early modern ... Vesterport, Vesterbrogade, Copenhagen

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Vesterport - a large copper-clad office building on Vesterbrogade and close to the central railway station in Copenhagen - was designed by Ole Falkentorp and Povl Baumann and was completed in 1931.

It fills a complete city block with the building running back from Vesterbrogade to Gammel Kongevej with a side elevation towards Meldahlsgade that is over 110 metres (365 ft) - and there are three service courtyards.

This was the first steel-framed building in Copenhagen with reinforced concrete floors and is the first truly modern building in the city but if anyone notices it today then it is probably for the striking colour of the cladding which, with patina, has turned a sharp but pale acid tone of green. When new, before the copper changed colour, the building was known as the penny.

At street level there were shops so, again in a modern way, this was very much a commercial building and it was in what was then an important commercial area of the city.

The principle tenant was an English insurance company but the open-floor construction meant that it could be subdivided with non-structural partition walls depending on the requirements of any tenants.

But it is not just the method of construction but it is the scale of the block with its flat roof line and the grid-like division of the facades with continuous lines of windows above panels of cladding that is distinctly modern.

 


Signs for the road names as part of the canopy survive as an example of good typography from the period and brass doors at the entrances with heavy brass handles have been retained.

The building has a significant place in design history for another reason because Den Permanente, an influential design gallery and furniture shop, opened here in 1931 with display space over two floors. It was at the south-west corner of the building with large windows to Vesterbrogade and to Trommeshalen but closed in the 1980s.

note:

The photograph of the ironwork of the building at an early stage of the construction is from the city archive - Historie & Kunst, Københavns Kommune, Stormgade 20

 

copper after Vesterport

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government buildings between Christiansborg and the harbour in Copenhagen by Thomas Havning 1962-1967

 

In terms of style, Vesterport can hardly be said to have set a fashion as few buildings copied the use of copper cladding although through the 1930s and well into the 1950s many did have brass window and door frames and brass architectural fittings including handrails for staircases.

Superficially the government buildings in Copenhagen at Slotholmgade and Christians Brygge designed by Sven Eske Kristensen and Thomas Havning and built in the 1960s are reminiscent of Veserport. The blocks have the strong colour tone dominated by green and of course with the continuous lines of windows and very regular lines of panels divided by ribs forming a regular grid but only the roofs and certain fittings are copper or brass … the panels below the windows and vertical divisions between the panels are in a dark green polished stone or slate.

However, more recently, the offices and tower at Pakhusvej near Amerika Plads by Arkitema has facades in copper. It was completed in 2004 and although now darkening in colour there is no sign yet of a surface patina of verdigris which shows how slow the transition can be even though this building, opposite the terminal for ferries from Oslo, is subject to winds off the sea.

 

the main tower and a detail of the copper cladding at Amerika Plads by Arkitema 2004

 

Most recently the Axel Towers in the centre of Copenhagen, close to Tivoli, by Lundgaard and Tranberg and nearing completion have been faced in tombac- a copper zinc alloy -and again it will be interesting to watch as this prominent, building - close to the City Hall and very close to the SAS Hotel by Jacobsen and two blocks from Vesterport, changes the visual dynamics of the area as its colour changes.

 
 

Axel Towers, Copenhagen by Lundgaard and Tranberg ... work nearing complettion