DENMARK: The Danfoss Museum is to re-open next month after a complete upgrade of the facility.
The museum, which is located in Mads Clausen’s childhood home in Nordborg, adjacent to the current factory, animates and updates the history of Denmark’s largest industrial company through audio-visual and digital effects. It re-opens on March 23.
Peter Mads Clausen, chairman of the Bitten & Mads Clausen Foundation which runs the museum, said: “We feel the greatest respect for maintaining and continuing our history. Our heritage helps realise the Danfoss DNA; it reflects our thinking, our CSR policy, our credibility, and our significance. In order to have a base for the future, it is necessary that we know about our origins.”
The original farmhouse in Nordborg where Danfoss started is now the company museum
As a young boy, Mads Clausen spent time in his great-grandfather’s workshop, and this is where his interest in engineering began. The dining room contains the table where he told his parents about his ideas. In the loft is Mads Clausen’s first and favourite office, which he kept until his untimely death in 1966, and where he tested the very first expansion valve in a bucket of water, which dripped into the dining room below. Mads Clausen was scolded for the wet floor, but the valve was tight, and 1933 saw the beginning of Danfoss.
It is the quantity and quality of the historical materials that make up the framework of the Danfoss Museum. From the outset, the company has seen the need to maintain all the items which tell its story. Many ex-employees still work for the museum, via the Danfoss Historical Association.
The museum is maintained under the auspices of Danfoss Historical Archives, which has more than 60,000 black and white photos, 100,000 negatives, and 40,000 old glass plate photos. To these can be added digital photos and more than 100,000 written sources and physical objects, including all the old Danfoss products, such as the first expansion valve, the first radiator thermostat, the first VLT drive, and first hydraulic motor.
