DAMPA_75_years_of_quiet_design_ENG - Flipbook - Page 96
In 1961, the year in which the SAS Royal Hotel was completed, Jacobsen won an architectural competition for another
grand and prominent public building in the heart of Copenhagen – a large extension to Denmark’s National Bank. To
give a secure, fortress-like appearance, reflecting the bank’s
role as guardian of the national finances, Jacobsen decided
to surround the entire perimeter of the irregular trapezium-shaped site next to Holmens Canal with a solid, windowless wall faced in grey-green Porsgrunn marble. The
half of the site adjacent to the canal would be filled by an
office building of a further five storeys with projecting bays of
bronze-tinted curtain wall glazing interspersed by Porsgrunn-clad mullions. The other half within the perimeter wall
would contain a courtyard garden.
From the main entrance on Havnegade, employees and visitors would enter a huge six-storey-high lobby, lined in
matching Porsgrunn marble-clad columns and with an
extruded open-tread stairway ascending the far wall. There
and in the boardroom and offices, the ceilings would all be
formed of Dæmpa aluminium panels of the same type as
used in the SAS Royal Hotel.
Because a secure basement was required to contain a
printing facility for banknotes, major civil engineering works
were needed to contain the adjacent waterways before the
building of any of the above-ground elements could commence. The first phase was nearing completion in 1971
when Jacobsen died and the remainder finally was finished
in 1978 under the direction of his former assistants and successors, Hans Dissing and Otto Weitling.
From Rødovre Town Hall to Denmark’s National Bank, the
ceilings supplied by Dæmpa formed a significant aspect of
Jacobsen’s building interiors – but, strangely, they are never
mentioned or discussed in any of the many existing publications on his considerable and outstanding output, including
the authoritative monograph ‘Jacobsen – Life and Work’,
written by Kjeld Vindum and Carsten Thau and published by
Arkitektens Forlag.
Denmark’s National Bank, Copenhagen, Arne Jacobsen, 1978
Photo: Bruce Peter, 2025
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