The old Copenhagen Stock Exchange, 400 years old, was hit by a violent fire on Tuesday April 16, causing its famous spire to collapse. Images reminiscent of the fire at Notre-Dame de Paris five years ago.
The famous spire of the Copenhagen Stock Exchange, 54 meters high, collapsed this Tuesday, April 16 in the morning after the historic building – under renovation work – caught fire, report the Danish media.
Around 7:30 a.m. local time, the fire broke out under the roof, emergency services told the press who dispatched more than a hundred firefighters to the scene, while the police blocked parts of the Danish capital from the circulation. The origin of the disaster is not yet known.
The 17th century Dutch Renaissance style building no longer houses the Danish Stock Exchange but serves as the headquarters of the Chamber of Commerce. Everyone present inside was evacuated.
“Terrible images from the stock market this morning. 400 years of Danish cultural heritage in flames,” reacted on the Danish Minister of Culture, Jakob Engel-Schmidt, faced with these images which recall the fire of Notre-Dame de Paris, five years ago.
“It’s our Notre-Dame, it’s our national treasure,” a local resident, Elisabeth Moltke, 45, who came to witness the disaster, told AFP emotionally.
The operations are complicated for the emergency services. “It’s a copper roof, and it’s simply impossible to penetrate,” rescue services director Jakob Vedsted Andersen told the Ritzau agency on Tuesday morning. “The fire therefore had plenty of time to intensify and spread throughout the building,” he explained.
“The facades are still standing, but they are starting to give way under the effect of the fire,” he added at midday. “We are doing everything possible to protect the facades, but we cannot give any guarantees,” he added.
Works of art saved
The Old Copenhagen Stock Exchange houses an important art collection. Several people were filmed and photographed saving works, including a painting of the building, according to footage from the Danish media DR and photos from the Ritzau agency.
“We are still saving everything that can be saved,” explained the director of the Chamber of Commerce Morten Langager sur X.
“How touching to see how Børsen employees, good people from the emergency services and the people of Copenhagen are working together to save the artistic treasures and iconic images from the burning building,” added the Minister of Culture .
The minister said in another post that he will do “everything” so that the spire of the Stock Exchange, around which the tails of four dragons were wrapped, “dominates Copenhagen again”.
The French embassy in Denmark was “deeply saddened” by the fire. “We share the pain of the Danish people and hope for a rapid restoration of the building,” wrote the French diplomats on.
The French Minister of Culture, Rachida Dati, sent her “full support” to Denmark, stressing that “these painful images remind us of those of Notre-Dame”. “We are available to Denmark to provide our assistance and expertise in the reconstruction of this national treasure,” she wrote on.
Commissioned by King Christian IV, the Copenhagen Stock Exchange was built between 1619 and 1640, making it one of the oldest buildings in the city.