Kvindernes Bygning

Facts

A women's centre

Kvindernes Bygning was built in 1935 in central Copenhagen on Nos. 8-10 Niels Hemmingsens Gade. This ferro-concrete building was designed in the Functionalist style as a women’s centre, by architect Ragna Grubb. When Grubb won the contract for the centre, she was one of the first women architects to set up her own practice. Originally, the centre contained auditoria and function rooms, a restaurant, shops and leaseholds for women's associations. Today, an office block with shops on the ground floor and a basement jazz club, it still contains offices for female researchers.

Partly a public place

Selected entry

Emma Gad united women

Story written by Johan Møhlenfeldt

Time / Periode 1935

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" A plaque in the foyer reads: "In 1895, Emma Gad neé Halkier drafted the women's centre and raised funds". Otherwise famous in Denmark for her book Takt og tone ("The Manners of Good Society"), Gad was one of the initiators of the association that wanted to create a "new and lasting centre for women’s works"; Gad arranged for the holding of lotteries and orchid shows, and designed commemorative platters and labels. Talks were held, articles were penned and there was much lobbying. The project was in progress for many years, but meanwhile society was changing. This meant alterations to the centre: it now had apartments for single women, boarding rooms for women visitors from the provinces, a medical clinical staffed by women doctors and a "free reading room for working women". "