Welcome at Dybbøl Banke

The strange building

The History Centre building was created by the architects Ernst Lohse and Michael Freddie, 1^st prize winners in the architectural competition (1990). The built-up area is approx. 1,000 square metres divided into two wings in a V-shape with the tip facing towards west and the country road.

Both inside and outside the building is extraordinary as it is full of symbols. The meaning of these symbols is for the visitor to decide. The building must be seen in the context of Dybbøl Mill, which stands as a round and friendly symbol of peace. The History Centre, by contrast, is a sharp and intrusive symbol of war. Its mass is skewed and sinking into the ground like the area’s blasted concrete remains of the Danish gunpowder magazines. Up from the interior of this bombed-out and torn-down redoubts, colourful symbols of weapons and banners tumble up into the sky. It is inspired by older panoply (a range of wall-mounted arms) but here placed in a chaotic and unheroic pose.

The inside is characterized by the material wealth of the 19^th century and its joy of construction with bricks, brass, rough iron, concrete and surprising gold leaf plated detail. The burnt timber remains from grenade-struck Danish blockhouses and the deep, ultramarine blue night sky are in contrast – and are complemented by wrought ironwork and quirky grids, profiles and sunny yellow walls in the Dannebrog hall.

Thus, the building is quite unique and invites you to explore. Strange constructions with crooked and tipping surfaces, palisade poles that break through the walls and cornices that surprisingly emerge, give the visitors a sense of the chaos that war is.

The building contains four halls: The auditorium (with introductory film), the cinema with a movie about “Assault Day”, the exhibition hall and the diorama with a tableau from a Danish trench.