DAMPA_75_years_of_quiet_design_ENG - Flipbook - Page 173
Leeward Dining Room, Norway, Norwegian Caribbean Line, Tage Wandborg and Angelo Donghia, 1980
With regard to DAMPA’s day-to-day business of making and
supplying ceilings, in 1984 the first of a number of contracts
from the Bethlehem Steel Corporation in the USA was won.
It was to supply materials for the conversion of merchant
ships purchased second-hand by the United States Navy
into naval logistical supply vessels. The first of these were a
class of four roll-on/roll-off container ships acquired from A.
P. Møller/Mærsk Line.
This project was followed early in 1985 by a further, larger
order worth 35 million kroner to supply content for the interior outfitting of five bigger examples of the same ship type
which the US Navy had purchased from the Norwegian Wilhelmsen Lines. The materials to be supplied comprised ceilings, wall panels, doors, windows, and furniture. As DAMPA
did not have an ability to produce many of these items
in-house, a package deal involving other Danish companies
was made, giving suppliers of doors, windows and furniture
opportunities to contribute.
Later in 1985, on the recommendation of the Danish naval
architects Knud E Hansen A/S, a third contract, worth 11
million US dollars, was won to provide complete interiors for
two new naval oceanographic vessels being built by Bethlehem Steel’s Baltimore shipyard. In terms of value, it was
DAMPA’s biggest commission to date and, again, a package deal was agreed with, for example, SEMCO in Glostrup
supplying air conditioning systems and the Swedish IMAC
delivering partition walls, doors and bathroom wet rooms.
DAMPA established a new American subsidiary company,
DAMPA (USA) Inc, in Baltimore to coordinate the supply and
installation work.
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