Someone pulled some strings to host 2 days of the Deleuze camp in Denmarks most prestigious mansion-the house of Jakobsen, founder of Carlsberg beer. However,it was strange to discuss deleuze's influential book -anti oedipus- in a place more haunted by oedipus than Elsinore.
Setting: Copenhagen , late 19th century and jakobsen has just discovered a new grain to make great beer. He sets up a factory on a hill on the outskirts of town and soon becomes denmarks wealthiest man. Jakobsen calls his new concoction carls berg named after his second new creation, carl -and in a way typical of industrialists- makes his son and the place of the factory into one name: carlsberg.
Time passes, Jakobsen builds a beautiful yet ostentatious mansion next to the factory and watches his baby grow into a sensitive artistic boy. Carl, fearing his fathers dissaproval gives up his artistic pursuits to make beer . He borrows money from him and sets up another factory next to the mansion, calling his brand "new carlsberg" . It is a greater success than his fathers.
Jakobsen is not happy with young Carls endeavor and rewards his son with a disinheritance sealing off the windows on the left wing of his mansion so as to never set eyes on his sons factory . Soon after, he dies, turning his estate into a non profit foundation.
The executors to jakobsens estate negotiate with carl to buy new carlsberg and so leave carl with enough financial independence to pursue artistic interests. Today, the Carlsberg foundation is denmarks leading financial support for the arts.The mansion also houses and funds innovators in the sciences, competing with Sweden's Nobel prize. While not as renouned as the Nobel, all residents of the mansion are entitled to free beer. (Niels Bohs spent 30 years on the second floor -see above)
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| the atrium |
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| front entrance |
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| back yard |
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| daddy jacobsen |
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| lecture hall |
