Proviantgården or Provianthuset is a historic building on

Slotsholmen Slotsholmen (English: The Castle Islet) is an island in the harbour of Copenhagen, Denmark, and part of Copenhagen Inner City. The name is taken from the successive castles and palaces located on the island since Bishop Absalon constructed the c ...

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan a ...

Denmark ) , song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast") , song_type = National and royal anthem , image_map = EU-Denmark.svg , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of Denmark , establish ...

. The building was originally constructed in the early 1600s as part of a Christian IV's naval harbor project. Its name, ''Proviantgården'', is in reference to its initial role as a provisions depot. Today, the building is used by

Folketinget The Folketing ( da, Folketinget, ; ), also known as the Parliament of Denmark or the Danish Parliament in English, is the unicameral national legislature (parliament) of the Kingdom of Denmark—Denmark proper together with the Faroe Islands an ...

's administration, housing offices for MPs as well as the Copenhagen reading rooms of the National Archives.

History

In the 1590s, Christian IV began building a new naval harbor on Slotsholmen. Proviantgården was constructed by the builder Bernt Pejtersen around 1605. The building was meant to furnish the king's ships with provisions when they came into the harbor. As such Holmen's grainstores were transfered to the building after it was completed. The building has been damaged by three different fires, in 1626, 1719, and most recently in 1992. After a fire ravaged the building in 1626, the quartermaster who oversaw the building issued a

promissory note A promissory note, sometimes referred to as a note payable, is a legal instrument (more particularly, a financing instrument and a debt instrument), in which one party (the ''maker'' or ''issuer'') promises in writing to pay a determinate sum of ...

to the king worth 2,000 sletdaler to be used for the timber to reconstruct the building. Because he made this payment to the king, it is believed that the quartermaster was to blame for the fire, though there is no record that he was prosecuted. The naval dock was decommissioned and subsequently filled in during the 1860s.

Architecture

Only the robust brick walls, which are more than two meters thick, survive of the original building survive. The building is 163 metres long and two storeys high. A passageway, ''Proviantpassagen'', runs between the west side of the building and the wall that surrounds the Royal Library Garden, linking Rigsdagsgården with the Christians Brygge waterfront. The building is listed as a historic monument.

Gallery

File:Proviantgaarden Dt015171.jpg, Depiction of the building as a supplies building c. 1749. File:Tøjhushavnen and Proviantgården (Chr. Hetsch).jpg, Depiction of Tøjhus Dock with Proviantgården. Christian Hetsch, c. 1850. File:Bibliotekshaven - Proviantgården.jpg, The building as seen from the Royal Library Garden, 2016.

References

Slotsholmen Renaissance architecture in Copenhagen Listed government buildings in Copenhagen {{Denmark-struct-stub