TEXTILE TOWN HERNING

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24
Textile town Herning
25 fantastic
industries
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By the mid-1800s, traditional Central Jutland hosiery-making started to evolve
industrial methods. Along Silkeborgvej and Hammerum Hovedgade, popularly
known as ’factory avenue’, is a continuous built environment reflecting the growth
of the textile industry. Today, most of the Central Jutland textile industry’s production
has been outsourced and the textile boom on what was once heathland is long since
over. Herning is now known for its arts and culture, rather than for its textile industry,
which is perhaps due to the fact that in the 1950s and 1960s a number of enterprising
local manufacturers succeeded in encouraging the country’s best architects, artists,
town planners and designers to make their mark on the region.
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24 // Textile town Herning
herning
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silkeborgvej
textilforum
vestergade 20
7400 herning
www.herningmuseum.dk
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01 HERNING CLOTH FACTORY/ Textilforum
The factory was established as a woollen mill in 1876. Under
changing ownership, it suffered ups and downs until the 1960s
when the business went only downhill until it finally closed
down in 1990. The factory sustained many fires, as a result of
which the buildings that remain are almost all of more recent
origin. Out of the factory’s old premises, two intermediate
buildings from 1895 and 1899 remain, together with two
management residences built just across from the factory in
the same period. In 1996, Textilforum opened the cloth factory’s
expansive 3,000 m2 premises as a museum. Textilforum
is housed in the factory’s administration building, two large
saw-toothed-roof halls and the chimney-topped boiler house.
The factory buildings date from the period 1895 to 1954 along
with a four-storey weaving building from 1948. The administration
building, the front building facing Vestergade, was built in
1901 and is a richly ornamented red-brick building with a slate
roof. A number of the cloth factory’s machines have been preserved
and form part of Textilforum’s exhibitions on themes
such as the textile industry in the Herning district.
FABRIKSALLEEN
The road between Herning, via Birk, to Hammerum is known
as fabriksalleen, ’factory avenue’. Because here, along
Silkeborgvej and Hammerum Hovedgade as in the towns of
Herning, Hammerum and Ikast, the landscape and buildings
testify to the textile manufacturing boom that once took hold
in Central Jutland. The most dominant industry, and the one
that has shaped the built environment here, was the knitwear
industry. Besides the array of factory buildings of various
sizes, it is characteristic that many of the villas and detached
houses have small outbuildings that were formerly used for
cottage-industry dress-making and knitwear production. The
road between Herning and Hammerum displays a vivid legacy
of the region’s modern and traditional textile industries.
02 ’THE BLACK FACTORY’
In 1936, Niels Krøjgaard had a factory built at no. 87 Th.
Nielsensgade for his existing knitwear manufactory. The
architect was the manager of the local credit institution, J.P.
Møller, who styled the factory as a two-storey square block.
20 years later, in 1956, Niels Krøjgaard sold the premises
to Aage Damgaard who acquired it for his fourth Angli shirtmaking
factory. Under his ownership, the premises became
a canvas for what might be termed Denmark’s ’largest experiment
in social realism’, when the artist Paul Gadegaard was
given free rein to decorate the factory. The exterior was painted
black, hence the name, and all the windows and doors in bright
colours. A large park was laid out by the landscape gardener
C.Th. Sørensen. A number of Denmark’s leading artists were
involved in decoration of the factory, including Robert
Jacobsen and Svend Wiig Hansen. But as early as in 1963,
’The Black Factory’ had become too small for Angli, which
now had 300 employees and was turning out 3,000 shirts a
day. Damgaard now moved out into the new industrial estate at
Birk, where he built a new factory (see also item 05). Although
the cloth factory has since been converted into flats, it is still a
monument to Herning’s industrial history.
03 Niels Krøjsgaard’s villa
In 1939, Niels Krøjgaard, who originally owned the factory on
Th. Nielsensgade, built a grand 750 m2 villa for himself and
his family. At the time, he was one of the wealthiest men in the
town, which was all in evidence in his residence, which local
residents nicknamed „Mini Marselisborg“ in reference to the
royal residence in Aarhus. Today, the building on Kaj Munksvej
4 is occupied by a law firm, which in 2002 built the almost
2,000 m2 black extension building to the east.
04 Carpet showroom building, No. 4
Silkeborgvej
In 1957, Mads Eg Damgaard built an unusual showroom for
his factory, Egetæpper’s, art carpets. Designed by the artist
Gunnar Aagaard Andersen in association with the architects
Jan and Karen Eggen, it has a quadratic ground plan, is set at
an angle on a cruciform plinth, and features a sloping floor and
roof. The location at the entrance to Herning was to ensure its
visibility, and people did look twice when they caught sight of

this unconventional building. In this way, the building fulfilled its
aim: to be an eye-catching and hence effective advertisement
for Egetæpper. The two Damgaard brothers’ association with
modern artists has been a strongly influential factor in the rich
cultural life of modern Herning.
05 Egetæpper (Carpets)
Mads Eg Damgaard, the founder of the Egetæpper carpet
empire, took at giant leap in 1953 when he wound up his textile
production, sacked all 150 employees except 15 and instead
bought machinery for weaving high-quality Axminster carpets.
But his strategy was successful. Initially, Damgaard’s new factory
had 3 Axminster looms but soon after no fewer than 44,
all in uninterrupted, three-shift operation. The early 1960s saw
the advent of the next technological revolution in the carpet
industry: the tufting loom. Egetæpper went from strength to
strength, moving from a small factory by the original showroom
on Silkeborgvej to this vast, 35,000 m2 complex on
Industrivej. The new premises had space for the large tufting
looms and by 1971, production at the new address was in
full swing. This large factory, which surpassed everything
in the Herning region, was designed by the architect Kaj
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Boeck-Hansen, but underwent extensive alteration in 1982
when it was given a new facade and a showroom and reception
building designed by the Aarhus architect C.F. Møller .
In 1984, a showroom and administration building was added,
also designed by Møller. During this period the architect
created a large number of screening frontages around industrial
plants. The frontage at Egetæpper is around 300 metres long
and is intersected by the large showroom and Søren Georg
Jensen sculptures. The showroom interior is decorated with
wall carpets by the artists Pierre Wermaëre and Asger Jorn
and the atrium garden contains Rudolf Tegner’s sculpture
„Leda and the Swan“. The business is still in operation, but is
today known solely as ’Ege’.
06 ’THE ROUND FACTORY’
When Angli, the shirt-maker’s, outgrew ’The Black Factory’,
Aage Damgaard acquired a large property at Birk. Based on
a concept created by C.Th. Sørensen, ’the Round Factory’
was built in 1965, and the architect was C.F. Møller. C.Th.
Sørensen’s original sketch consisted of two off-centre circles
giving onto a circular courtyard. The sculptures and artworks
from the Black Factory were moved to Birk and C. Th.
Sørensen designed the circular sculpture park. Hereford cattle
were purchased to graze on the circular turf in the park, which
subsequently inspired the idea for the next venture, what is
now a chain of restaurants called Hereford Beefstouw, and
RELATED SITES:
Herning Cloth Factory / Textilforum
Vestergade 20
7400 Herning
www.textilforum.dk
Herning museum of art – heart
Birk Centerpark 8
7400 Herning
www.heartmus.dk
birk
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06
silkeborgvej
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hammerum
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new artists were contracted to decorate the factory, including
Piero Manzoni, famed for his tin can work containing „Artist’s
shit“. In 1968, Carl-Henning Pedersen’s ceramic frieze was
unveiled in the courtyard: „Picture cycle. The book of imagination
about the wheel of life“. But by 1974, the shirt-making
boom had petered out, and Aage Damgaard shut up shop . The
factory was sold to an arts and education foundation, Midtjysk
Skole- og Kulturfond, set up in 1973. The large art collection
was donated to Herning local authority for the purpose of
establishing a museum of art. Part of the Angli factory was
fitted out for a garment design school, while other parts were
used by Herning Museum of Art from its establishment in 1977
until 2009 when the new museum of art in Herning, HEART,
was completed further along Birk Centerpark at no. 8.
07 Niels Larsen knitwear factory
In 1872, the wool shop keeper Niels Larsen purchased a
rotary power framework machine and he and his wife stepped
up their production of woollen garments. Their business was
soon ready for expansion. In 1883, Larsen acquired the
Hammerumholm estate, where the manufactory gradually
expanded. In 1917, following the death of Niels Larsen, his
widow and son Otto Larsen had the factory building on
Vestergade built. The factory was in operation at this location
until it closed down in 1986. In the late 1990s, Niels Larsen’s
1,500-m2 factory was converted into flats, while the original
factory front facing the road was preserved. Herning Museum
contains a collection of products from the factory including
men’s and women’s underwear, blouses and gym slips.
08 Jensen & Stampe
In the town of Hammerum, Iver Nielsen established a knitwear
factory as early as in 1870, A few years later he moved his
business to what is now no. 95A Hammerum Hovedgade. Not
until later was the factory given the name Jensen & Stampe.
The oldest factory building, two storeys high and facing the
main street, dates from circa 1890. This building is not only
the oldest from this factory, but the oldest textile building in the
district of Hammerum. In 1917-18, a new, larger building was
established at right angles to the main street. This was built
to house a modern knitwear factory, with state-of-the-art
machines. Jensen & Stampe was one of the first businesses
to switch from steam power to electricity in 1906 after
Hammerum gained its own electricity works in 1905. Holger
Jensen, one of the factory’s owners, also happened to be the
electricity works’ chairman. The business did well for many
years, but in 1994, the factory closed down and the premises
were converted into flats. The original exterior of the oldest
building was preserved, however, as a monument to the
district’s oldest knitwear factory.