The Free Port and Nordhavn

Facts

A modern port

By Henrik Harnow, Museumsinspektør, Ph.D., Odense Bys Museer (18 stories)

International trade in the late 19th century called for deep-draft quays and modern port facilities. The extension of the Copenhagen harbour with the Free Port in 1891-94 was an old dream come true. In terms of engineering, this was a state-of-the-art project of international standard. The Free Port was fenced in by a customs grille, and the nation's top engineers and architects created the site's lavish complex and the new port, for which concrete was put to full use for the first time in Denmark. The Free Port was the world's first harbour to run solely on electrical power. Over the following decades, the Free Port was extended northwards. Extension of Copenhagen's commercial port continued in the post-war era at Nordhavn.

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International visit to the Free Port

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Story written by Henrik Harnow

Time / Periode 1895

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" In June 1895, the Free Port had only just opened when a group of international reporters were persuaded to travel on to see it. The reporters were actually assigned to the opening of the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal (now the Kiel Canal) in Germany, but travelled on to the new pride of Copenhagen, an international-scale port. But what could be done to signal activity and industry when the facility had scarcely been used? The financier C.F. Tietgen ensured that the whole facility looked far more impressive by having a large number of steamships from the DFDS shipping company berth at the empty quays during the reporters' tour of inspection. The story goes that some of the reporters wondered about the total absence of goods on all the quays and warehouses. But the aim had been achieved; the Free Port received international coverage and acclaim. "