English edition Danmarks Nationalbank DANMARKS NATIONALBANK TABLE OF CONTENTS The architect Arne Jacobsen . 4 Fitting into the street scene Spatial organization . 6 The facades Open and closed facades . 8 Glass facades . 10 Natural stone facades . 11 Spatial descriptions Lobby . 14 Corridor . 16 Banking hall . 16 Conference rooms . 18 Employee lounge . 19 Lounge/reception area . 20 Offices . 21 Office landscapes . 22 Details of furnishings . 23 Banknote printing hall . 24 Canteen . 26 Landscaping Courtyard above the printing hall 28 Courtyard above the banking hall 29 Roof garden above the low building . 30 Forecourt . 30 Architecture competition Background . 32 The competition . 32 Winning project . 32 Building history Stages . 33 Timeframe . 33 Functions . 33 DANMARKS NATIONALBANK 1 DANMARKS NATIONALBANK Published by Danmarks Nationalbank, Photos indicated by page and picture no.: Mydtskov og Rønne: 16, 17, 26-1 Havnegade 5, DK-1093 Copenhagen K, Stelton A/S: 4-18 Telephone +45 3363 6363 DISSING+WEITLING: 4-2, 4-4, 4-9, 4-10, Strüwing Reklamefoto: 4-8, 4-11, 4-12, Fax +45 3363 7103 4-15, 4-17, 4-19, 4-20, 10-1, 12-4, 12-6, 4-14, 4-16, 5, 32-1, 32-4, 33 www.nationalbanken.dk 18-4, 28-2, 28-3, 28-4, 28-5, 29, 32-3 Jan Kofoed Winther: 7 [email protected] DISSING+WEITLING / Adam Mørk: Cover photo, 1, 3, 6, 8, 9, 10-2, 10-3, 11, 12-1, Portions of this publication may be Graphic design and layout: 12-2, 12-3, 12-5, 13, 14, 15, 18-1, 18-2, quoted or reprinted without further DISSING+WEITLING 18-3, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26-2, permission, provided that Danmarks 27, 30, 31 Nationalbank is expressly credited as Printing: HellasGrafisk, Haslev Arne Jacobsen: 4-1, 4-3, 4-5, 4-6, 4-7, the source and that photographers 28-1, 32-2 are credited. The content may not be ISBN online 87-87251-35-3 Georg Jensen Cutlery: 4-13 changed or misrepresented. 2 3 DANMARKS NATIONALBANK FOREWORD Danmarks Nationalbank is Denmark’s central bank. Its main functions are to conduct monetary and exchange-rate policy to keep the Danish krone stable against the euro, and to produce coins and banknotes. The Nationalbank also contributes to keeping financial markets efficient, compiles financial statistics and is the banker of the central government and banks. The bank represents Denmark internationally in a number of contexts. The Nationalbank is the workplace of about 600 employees. The Nationalbank building in the middle of Copenhagen is a distinctive presence in the street scene. It was designed by the internationally renowned Danish architect Arne Jacobsen and built between 1965-78. The building is considered one of Arne Jacobsen’s finest works. This publication shows the Nationalbank building inside and out. In general, the interior of the bank is shown as it is today, but a few pictures show its original appearance. 2 3 DANMARKS NATIONALBANK House of the Future 1929 Bellavista housing complex 1934 Novo therapeutic laboratory 1935 Bellevue Theatre 1937 Stelling building 1937 Århus Town Hall 1937 Service station 1937 Søllerød Town Hall 1942 Søholm linked houses 1950 ‘Ant’ stackable chair 1952 Simonÿ’s residence 1954 Rødovre Town Hall 1956 AJ cutlery 1957 Munkegård School 1957 ‘Egg’ easy chair 1958 SAS Royal Hotel 1960 St. Catherine’s College 1964 Cylinda Line 1967 HEW electric power plant 1969 VOLA fittings 1969 4 5 DANMARKS NATIONALBANK THE ARCHITECT ARNE JACOBSEN When Arne Jacobsen died in the spring of 1971, the first stage of the Nationalbank building had just been completed. During his long career, Arne Jacobsen designed some of the finest buildings and industrial products of the 20th century, leaving a life’s work that ensured him a distinguished place in international architectural history and making him one of the few Danes known by a wide circle of people throughout the modern world. As a recently trained, very young architect, he introduced himself to the public at a building exhibition in Copenhagen with a project entitled ’The House of the Future’, which featured motorboat access in the basement, a garage at ground level and a helicopter pad on the roof. The House of the Future was international functionalism’s first appearance in Denmark, a futuristic proposal as to how the new technological tools could shape a new architecture. Based on simple geometric forms, the house, which was built in full scale for the exhibition, expressed the design idiom that would later become so characteristic of Jacobsen. In his building designs, Jacobsen was originally influenced by Danish neoclassicism, but he quickly turned to European functionalism, just as he understood how to adopt various international architectural trends throughout the century and adapt them to his own personal style. It has been said that Jacobsen was international in a Danish way and Danish in an international way. His production was prodigious, and there cannot be many areas that he did not turn his hand to. His works range from several waterfront housing complexes, theatres, sports halls for swimming, riding and tennis, schools and other institutions for children, hotels, central banks and town halls, administrative buildings, factories and laboratories, blocks of flats, row houses and single family houses. All designed with attention to detail and respect for a good solution, and often incorporating innovations that advanced the field of architecture. Jacobsen is one of the Danish architects with numerous buildings abroad. For example, St. Catherine’s College in Oxford, England. In Hamburg, Germany, his works include the HEW administration buildings and headquarters and a school. Also in Germany are his holiday centre on the island of Fehmarn including accommodations and a swimming hall, the Town Hall in Mainz and the minimalist foyer addition to the theatre in the Baroque gardens in Herrenhausen in Hannover. These buildings helped promote Jacobsen’s international reputation. Arne Jacobsen’s goal was totality. As an architect, he wanted to have total control of a project and nothing was to be left to chance. Thus he was obligated to deal with the details of his buildings. This led to the design of a series of products of such high quality that although they were developed in conjunction with specific building projects, they had such universal application that they could become part of standard production. Jacobsen’s designs comprise a wide assortment of items such as furniture, textiles, lighting fixtures, door handles, cutlery, stainless steel tableware, glassware, clocks, water taps and accessories. Many of these products have achieved the status of international classics and have certainly helped Jacobsen’s rise to dizzying heights on the international firmament. Through his work, Arne Jacobsen left his mark on generations of architects and thus helped build a special Scandinavian architectural tradition that is characterized by exemplary thoroughness from the general to the very specific. Very few Danes have achieved the broad international fame of Arne Jacobsen, who today stands for some of the best works produced in the 20th century, with an inherent quality that has ensured their sustainability into the new millennium. 4 5 DANMARKS NATIONALBANK The bank marks the end of the compact Bremerholm waterfront and signals the entrance to Børsgraven. Seen from Kongens Nytorv square, the bank delimits the street space towards Holmen’s Canal. The vertical facade divisions can be seen as a repetition of the column rhythm in the classical gable front of the nearby Erichsen’s Mansion. The western facade seen from Holmen’s Bridge, with Holmen’s Church in the foreground. The theme of a vertically articulated building corpus above a low continuous wall can also be found in the interplay between the long chapel of Holmen’s Church and the wall along the quay. 6 7 DANMARKS NATIONALBANK The building is composed of two spatial elements: a one-storey high enclosing wall that defines the perimeter while FITTING INTO THE STREET SCENE highlighting the trapezoidal building structure, and a massive five-storey block Positioning the tall building block at the building line on the street called Niels Juels rising above a good half of the area, with Gade maintains the original proportions of the street space and fixes the bank as closed end-walls and open, long glass curtain-wall facades. an urban element in the context of the existing 19th century building mass in the Gammelholm quarter. The low section of the building avoids crowding the 350-year- old Holmen’s Church, which a more dominating and intrusive building mass would invariably do. The landscaping treatment of the bank’s forecourt across from the church and the roof garden on the low building accommodates and complements the proportions of the church. Seen from the water, the five-storey block ensures the building’s relationship to the building mass of the waterfront, while the low section of the building provides a transition to the low, open character of the funnel-shaped Børsgraven canal. 6 7 DANMARKS NATIONALBANK A bronze ‘portcullis’ shields the discreet main entrance when the bank is closed. When the bank is open, the door is lowered into the basement. 8 9 DANMARKS NATIONALBANK The natural stone cladding is light grey, Porsgrunn marble, named after the town near the Norwegian quarry. The THE FACADES marbling pattern provides a lively surface, restrained and subordinate at a distance, The two types of facades in the tall building, the open glass-clad curtain-walls and but interesting and varied upon closer the closed end-walls, are subject to the same modular concept. Both are designed inspection. The marble was flint-rolled, as vertical panels the full height of the building, and mark the column spacing of the a process that crushes the surface.