The road takes its name after Tagenshus, a house located just north of the junction with Jagtvej from 1631. Built as residence for the attendant of Borgmestervangen and Tådmandsvangen, two pastures available to the mayors of Copenhagen, it received its name after a Tage Nielsen who died in 1704. A so-called bird's pole had already been installed at the site in 1616. It was used for the king's falcons and later also for ceremonial shootings and as the location of illegal duels up through the 18th century. Tagensvej was originally only a track that linked Jagtvej with the Lersøen lake to the northwest. The area between Blegdamsvej and Jagtvej was still a military area when industrial enterprises began relocating the road in the 1880s. Holger Petersen File:J. L. Ridter - Tagensvej ved Blegdamsvej.jpg|left|thumb|Janus Laurentius Ridter Hauberg paid for a new embankment across Sortedam Lake and a horse-drawn tram line began operating between the city centre and his plant in 1887 but a road connection was not constructed until the army finally released the area in 1899. Tagensvej was extended to its current length in 1903 as part of the plans for the new Bispebjerg district. Hauberg's machine factory merged with another enterprise under the name Titan in 1897.
Notable buildings and residents
The first part of the street is dominated by Rigshospitalet, University of Copenhagen's North Campus and one ofUniversity College Copenhagen's campuses. Buildings directly on the street include the Panum Building and the Faculty Library of Natural and Health Sciences. Metropolitan UC's building at No. 18-20 is home to Copenhagen Military Hospital which was built in 1918-1928 to design by Gunnar Laage as a replacement for the Garrison Hospital in Rigensgade. Just off Tagensvej, on the new street Ole Maaløes Vej, is BRIC – Biotech Research and Innovation Centre The street is also home to several halls of residences. Studentergården with 140 dwellings built in 1923 to design by Martin Borch. Hollegiegården with 168 rooms is from 1961. Holger Petersen's former textile manufactury at No. 85 was built in 1883 to design by Johan Schrøder and expanded by Bernhard Ingemann in 1905. The site also includes two terraces of workers' housing from 1885 which were also designed by Schrøder. The entire complex is listed. Bernhard Ingemann has also designed the neighbouring, Neo-Baroque apartment building from 1916 at No. 81. The far end of the street is dominated by large housing estates. Located on the southwest side of Tagensveh and northwest of Tuborgvej, Bispeparken was with its 827 apartments the largest housing estate in Scandinavia at the time of its completion in 1941, The masterplan for the development was designed by Ivar Bentsen in collaboration with Kooperative Arkitekter while the individual buildings were designed by different architects. On the other side of Tagensvej, a little further north, is På Bjerget, a development of uniform houses which surrounds Grundtvig's Church. It was designed by Peder Vilhelm Jensen-Klint in collaboration with Vilhelm Wittrup, Charles I. Schou and Georg Gøssel, the buildings contain the parish hall and apartments and were built from 1924 to 1926.
Public art
At Rigshospitalet, on the corner of Tagensvej with Blegdamsvej, stands Rudolph Tegner's large group sculpture Towards the Light. It was installed in 1909 as a memorial to the physician and scientist Niels Ryberg Finsen who won the Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology in 1903. On the gable of Tagensvej 52 is a mural by Jonas Hvid Søndergaard from 2012.
