Location, Location, Location
If you want to build something that is going to last, you rarely get far by cutting corners. Even if what you want to build is a round tower. Maybe that is why King Christian IV (1577-1648) did not take any shortcuts when he built the Round Tower. The obvious choice would have been to place the university’s new observatory, which the Round Tower was to house, at a reasonable distance from the vibrant capital and the smoke “which is spouted out everywhere from the wood burning stoves”, as formulated by the astronomer Christen Sørensen Longomontanus (1562-1647). But Christian IV...