Denmark's king launches reconstruction of famed landmark badly damaged by fire

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Denmark’s King Frederik laid a foundation stone Thursday to launch the reconstruction of Copenhagen’s iconic Old Stock Exchange, the 400-year-old harborside landmark that was partly destroyed by a fire in April.

Frederik squeezed in a square sandstone, etched with his monogram and weighing about 60 kilograms (130 pounds), into a red brick wall on a corner of the Old Stock Exchange. That marked the official start of the reconstruction.

In the early morning of April 16, the blaze tore through Boersen, as it is known in Danish, collapsing its green copper roof and iconic dragon-tail spire. Two days later, a large section of the building’s outer wall collapsed inwards. The site took months to clean up as some 1,000 tons of debris had to be removed.

Considered a leading example of the Dutch Renaissance style in Denmark, it opened in 1624 as a trading place, nine years after construction had begun. Denmark’s Chamber of Commerce, the building’s owner, has said it wants it to be as it once was. The plan is to use the same materials as when the building was erected.

Initial plans had been to mark the building’s anniversary after a thorough renovation with festivities but those plans were changed following the fire. Now only about 45% of the Old Stock Exchange still stands. An old firewall stopped the blaze from spreading.

“Today we are celebrating the 400th anniversary of the Stock Exchange! And we mark that with the laying of the foundation stone by King Frederik, which is the start of a new chapter: the rebuilding of Boersen,” Brian Mikkelsen, head of the Chamber of Commerce, wrote on X.

It is expected to take several years with no end date for now and no details about the costs. The owner has said it will foot the bill.

As the blaze raged, ordinary people ventured in to help authorities rescue artworks, and around 90% of the cultural objects were rescued from the fire.

They have been stored in a modern warehouse northwest of Copenhagen, along with sculpted stones, bricks and wall parts. The aim is to reuse as many of the latter as possible, the Chamber of Commerce has said.

Some 800,000 handmade bricks have been ordered in Germany and the plan is to use between 800 and 1,000 trees from a Swedish Baltic Sea island.

“We must do everything to ensure that that tragedy does not repeat,” Culture Minister Christina Egelund said in a statement, as the Danish government announced that it would look into whether current regulations are sufficient to protect historic buildings.

Danish authorities have yet to reveal the cause of the fire, but it’s believed to have started on the building’s roof, which had been wrapped in scaffolding because of ongoing renovation work to be completed for its anniversary in 2024.

The blaze was reminiscent of the April 2019 fire at the 800-year-old Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.