Alfred J Roewade (1848–1933)
Entry 74
Chicago, Illinois, USA
Born in Denmark, Roewade practised architecture in Copenhagen from
1884 to 1890. He came to America at the age of 42, and lived mainly in
Chicago
until 1914. He worked for Burnham & Root in 1890 and then as an engineer
draftsman in the Engineering Department of the Bureau of Construction
of the World’s Columbian Exposition. A founder of the Scandinavian
Engineering Society of Chicago, he delivered a series of lectures on
city planning
in 1894. Roewade submitted a design for a competition held in 1908 for
a plan for Copenhagen and its surroundings. He returned to Denmark in
1914, resumed his architectural practice, and in 1929 wrote and published
a book
on city planning – En Bog om Dansk Byplanaegning.
Roewade’s plan features an interesting and unusual street system,
with connecting grids. A huge horseshoe-shaped area on the south side of
the river interrupts the grid systems. Called ‘Acropolis’,
it is occupied by a railway station. Parliament faces north off a curve
of this great horseshoe.
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