The history of the Victoria House

First the Palm House was built. It was probably designed by Georg Andreas Bull, who was also the architect behind the East and West Railway Stations, the greenhouses in the Palace Park and the university’s chemistry building at Frederiks gate 3. Shortly after the Palm House was completed, construction of the Victoria House began. It is unclear who the architect was, but it may have been people from the garden itself, Schübeler and the greenhouse gardener Carl Theodor Schultz, perhaps in collaboration with Georg Andreas Bull. First-hand knowledge of growing conditions and greenhouse climate was, in any case, crucial to ensuring conditions good enough for the Victoria water lily.

The Victoria House was taken into use in the autumn of 1876, even though it was not entirely finished. It represented an enormous step forward for the Botanical Garden, even though the greenhouse ended up being smaller than originally planned. Johan Nordal Fischer Wille, who was director of the Botanical Garden in 1905, wrote: “Unfortunately, the new greenhouses were not built according to the original, excellent plans; the allocation was cut back so much that the greenhouses had to be constructed on a reduced scale, which made them both too small and too low.”

In the first three years after the opening, the pool was used to grow tropical water lilies, lotus, papyrus, rice and cotton, while the rest of the house was filled with tropical crop plants such as sugarcane and bananas, as well as small plants of great ornamental value like orchids and begonias.

It was not until 1879 that the Victoria water lily was installed and flowered for the first time. Visitor numbers exploded to over 2,000 per day. The species was Victoria amazonica, brought as a small plant from the royal garden at Herrenhausen near Hanover and transported in a water tank all the way to the Victoria House. The plant was in poor condition on arrival, but survived, and seeds from this plant and its offspring were grown in the pool each growing season until 1904.

In 1905 it was replaced with Victoria cruziana, which is slightly smaller but easier to grow and flowers more frequently. Both species are perennial, but without grow lights in winter they had to be cultivated as annuals, and securing seed for the next season was essential. Today a hybrid between the two species is grown. This hybrid does not produce seeds, but after powerful grow lights were installed above the pond in 2009, the plant can survive the winter and grow and flower for several years in a row.

It soon became clear that the Victoria House required a great deal of maintenance and repairs. The lime plaster on the side wings was already falling off after just three years. Between 1891 and 1893, the house was partially rebuilt, and the outer walls were clad in granite.

There is a cellar beneath the central wing. From 1897, two coal-fired steam boilers were installed here to heat the Victoria pool and keep ice and cold away from the granite walls. Water ingress into the cellar caused the boilers to rust. In 1905 and 1906, the cellar was drained, and rainwater was diverted away using concrete gutters on the outside.

Even so, the building continued to deteriorate, but in 1927 an extraordinary grant from the so-called Tøyen Fund was awarded, and repair work began. The chimney, which was on the verge of collapsing, was replaced with a taller and more robust one. Ventilation was improved, and the roofs of the side wings were rebuilt and fitted with larger panes of glass so that more light could enter. In 1935 the Victoria House was equipped with electric lighting.

Originally, the Victoria House had double-glazed windows. The outer panes regularly had to be taken down for washing, re-puttying and painting. In the 1950s, the double windows were replaced with single panes, and the earth floors in the side wings were replaced with cast floors. In 1996, the glass roof was once again refurbished. In the meantime, the house had been fitted with twin-wall plastic sheets, which were now removed and replaced with glass panes in wooden frames. The steel structure was sandblasted, protected against corrosion and surface-treated.

In 2008–2009, the building, together with the Palm House, underwent external restoration. High humidity had led to flaking plaster, rot damage in the timber and rust damage in the iron elements. The walls were replastered with lime mortar. The roofs were rebuilt, but the glazed tiles were reused. All flashings, gutters and downpipes were replaced with new zinc ones in the same design as before. The original windows and doors were restored, and newer doors and windows were replaced with copies of the originals.

In 2012, the oil heating was replaced with district heating. In 2017, the UNI Foundation granted funds for new climate control in the Victoria House and the Palm House, and in 2018 the system was rebuilt to reduce energy consumption and provide better control of air and water temperature.