In 1887, they and their father Max had become Swedish citizens. Willy, Ernst and Oscar Schumann had begun to perform in Scandinavia with their grandfather Gotthold in the 1880s. By then, the family had been performing in Copenhagen at a time or another since 1887. The Cirkus Schumann of Willy, Ernst, and Oscar Schumann, the nephews of Albert Schumann and grandsons of Gotthold, came for the first time at the Cirkusbygningen in 1916. It reopened in 1915 with the German Circus Sarrasani as tenant. The circus was quickly rebuilt, this time with its roof and inner walls made of concrete. Only the outer walls, with their frieze, and the façade remained standing.

In March 1914, most of the Cirkusbygningen burned down. The circus of Gotthold Schumann, Albert Schumann’s father, was the tenant in 18. The Cirkusbygningen would be subsequently rented to visiting foreign circus companies, such as those of the German Paul Busch (1850-1927) from 1889 to 1991, and again in 1895 the Polish circus of the Russian director of Italian descent Aleksandr Ciniselli (1861-1933) in 1909, 1910, and 1912 the circus of the Russian (recently established in Western Europe) Mathias Beketov (1867-1928), from 1902 to 1904, and in 1913 the Swedish Orlando in 1905, 1907, and 1908 and the Dutch Carré in 1911. But Ernst Renz, whose circus empire was already dwindling, didn’t renew his lease after the 1888 season. Even so, he sub-rented the building in 1887 to his German colleague, Albert Schumann (the elder, 1858-1939), who had left the family circus founded by his father, Gotthold Schumann (1825-1908), and had already opened a circus in Malmö, Sweden, in 1885. Just below the roof, on the periphery of the outer wall, was (and still is) a beautiful frieze by the sculptor Frederik Hammeleff (1847-1916), with horseracing motifs evoking ancient Rome and Greece.įor once, Renz was just the tenant of the Cirkusbygningen, for which he had signed a three-year lease with its owners.

Cirkuz Renz in Copenhagen (1868)The original plans of the Copenhagen building called for an elaborate façade, replete with statues and Greek colonnades, but on its opening in May 1886, the façade had become somewhat simpler, although still elegant and ornate.

Cirkus city