126 years later, 35,000 passengers a day, and a protected landmark—not bad for a temporary train station. “Not built for eternity” and “in spite of its cheapness, it’s quite decorative” were the reviews when Østerport, designed by DSB chief architect Heinrich Wenck and then known as Østbanegaarden, opened in 1897.

~1908 postcard / 2022 photo

The quaint half-timbered National Romantic architecture here wasn’t chosen only because it was Wenck’s house style—although the guy clearly loved it, designing more than 150 mostly National Romantic train stations across Denmark between 1894 and 1921—but also because it would be easy to disassemble and move elsewhere.

Two 1897 articles on the new train station in Østerbro; 1896 architectural sketch, Danmarks Jernebanemuseum; 1897 Peter Elfelt photo, the Museum of Copenhagen; 1898 Fritz Theodor Benzen photo, the Museum of Copenhagen; 1900 stereophotograph, Peter Elfelt, Wikimedia Commons; 1905 photo with men walking, the Museum of Copenhagen; 1911 Frederik Riise photo with streetcars and cyclists, the Museum of Copenhagen; 1923 Holger Damgaard photo, Det kongelige Bibliotek

Originally the terminus for Kystbanen, the coastal rail line between Elsinore and Copenhagen, Østerport was built as a temporary station because DSB wanted to keep its options open around the future rail connection between Østerport and Copenhagen Central Station.

For its first 20 years, Østerport had no rail connection to Hovedbanegården, until DSB dug Boulevardbanen along the lines of the old city ramparts, connecting Østerport to Nørreport, Vesterport, and Copenhagen Central Station in 1917.

Rendering of the 1962 proposal to tear down Østerport and replace it with a new museum, post office, and train station complex, Det kongelige Bibliotek

There were relatively advanced plans to demolish Østerport in the 1960s and replace it with a modernist block consisting of the Danish Museum of Science & Technology, a post office, and a new train station. I like modernism and I’m not reflexively opposed to these—Østerport was basically made out of fuckin’ Lincoln Logs for this precise reason, easy to dismantle and rebuild elsewhere…but this proposal looks like ass. Utterly devoid of life, a museum to death not technology. Bullet dodged.

1901 photo by Fritz Theodor Benzen with the veranda visible, the Museum of Copenhagen; 1933 photo with the veranda swallowed up by the building, Det kongelige Bibliotek; 1981 Peter Schandorff photo, Det kongelige Bibliotek; 2022 photo, Danmarks Jernebanemuseum

Somehow, after all that, the biggest change to Østerport is the loss of the original veranda—the station walls were pushed out to meet the roof line during renovations by Wenck’s successor, K.T. Seest, in the late 1920s. Besides the superficial exterior changes, things have obviously changed immensely on the inside and in terms of train operations. Suburban train service was added in the 1930s and a metro stop opened in 2019 as part of the new City Circle Line. KHR Architecture and Sweco led a meticulous restoration of the old station building, down to an archaeological examination of the original pigments used to paint it, that accompanied the construction of the new metro station.

...I think at this point we can say it's permanent.

Production Files

Further reading:

Construction photos of the sunken Boulevard railway being dug in the 1910s. Holger Damgaard, Det Kongelige Bibliotek; 1910, Københavns Stadsarkiv; 1916, the Museum of Copenhagen
1924 political campaign photo in front of the station, Holger Damgaard, Det kongelige Bibliotek; 1961 with a parking lot, Mogens Falk-Sørensen, Københavns Stadsarkiv; 1983, the Museum of Copenhagen
1928: the funeral procession for Czarina Dagmar, also known as Maria Feodorovna. The former Empress of Russia and Nikolai Romanov's mother was a Danish princess before she married the prince who'd be coronated as Emporer Alexander III. She returned to Denmark after the Russian Revolution. Det kongelige Bibliotek.