the Dragon Fountain is on the move again
/The Dragon Fountain - the ornate bronze fountain on Rådhuspladsen - is on the move.
Today, work starts on dismantling the large sculpture of a bull fighting a dragon and it will be taken to the workshop of Skulptur Støberiet for restoration and repair. Then, on Friday, the bronze basin supporting the sculpture will be removed from the square and it too will be taken to the workshops.
The fountain has had a complicated history.
In 1889, there was a competition for a new fountain on Amagertorv - the public square about a kilometre to the east - and Joakim Skovgaard submitted a design. That design was then modified by Thorvald Bindesbøll but the competition was won by a design for a fountain by Edvard Petersen and Vilhelm Bissen.
Then, in 1901 as part of the Town Hall Exhibition of Danish Art, the Dragon Fountain design by Skovgaard was resurrected, cast in bronze in the foundry of Lauritz Rasmussen and installed in front of the city hall but with just a basin and the dragons around its rim.
A large outer basin was added in 1908 and then, in 1915, a central group for the top of the fountain with a bull and a dragon in combat was shown to the public as a plaster version but it was not until June 1923 that the bull and dragon were finally cast in bronze and installed.
In 1954, when H C Andersens Boulevard was widened, the fountain was moved further into the square by 25 metres and at that stage the outer basin was removed.
Once the bronze work of the fountain has been restored - with the work planned to take about two years - it will be reinstalled in a more central position in the square, on the axis of the main entrance into the city hall, and set further out from the city hall, on the cross axis of the Walking Street.
The outer basin will also be reinstated to make the fountain a much more prominent feature of the public space.
