The Stork Fountain is located on Amagertorv in central Copenhagen, Denmark. It was a present to Crown Prince Frederik (later Frederik VIII) and Crown Princess Louise in connection with their silver wedding in 1894. It depicts three storks about to set off.
Since 1950 it has been a tradition that newly graduated midwives dance around the fountain.[1][2]
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In 1888, the Society for the Beautification of Copenhagen announced a competition for a fountain on the prominent square to celebrate the upcoming silver wedding of Crown Prince Frederik (VIII) and Crown Princess Louise on 28 July 1894.[3] Peder Vilhelm Jensen-Klint proposed a fountain depicting an Amager farmer sitting on a .[4]
The competition was won by Edvard Petersen and Vilhelm Bissen. Another entry in the competition was Bindesbøll's and Skovgaard's Dragon Fountain, which was later erected in the City Hall Square where it is now seen.[5]
The fountain was inaugurated in 1894. During the late 1960s the fountain became a popular venue for members of the protest movements.
The fountain consists of a nine-sided basin of stone. It collects water from the bronze bowl at the top and the three small cascades around the edges of the central pedestal. The pedestal is decorated with reliefs of aquatic plants and in the basin there are frogs sitting on dock leaves, spewing jets of water. On a shelf in the pedestal sit three large birds, each about to set off in its direction.[6]
It has persistently been maintained that the birds depicted are in fact herons. In 2008 representatives from the Danish Ornithological Society stated that this is not true and that the birds are in fact storks.[7]
In early 2009, as part of a classroom experiment on viral communication and social media, an online media researcher from the University of Copenhagen created a Facebook protest group against the demolition of the Stork Fountain. In a week it managed to attract 10,000 supporters and after two weeks it had 27,000 members. However the cause was purely fictitious; there was no threat of demolition and the fountain is in fact a listed monument.[8][9]