The square is dominated by the imposing Neoclassical façade of the Copenhagen Court House, which from 1815-1905 also served as the City Hall.

Nytorv was created by Christian IV in 1610 when he cleared an area behind the City Hall in connection with his adaptation of the building in a Renaissance style.

A permanent scaffold was not constructed until 1627, and in 1728, when the City Hall was rebuilt after the Copenhagen Fire of 1728, an octagonal masonry podium was built.

In an epigram, originally in Latin, he commented on the dual nature of the site, between posh Gammeltorv, with the Caritas Well (the 'ancient arts'), and Nytorv with its sinister execution facilities:[2] You ask, in what part of town, I now abide Two squares quite near, papillae, on the way.

The other Nytorv where a scaffold has been set, Midway between the two doth Justitia now reign, So between the doomed and the gallows in duet I live; my one God, help me 'gainst the twain.The last executions to be carried out at the scaffold behind the City Hall took place in 1758 when Frederik Hammond, the owner of an iron works in Norway, and his assistant, a Swede named Anders Sundblad, were convicted of producing counterfeit securities for an amount of 35,000 rigsdaler and beheaded.

[4] Three years later the scaffold was removed and from then executions only took place at Østerfælled, Vesterfælled and Amagerfælled, though branding and whipping continued at the Nytorv pillory until 1780.

The new building, which was to serve both as a City Hall and a courthouse, was designed by Christian Frederik Hansen, the leading Danish architect of the time.

its imposing facade, with a three-bay median risalit, decorated with pilasters and tipped by a triangualr pediment, was created in the 1910s.

5) which was built from 1799 to 1803 for Hartvig Frisch to designs by Nicolai Abildgaard originally also featured pilasters and pediment but was heightened with an extra floor and adapted by August Klein in 1889–1890.