288 DAYSSan Francisco · 1915 ⌕
Gazetteer › States & Nations
Foreign pavilion · States & Nations

Pavilion of Denmark

A shingled medieval castle of three towers, one echoing Kronborg at Elsinore, a Danish-American meeting hall with no exhibits at all.

Directly across the Avenue of Nations from Japan's garden rose a shingled castle of three towers. Professor Anton Rosen of Copenhagen built it from motifs taken from several noted Danish buildings, and one tower partly reproduced a tower of Kronborg Castle at Elsinore, Hamlet's castle. The Official Guide goes further and calls the whole building a reproduction of Kronborg. A second tower was hung with iron wind-bells. Visitors entered through a deep arch under two trumpeters blowing lurs, copied from a group in Copenhagen, and crossed a railed terrace over a moat-like pool into a hall whose pillars were painted with Viking friezes.

The building held no exhibits. Danish-Americans raised about $23,000 to build it as a meeting hall for their countrymen, and every furnishing came from Denmark. Along the north side stood busts of Tycho Brahe, Thorvaldsen, Hans Christian Andersen and Ørsted. A gray milestone at the door gave the distance home as 7,174 miles. At the dedication on March 16, 1915, the Danish consul spoke of a small neutral country 'surrounded to south, east, and west by warring nations.'

In every line and angle and opening the structure was eloquent of the north, that Scandinavian environment where nature gives man fair battle always, and where, age after age, only the strong survive.

Frank Morton Todd, The Story of the Exposition, vol. III (1921), p. 217

At a glance

  • Designed by Anton Rosen of Copenhagen; erection supervised by Tyge Hvass; A. W. Burgren of San Francisco an architect.
  • Built with about $23,000 raised by the Danish-American Auxiliary; the Danish government appropriated some 65,000 kroner for participation.
  • Dedicated March 16, 1915; site dedicated March 15, 1913.
  • The Official Guide adds copies of the tombstones of King Gorm the Old and Queen Thyra beside the entrance.

Afterward

Not recorded in Todd; presumably auctioned and wrecked with most foreign pavilions (Todd V, p. 246). The site is Presidio land south of the Palace of Fine Arts.

Where it stood

Pavilion of Denmark stood at about 37.80117 N, 122.44985 W on today's map. The whole fairground over the city →

Sources