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BRASSO AND LIVER PATÉ
Winni Johanneson , retired matron
»The building is very difficidt to clean, being full o f corners and crevices demanding a
lot o f cleaning and polishing. However, I believe the cleaning ladies really make a
greater effort than i f it had been a really dull ordinary building. A fter all, the C ity H a ll
does possess a soul! So they take pride in making it look as fine and shiny as possible.«
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How many cleaning ladies were you in charge of?
»When I took on the job twenty years ago, I had fifty . A n d there were
twenty-eight left when I retired. The C ity H a ll had to save money. Originally over one
hundred ladies were employed here as cleaners, but not fu ll time, mind. Cleaning is
hard work! Back then they were also specialised, so one would polish the brass, and
another would scrub floors the old-fashioned way . . . ”
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The big floor in the Main Hall, have you ever cleaned that?
"
Three thousand square feet! Yes, when I began as a cleaner here, I was responsible fo r
one fourth o f that floor. B u t back then it was easier to make the floor look nice than it
is nowadays using a mop. I don ’t know what it is w ith that stone floor, it very easily
acquires the greyish look o f liver pate, and the same goes for the canteen floor downstairs
in the vau lt!”
-W ha t is the right way to polish brass?
Using the polish called Brasso! In days o f yore! B u t now some water-soluble s tu ff is
used, so the cleaners don ’t have to breathe in the fumes, but on the other hand, the new
s tu ff is very hard on the woodwork around the brass. Earlier we also used to polish the
brass strips by the doorsteps. T h a t’s not done any more.«
(C onversation w ith AdW, F eb ru ary 2005)
GLASS ROOFS AND ARCADES
Valhalla, Italian palaces and mullions
Glass roofs were not an unknown phenomenon when Nyrop designed the City
Hall, but letting in the light from the sky above, as it is done in the Main Hall,
was a novelty in Copenhagen too.
The Palm Garden in the Glyptotek in Copenhagen was erected at roughly the
same time as the City Hall, but already in 1893 Magasin du Nord had a glass
roof installed over the main hall. Like abroad, exhibition halls and department
stores were the first to make use of glass roofs. Railway stations came in as quick
seconds with their practical glass roofed platforms. But in Ny rop’s Copenhagen
City Hall the issue was to cover a large distinguished-looking ceremonial hall.
When Hotel d ’Angleterre had its roof light in 1875, Martin Nyrop was employed
at V. Dahlerup’s drawing office, and the glass roof of the Main Hall has a larger
free span than any of the above-mentioned examples from Copenhagen.
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