renovated in 1855. It housed the Danish stock-market until 1974. In 1918, unemployed anarchists attacked Børsen, an attack that went to the Danish history books as "stormen på Børsen" (the storm at the stock exchange).