Vestergade 5


Vestergade 5 is a Neoclassical property in the Old Town of Copenhagen, Denmark. The building was constructed for the owner of the tobacco manufacturer Chr. Augustinus Fabrikker in 1797 and the company was until 1870 based in the complex. It was listed in the Danish registry of protected buildings and places in 1918.

History

Tobacco manufacturer Ole Augustinus, founder of the company now known as Chr. Augustinus Fabrikker, constructed a new building at the site in the 1770s. After his death in 1779, both the building and the company passed to his eldest son, Christian Augustinus, after whom it subsequently took its name. The building was together with the rest of the quarter destroyed in the Copenhagen Fire of 1795. The current building was constructed for Augustinus in 1796–1797. The building towards the street contained apartments while the tobacco factory was based in a side wing as was normal at the time. Navel lieutenant Jost van Dockum, who had been in charge of the Prøvestenen Battery during the Bombardment of Copenhagen in 1807, lived in one of the apartments in 1809–11. Another navel officer, Counter Admiral Lorenz Fjeldrup Lassen, was among the residents in 1817–1818. Chr. Augustinus left the building when a new tobacco factory on Gammel Kongevej in Frederiksberg was inaugurated in 1870

Architecture

The building consists of three floors over a raised cellar. The building is five bays wide and the two outer bays are wider than the three central ones. The two outer windows on the second floor are topped by triangular pediments.