Copenhagen’s Marmorkirken: Scandinavia’s largest church dome, it took 145 years of start-stop construction to build it, and in that time basically every architect in Denmark floated a design proposal for the half-finished church. Its chaotic construction illustrates Denmark’s transition from an absolute monarchy to a capitalist system.

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Begun in 1749 under King Frederik V (officially, it’s Frederik’s Church), Nicolai Eigtved was the initial architect. Eigtved fell out of the absolute monarch’s favor (but, thoughtfully, died before he was fired), so the king’s new favorite, Nicolas-Henri Jardin, took over. Jardin took Eigtved’s frilly rococo design and blew it up, proposing something monumental and neoclassical.

Again though - absolute monarchy. So when Jardin’s patron Frederik V died, King Christian VII and Johann Friedrich Struensee stopped construction in 1770. Meant to cap the visual axis of King Frederik's new neighborhood of Frederiksstaden, instead the church stood as a half-built ruin steps from the royal palace at Amalienborg for more than a century.

Painting by F. Sødring, collection of the Statens Museum for Kunst, and 1860s photo from Københavns Museum.

...but it was an irresistible ruin to Danish architects - Lauritz de Thurah, Georg David Anthon, Christian Bernhard Hornbech, Theodor Stuckenberg, Ludvig Fenger, CF Harsdorff, among a thousand others all drafted proposals for finishing the church (tbh they’re mostly boring neoclassical bullshit - Vilhelm Klein’s quirky plan for a red brick Italian Renaissance church and GF Hetsch’s proposal to turn it into a museum for sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen excepted).

With Denmark turning into a capitalist proto-democracy in the 1800s, a weirdly modern public-private partnership with financier C.F. Tietgen is what finally got the church completed. Eventually.

As part of the deal, in 1874 the Danish state sold the half-built church, as well as the developable land around it, to Tietgen for 400,000 kroner, on the condition that he’d spend 200,000 on the church within five years. ...like many modern public-private partnerships, Tietgen made a huge profit developing the land into apartments, didn’t spend any money in the first five years, and the ministers responsible were impeached for giving him a sweetheart deal. It took 20 years (and Tietgen fundraising from his friends and the public), but the Ferninand Meldahl-designed Marmormkirken finally opened in 1894. The narrative is that Tietgen was such a commmitted patriot and dedicated Grundtivigian that he simply had to finish the church. Which, maybe, but in the end it's estimated that Tietgen paid for roughly 1/3 of the church - finally finishing Frederikskirke took a broad coalition, not just one guy.

Just a few of the designs for Frederikskirke over the 150 years it took to build it. Clockwise from the top left: Nicolai Eigtved's original design, Nicolas-Henri Jardin's, C.F. Harsdorff's design of a Pantheon-like dome, Vilhelm Klein's 1866 proposal, Carl V. Petersen's 1880 proposal, Vilhelm Dahlerup's 1868 design, and an 1868 reproduction of part of Lauritz De Thurah's design. Courtesy of Det Kgl. Bibliotek and Danmarks Kunstbibliotek.

Production Files

Primary sources, rhizomatic reading, odds and ends that turned up in researching this.

Ferdinand Meldahl, the architect who ultimately designed Marmorkirken, made this clay model of it in 1876. Collection of Danmarks Kunstbibliotek.
Out of all the designs floated for the unfinished church over 150 years, these were the two most interesting in my opinion. On the left, architect G.F. Hetsch's 1834 proposal for a museum to house sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen's work (via Det Kgl. Bibliotek). On the right, an 1867 proposal from Vilhelm Klein to build a brick Romanesque church (via Danmarks Kunstbibliotek). 
The Romantic movement must have absolutely LOVED these ruins in the middle of a European capital. So atmospheric. Photos from Det Kgl. Bibliotek and Københavns Museum, Jens Holm work from Statens Museum for Kunst.
C.F. Tietgen copped some heat for taking on what was seen as a boondoggle, "There goes Tietgen to meet his ruin!", and then even more when there was a legal saga over the sweetheart deal that the Danish government had given him. 
On the left: putting the finishing touches on the dome in the 1880s. On the right: a 1963 renovation of the dome captured by Mogens Falk-Sørensen, Københavns Stadsarkiv.
From left to right: 1890 photo of the church under construction, an unsettlimg 1936 Fokker ad with the church in the middle, and a 1918 Peter Elfelt photo of Marmorkirken. All three via Københavns Museum.
Postcard verso