Workers’ Assembly Halls (Denmark)

Description

Workers’ Assembly Halls is a proposed transnational serial nomination that is representative of the global phenomenon of mass organisation of workers by the international democratic labour movement in the context of industrialisation during the formative period of working-class internationalism from 1850 to 1950. Purpose-built and established by international democratic labour movements from the 1850s onwards, the tradition continues with new workers’ assembly halls still being built today. They are located in proximity to industrial zones or directly related to developing industrial areas and were always managed by international democratic labour movements. They were self-confident in architectural expression and intended to stand out in the surroundings, thereby signalling a permanent presence of the international democratic labour movement. The buildings continue to function as meeting places with public access, either in direct continuation or in clear relation to their original purpose. They are in a good state of conservation and still retain the layout and floorplan of their original function. This includes meeting rooms of various sizes, service areas, offices, often kitchens and sometimes apartments, printing press, cooperative businesses, or other sources of income. Decorations and architectural features intended to motivate a sense of community are also preserved.

Name(s) of the component part(s)

The Workers’ Assembly Hall in Copenhagen

Description of the component part(s)

The Workers’ Assembly Hall

The Workers’ Assembly Hall (1879) in Copenhagen is the oldest workers’ assembly hall in Denmark, one that inspired many later Danish assembly halls. It is located on the grounds of the former fortress ring of Copenhagen on a side street to the main road linking former working-class neighbourhoods with the industrial centre of Copenhagen harbour. The building consists of four connected buildings with easy access to the main entrance on street level. The façade is in a typical neo-classical style of its time, and the interior is decorated with motifs celebrating various trades as well as decorations that showcase different trade skills. To provide funds, apartments were included in the floorplan to be rented out to workers and trade union officials and a restaurant was built in the basement, one that still operates today.

In the late-19th century, the Danish Government tried to stop working-class gatherings by preventing workers getting access to meeting spaces. In response, Danish unions had to build their own meeting place. Money was collected from workers in Copenhagen to realise the project of creating a space for formal organisation of a broad section of the Danish working-class in a multifunctional space allowing access to formal democratic participation through political, social, and cultural activities. Despite external resistance and internal turmoil, the building became an iconic meeting place for workers and was owned by the Danish labour movement until 1982, when the building was converted into The Workers Museum. Today, the museum preserves the original purpose of the building by renting out rooms for conferences, general assemblies and meetings and hosting public events and social activities. The building also continues to be an iconic gathering point for the labour movement marking special occasions such as May Day.

The Workers’ Assembly Hall in Copenhagen is the oldest known still existing workers assembly halls in Europe and functioned as an assembly hall for 100 years. The building demonstrates the way that Danish unions organised workers through a federated structure of union cooperation.

Justification of Outstanding Universal Value

Workers’ Assembly Halls is a transnational series that bears eloquent testimony to the development of the international democratic labour movement and its impact on societies on a universal scale. It comprises the most significant examples of a distinctive type of multifunctional building which is the most tangible expression of the cultural tradition of the international labour movement. The halls were designed and built by this movement, independent from the state, during the formative period of working-class internationalism from 1850 to 1950. They were physically, and symbolically, fundamental to the mass organisation of workers.

The social and cultural phenomenon of the international democratic labour movement was self-organisation as a response to industrialisation and industrial capitalism. It became increasingly globalised from the mid-19th century and gained significant impetus during the late 19th and early 20th centuries to serve as a platform for the establishment of both trade union and political labour movements. These movements profoundly shaped our modern world.

The distinct building typology of a workers’ assembly hall is recognisable by its architectural form and function. Foremost, multifunctionality and the ability to accommodate large groups of people were central to the success of mass organisation, while high-quality and imposing architecture was used to reflect national and period styles and to instil pride and belonging. The halls were strategically placed in industrialised centres. A large and commonly ornate main hall provided for assemblies, political meetings, and communal events. Additional facilities typically included kitchens and communal dining rooms, educational classrooms for workers and their families, libraries and reading rooms, and numerous offices for trade unions and workers’ clubs accessed on multiple storeys via staircases and hallways. Some were international models.

The multifunctional workers’ assembly hall was part of the daily lives of the working class in Europe, Australia, the Americas and with examples in Africa and Asia, and lay at the centre of their collective political, social, educational, and cultural activity. Core values of equality and democracy, community and solidarity, welfare, identity, and belonging empowered workers to unite and improve all aspects of life.

Criterion (iii): Workers’ Assembly Halls bear exceptional testimony to the cultural tradition of the international democratic labour movement, which flourished during the formative period of working-class internationalism from 1850 to 1950. A group of the most significant assembly halls are some of the most tangible monuments to the development of the labour movement and its universality.

The buildings bear testimony to the establishment and development of the international democratic labour movement as a political, social, and cultural framework for the lives of workers. As sites for a multitude of activities and the daily workings of associations, the buildings both concretely and symbolically testify to how the international democratic labour movement offered a community and a new identity to millions of people uprooted by processes of industrialisation. Central aspects of the cultural tradition of the international democratic labour movement are:

• The expression of a universal longing for emancipation, belonging, and dignity of workers through mass organisation.
• The principle of self-organisation as a central to achieving the ideals of freedom, liberty, and solidarity.
• The education and training of workers to take part in democratic dialogue.

Throughout its development, the international democratic labour movement has fought for and achieved significant rights for workers. These include the 8-hour workday, holiday bonuses, access to healthcare, labour leave, equal pay for equal work, and maternity protection. The progressive attainment of these rights by the working-class reflects the evolution of societies in relation to production systems, as well as the vital role that labour unions play in safeguarding dignified working conditions. The buildings comprising this transnational serial nomination bear living testimony to the struggles of workers for labour rights and the ongoing defence of these rights to enhance the quality of life for workers.

Criterion (iv): Workers’ Assembly Halls are an outstanding example of a type of building which illustrates a significant stage in human history, that of the international mass organisation of workers by labour movements, independent of the state, from the mid-19th to mid-20th centuries. These multifunctional buildings were central to the establishment of both trade union and political labour movements that profoundly shaped democracy, welfare, and workers’ rights.

These buildings bear physical testimony to the main features of organisational and identity-shaping efforts of the globally distributed international democratic labour movement in the context of the dramatic and unprecedented processes of industrialisation, population increase, and urbanisation in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These were:

• Collectivism and multifunctionality in both physical and immaterial terms as central to the success of mass organisation.
• The importance of self-governed physical meeting-places as central to identity building among workers.
• Presence in industrial centres and central in working-class cultural landscape.
• The emergence of a type of building and the need to claim space.

Criterion (vi): Workers’ Assembly Halls is directly and tangibly associated with ideas, events, achievements, and living traditions of the international democratic labour movement and its outstanding universality across continents. The human rights of workers to freely associate and organise, the development of trade unions and labour political parties, the 8-hour day movement, and May Day celebrations, are examples that are joined by others.

Workers’ Assembly Halls are of outstanding universal significance for their manifest association with and architectural reflection of central ideas and beliefs about the path to popular emancipation, welfare, and justice for workers promoted by the labour movement on a global scale. Established around the call for unity among workers, they embody ideas about social relations and the conditions of wage labour highly influential on the development of societies across the world. These included:

• The idea of workers as a particular class in society defined by the relationship between capital and labour, reflected in the construction of assembly buildings as whole-of-life environments.
• The belief in formal organisation and formal democratic institutions as a pre-requisite for the emancipation of workers, reflected in the flexible and multifunctional layout of assembly buildings.
• The transformational influence of mass organisation of the international democratic labour movement on societies.
• Events in Workers’ Assembly Halls and effect on society and the cultural expression of the working-class heritage.

Statements of authenticity and/or integrity

Authenticity

Workers’ Assembly Halls have high authenticity overall, especially regarding form and design, material, substance, use and function. Buildings have been extended and modified to accommodate core functions associated with the contemporary evolution of the labour movement and its changing needs, while still retaining substantial original form and architectural detail. Some halls retain their original function while others have assumed compatible cultural functions, continuing important parts of the original role of the building. 

The Workers Assembly Hall in Copenhagen is in a high state of conservation, and the structural elements of multifunctionality that were needed for organising workers are still present. A central part of the authenticity of the building lies in the fact that it has developed and changed in parallel with the changing needs of the activities and natural development of the international democratic labour movement. Thus, the building has undergone modifications such as extensions, rebuilds, and new decorations which are still visible architecturally, resulting in a multitude of decorative styles. These adaptations to the buildings’ structures are all related to the changes in the buildings’ core function as an assembly hall for the labour movement in a local, regional, or national context. This is true also for changes made to the building after ownership of it passed from the international democratic labour movement to The Workers Museum because the subsequent changes explicitly draw on its origin as a workers’ assembly hall and relates to the building’s function as a multifunctional gathering place. The building now functions as a publicly accessible museum, conference hall and venue for cultural and trade union events.

Integrity

Workers’ Assembly Halls comprises a series of monuments that constitute a single property that fulfils the overall condition of integrity. In terms of size and wholeness as a coherent group, the series contains the most significant examples of workers’ assembly halls, worldwide, that are the most tangible expression of the cultural tradition of the international democratic labour movement and its global spread. The halls span the formative period of working-class internationalism from 1850 to 1950 and contain all cultural and architectural attributes necessary to convey proposed Outstanding Universal Value. There are no extant threats from development or neglect.

Some additional workers’ assembly halls, as revealed in comparative analysis, may have the potential to enhance specific aspects of integrity of the overall series, especially in terms of history of the international democratic labour movement, its geo-cultural reach, other aspects of internationalism, and variations in architectural form, function, and style. States parties that collaborated on their shared Tentative List entries welcome other States Parties that wish to consider the possibility of joining an incremental serial transnational nomination.

The Workers’ Assembly Hall in Copenhagen is the best example in Denmark, and one of the best examples in the world, of a building designed for the mass organisation of workers by the labour movement in Denmark and more generally in Northern Europe. The integrity of the building remains substantially intact through the existence of physical facilities related to organisational work, meetings, education, and large gatherings used on a continuing day-to-day basis. Those facilities include a main meeting hall, meeting rooms of various sizes along with offices and other functions supporting their role as multifunctional spaces and platforms for organisation. In terms of architectural manifestation and choice of materials, the building reflects both the period in which it was constructed and periods in which major changes were made in order to accommodate the changing needs and self-understanding of the international democratic labour movement. The Integrity of the original structure and blueprint have been maintained despite changes made over the decades. The building is a physical manifestation of the intangible ideas of social justice, solidarity, and equality which are embedded in the architectural layout and atmosphere of the building that reflects the spirit and original purpose. Thus, the central quality embodied by the building is the connection and mutual dependence of the material and immaterial heritage of the international democratic labour movement as a socio-cultural practice influenced by local conditions.

Justification of the selection of the component part(s) in relation to the future nomination as a whole

Component parts have been selected as the most authentic and integral examples of workers’ assembly halls, nationally and internationally, with special consideration of the contribution that each component part is able to make to the series as a whole and thus overall integrity.

The Workers’ Assembly Hall in Copenhagen is the oldest existing workers assembly halls in Europe. It functioned continually as an assembly hall for more than 100 years. The building testifies to the importance of liberal legislation for the early development of international democratic labour movements and to the strength of a federal approach to cooperation among unions. Through its architectural layout and decorations, which reflect common stylistic choices of the time of construction, the building testifies to the international democratic labour movement’s understanding of itself as being engaged in dialogue and cooperation with other parts of society. At the same time, the accessibility and many entries and exits from the building signals a profoundly liberal element in some labour movements. Finally, the long and uninterrupted existence of the building as a workers’ assembly hall testifies to a labour movement that has functioned, developed, and contributed to a high degree of social and political stability.

Comparison with other similar properties

The transnational serial nomination of Workers’ Assembly Halls responds to the relative absence of “popular” sites on the World Heritage List, that is, sites associated with ordinary people and their long struggle for recognition. In more recent years, the List has been improved by the addition of industrial heritage sites, including Blaenavon Industrial Landscape, the Derwent Valley Mills and Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape in the United Kingdom, Volklingen Ironworks in Germany, the Wouda Pumping Station in the Netherlands, and several more. Other sites, such as the Royal Exhibition Building in Melbourne, Australia, reflect the development of industrialisation and trade throughout the world in the 19th century. 

What these industrial sites have in common is an emphasis on the development of industrial technology and economic processes, important themes to a World Heritage List that tries to accurately represent the motive forces behind the development of human cultures. What the Workers Assembly Hall nomination does is focus on the people that made these technological and economic processes possible, providing the social, political and cultural context, and showing how those processes were shaped by, and in turn shaped, the actions of ordinary people. Studies of workers’ assembly halls and the research done for this nomination project show that thousands of workers’ assembly halls were built around the world on the initiative of local union organisations across a substantial period of time since the late 19th century and well into the 20th century and beyond. A large number of these have been refurbished or rebuilt, while others have been lost. Thus, only a few buildings have retained their integrity and connection to their original purpose as assembly halls.