Stelling House is a building on Gammeltorv

Gammeltorv

Gammeltorv is the oldest square in Copenhagen, Denmark. With adjoining Nytorv it forms a common space along the Strøget pedestrian zone. While the square dates back to the foundation of the city in the 12th century, most of its buildings were constructed after the Great Fire of 1795 in...

 in the centre of Copenhagen

Copenhagen

Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...

, Denmark. Completed in 1937, it was designed as an office building and retail store for the A. Stelling paint company by Arne Jacobsen

Arne Jacobsen

Arne Emil Jacobsen, usually known as Arne Jacobsen, was a Danish architect and designer. He is remembered for contributing so much to architectural Functionalism as well as for the worldwide success he enjoyed with simple but effective chair designs.-Early life and education:Arne Jacobsen was born...

 who took pains to have it blend in with the older buildings which surround it.

Architecture

Towards the end of the 1930s, influenced in part by Gunnar Asplund

Gunnar Asplund

Erik Gunnar Asplund was a Swedish architect, mostly known as a key representative of Nordic Classicism of the 1920s, and during the last decade of his life as a major proponent of the modernist style which made its breakthrough in Sweden at the Stockholm International Exhibition...

, Jacobsen moved from the white-plastered functionalism of his Bellavista

Bellavista housing estate

The Bellavista housing estate designed by Arne Jacobsen is the clearest example of Bauhaus architecture in Denmark. Completed in 1934, the estate is located just north of Copenhagen, in Klampenborg, Gentofte Municipality, next to Jacobsen's Bellevue Beach, which had been completed a couple of years...

 developments to a more Nordic modern approach. Indeed, built in a puritanically modernistic style, Stellings Hus complements the classicism of the surrounding buildings.

The reinforced concrete structure is six storeys tall, the top floor being slightly set back. The two bottom storeys are clad in green-painted steel plate while the upper part of the building is finished in grey tiling. Although the building does not appear to be out of place today, like his Aarhus City Hall it was openly criticised at the time both for its general appearance and for the materials used. In 1991, it became a listed building.

Café

The Oonaco restaurant and café on the ground floor is furnished with tables and chairs designed by Arne Jacobsen. It replaces the Stelling Café which used to occupy the same site,

Literature

• Vibeke Andersson Møller, Stellings hus, 2003, Frederiksberg: Fisker, 122 p. ISBN 87-91078-18-0.