The Shipyard Hall

Entering the first hall you meet a large Photostat showing Aalborg’s waterfront as it looked in the 1850´s, presenting Aalborg as a busy port. Here is also a model of a sailing boat, a so-called “Spidsgatter”. This was designed by naval architect Utzon, director of Aalborg Shipyard, and father of the well-known architect Jørn Utzon, who designed the world famous Opera house in Sidney. The shape of his father’s Spidsgatter may have served as inspiration for the design of the Opera house in Sydney.

Most of the exhibits in this room originate from Aalborg shipyard, now closed. This is why the hall is named after I. M. Stuhr, the founder of the shipyard. Other items, connected with the shipyard industry, have been added to this collection since the opening of the museum.
The dominating feature of this hall is the two large paintings, placed at opposite walls, by the late Carlo Wognsen, a local artist. He painted them in 1954 and they used to hang in the shipyard’s canteen. The paintings illustrate the evolution of shipbuilding from the oak dugouts of the stone age through the ”Knorr’s” of the Vikings and later the sophisticated square rigged men-of-war of the 18th century to the art of modern shipbuilding as it was executed by Aalborg Shipyard.

The displayed models in the first part of the hall illustrate the development of the building of wooden ships. The large model of an 18th century naval shipyard, illustrates how a shipyard was organized during that time. It shows the various workshops, the carpenters shaping the timber, the planking of a hull, the Rigging-sheers used when the lower masts and the heavy canons were embarked and convicts working guarded by soldiers and many other details.

Another model shows the performance of a careening at the Naval Base in Copenhagen. This operation had to be performed at regular intervals to keep the ships’ bottoms clean from growth and shellfish. The quay and the building by the famous architect Philip de Lange are still there.

Among the treasures of the museum is the “pay drum” which can be dated to about 1800. It was used by the Royal Dockyard in Copenhagen when paying day laborers. It is an exciting thought that this drum probably witnessed the Battle of Copenhagen on 2nd April 1801.