During Denmark’s ’Golden Age’ (c. 1800 to 1850), Copenhagen came into being as a modern city on the urban-cultural level. This book examines this period in the city’s history, just before the establishment of some of the main features of the modernisation of cities associated with industrialisation, such as street lighting, sewer systems, and working class quarters. It assesses the work of the most prominent architect of the period, C.F. Hansen, in transforming the city physically, before moving on to consider writings by three citizens of Copenhagen, the philosopher Soren Kierkegaard, the novelist Thomasine Gyllembourg and the criminal Ole Kollerod, all of whom write about the city’s institutional structure and urban life.