Denmark's historic stock exchange building suffers huge fire

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

The former home of the Copenhagen stock exchange, one of Europe’s oldest trading floors, has been ravaged by fire just short of its 400th anniversary.

Børsen, which opened in the autumn of 1624 as a commodities trading place and was home to the Danish capital’s stock exchange until 1974, caught fire early on Tuesday and its iconic dragon-tailed spire collapsed within a few hours.

“Terrible pictures from Børsen this morning; 400 years of Danish cultural heritage is in flames,” Jakob Engel-Schmidt, Denmark’s culture minister, wrote in a post on X.

The cause of the fire was not immediately known. The building was covered in scaffolding and cladding for a renovation ahead of celebrations for its 400th anniversary.

The fire had still not been put out on Tuesday afternoon, with firefighters drawing water from Copenhagen harbour to fight the blaze. Firefighters said they expected the operation to take well into the night due in large part to the high amount of wood used in the building.

“They are simply such sad pictures,” said Mette Frederiksen, Denmark’s prime minister. “It is a piece of Danish history that burns before our eyes. I think it gave us all a jolt when the spire fell,” she added.

Ole Hansen, a bricklayer working on scaffolding, told trade union newspaper Fagbladet 3F what happened. “There was fire on the ridge of the roof . . . I took a picture and then said ‘We’re going down’. Some stonemasons shouted ‘We have to get out’. I have never experienced anything like this.”

The building, built over two decades and completed in 1640, is located next door to Christiansborg Palace, the home of Denmark’s parliament and office to the prime minister that is colloquially known as Borgen.

Locals believed that Børsen’s spire, made up of four intertwined dragon tails, protected the historic building from mishaps and fires after it was twice spared when the palace burnt down in 1794 and 1884.

Situated on Copenhagen’s waterfront, Børsen was originally home to dozens of market stalls after being built on the orders of King Christian IV to help develop trading in the Scandinavian country after two big wars with the Hanseatic League.

It became home to the stock exchange in the 19th century. In 1918, the site was violently stormed by trade unionists protesting against high unemployment.

The building, constructed in the Dutch Renaissance style, is owned by the Danish Chamber of Commerce and is used as a conference venue.

“It’s horrible. It’s one of the city’s most beautiful buildings. It’s Notre-Dame all over again,” one Copenhagen resident told public broadcaster DR, referring to the 2019 fire at the medieval Catholic cathedral in Paris.

Engel-Schmidt praised Børsen’s employees for helping to save large paintings and other treasures from the building. Television pictures showed flames devouring the spire while thick smoke billowed across the Danish capital.

Brian Mikkelsen, head of the Danish Chamber of Commerce, said: “It is a huge disaster. We have lost our cultural heritage.

“It is one of the most important buildings in Denmark, and we were in the process of restoring it so that it could shine and we could show what it has meant to Danish business for 400 years.”