news from Henning Larsen and Rambøll
/
Opera House Copenhagen from 2004 by Henning Larsen and Rambøll
It has just been announced that from 2 January 2020 the major Danish architectural office of Henning Larsen will join the Danish engineering group Rambøll.
In the 1950s, Henning Larsen (1925-2013) worked for Arne Jacobsen and then for Jørn Utzon before establishing his own architectural office in 1959.
When they were commissioned to design the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Riyadh Henning Larsen established an office there and then offices in Munich, Oslo and in Hong Kong and are now an international company though with a core of major public works in Denmark.
In the 1980s they designed Gentofte Library; in 1997 a major but sensitive and clever extension to Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek for their collection of French paintings and then what was the Danish Design Centre on HC Andersens Boulevard in 2000; the IT University Copenhagen in 2004 and Moesgaard Museum in 2013.
An extensive and prominent scheme in Copenhagen with a long frontage to the harbour - just below Knippelbro in Christiansbro - is the office buildings from 1999 for Unibank (now part of Nordea) and, maintaining their relationship with the bank, recently completed new headquarter offices for Nordea immediately east of the metro station at DR Byen.
Their least conventional and challenging buildings, in terms of engineering, are The Wave in Vejle from 2009 and, of course, what must still be their most famous work, the Opera House in Copenhagen from 2004 where they worked with Rambøll.
Rambøll was founded in 1945 by Børge Johannes Rambøll (1911-2009) and Johan Georg Hannemann (1907-1980) and are now a global company with around 15,500 consulting engineers in over 300 offices around the world. Along with engineering work on major building and infrastructure projects, they have a number of divisions, with a range of expertise, from oils and gas, to energy, environment and health, water and management consulting
In high-profile Danish projects Rambøll worked on the Øresund bridge and the Great Belt bridge and, working with Henning Larsen, they were the leading engineers on the Copenhagen Opera House. With the architectural office of Bjarke Ingels, Rambøll were the engineers for the construction of Museet for Søfart - the maritime museum in Helsingør and, also with BIG, at Amager Bakke in Copenhagen that provides district heating for 140,000 homes and deals with 400,000 tonnes of rubbish a year although, for some reason, it's more widely known for having a ski run down its slopping roof and a climbing wall up the outside.
Henning Larsen have an established Department of Research and Sustainability and with Rambøll, it is clear that together they can make an impact on major projects from the conception of a scheme where “The shared vision is to create sustainable cities and buildings that answer the global challenges.”
