Read about the previous seminars here:
The manors of the 20th and 21st centuries
Seminar on Wednesday, March 26th 2025
The theme of this year's seminar was: The development of Danish manor houses in the 20th and 21st centuries. The theme was to examine the functional, aesthetic, economic and social transformations that have left and are still leaving their mark on Danish manor houses.
This was examined based on the following questions:
- How do we approach the major task of researching the modern history of the manor?
- Why does it make sense to study the manor house as a prism for social development over the last century – and how do we approach this task?
- From what concepts should we understand the manor and its owners today? How does the modern manor look as an organization and workplace?
- How are the manor houses' historic main buildings, farm facilities, staff buildings, parks and farm landscapes managed in an interaction with the various new functions that have gained ground in the Danish manor environment in the 20th and 21st centuries?
This year's seminar took place at Løvenholm.
Changable and Marvelous –Manor house construction; reconstruction, renovation and redecoration
Seminar on Thursday, March 21st 2024
The theme of this year's seminar was: The technical, aesthetic and practical factors that have shaped – and continue to shape – the main building of the manor. Many Danish manors can display main buildings that are the result of centuries of renovations and extensions. These old houses can be understood as the results of a continuous negotiation between ideals and practice; a sometimes surprising dialogue between aesthetic preferences, technical possibilities and requirements and wishes for daily use and comfort. At Slots- og Herregårdsforums spring meeting 2024 the complex factors that concern the long life of the houses were delved into.
This year's seminar took place at Gammel Estrup.
See this year's programme here
Pictures from the big roof replacement project at Gammel Estrup
PowerPoint Presentations
Presentation (PP): Louise Sebro og Marie Brinch: Reventlow and Archeology
Oplæg (PP): Rasmus Agertoft: The Necrophiliac Collector
Oplæg (PP): Sara Utvaag: Antiquity at the Manor House
Oplæg (PP): Benjamin Tvede: Manor Hunting
Oplæg (PP): Listbet Tarp: Formation of Collections
Oplæg (PP): Annette Hoff: Lichtenberg's Art Cabinet, Coin and Medal Collection and Reference Library
Oplæg (PP): Anders Toftgaard: Otto Thott's Library and Collections
The manor collections and the impact of collecting culture in the manor environment
Seminar on Tuesday, March 21st 2023
The theme of this year's seminar was: Manor Collections and the Impact of the Collecting Culture. Manors are among our earliest and longest lasting sites of collecting, and the objects that manors housed have helped to characterize them in the same way as their architecture and the families that owned and inhabited them. It is an under-exposed phenomenon that has had great significance within the Danish manor environments. Therefore, the Slots- og Herregårdsforum convened a seminar.
This was examined through questions such as:
Who excluded or included the knowledge/educational culture that the collections represented – and how?
What type of knowledge/education was associated with prestige in the manorial environment – and how were collections staged with a view to asserting this prestige?
How do manor collections position themselves in relation to today's knowledge culture, where the systematics of collection are often criticized as an expression of power and exclusion?
This year's seminar took place at Odense Adelige Jomfrukloster.
The Manor Landscape
Seminar on Tuesday, March 29th 2022
The theme of this year's seminar was: Mapping and understanding the Danish manor landscapes. The landscape is constantly changing – and thus also the manor landscape. On the one hand, nature is not so easily tamed. On the other hand, changing cultivation methods over time, combined with changing authority requirements, movement patterns, habits in and desires for the landscape around us, mean that nothing in terms of landscape remains the same.
Since the 15th/16th century (and perhaps even earlier) the landscapes of rural areas have been characterised by the manors, their buildings, production, relationships with the local population and the landscape ‘glories’ that they cultivated and protected. The traces of the manors’ historical presence in the Danish landscape are still noticeable and help shape our experiences of nature and understanding of nature today.
But have we done enough to map and understand the Danish manor landscapes? This was attempted to be answered at Gammel Estrup with this seminar, which put this area under an extra magnifying glass.
This year's seminar took place at Gammel Estrup in collaboration with Center for 19th Century Studies at Aarhus University.
Culture, Class and Contacts
– Art and the Manors 1830-1890
Seminar on Tuesday, April 13th 2021
The theme of this year's seminar was: The relationship between the Danish manor environment and art in the period 1830-1890.
This year's seminar took place at Gammel Estrup in collaboration with Center for 19th Century Studies at Aarhus University.
Manor consumption
Seminar Tuesday, October 6th 2020
The theme of this year's seminar was: How people of the past spent their money and lived their lives – for everyday life and for celebrations. With a theme of consumption, it was a desire to illuminate the connections between buildings and people, manor and local area, country and city. On the one hand, we wanted to see the manor as a center for status consumption and communication of power – and on the other hand as a lived space for everyday shopping.
The focus was, among other things, on global and local stories about the manor as a space for smuggled goods, for supplies for the pantry, for luxury objects and goods, and as a space for the lived life of the nobility and servants.
What goods were bought and sold, where the objects were placed, and what their relationship was to the manor's interior, people, and economy.
The seminar took place at Skjoldemose på Fyn
The abolition of entailed estates and the manors in the 21st century
Seminar on Thursday, April 25th 2019.
The theme of this year's seminar was: The abolition of entailed estates. In 2019, it was 100 years ago that the entailed estates were abolished. It had fatal consequences for a number of noble families, who in the wake of the law were forced to sell their estates. Many of these manors were then given new functions. In many ways, the law thus marked the end of the prominent societal role that the manors had had over the centuries – both economically, socially and culturally. Yet the manors and the history of them remain today as one of the cornerstones of our common Danish cultural heritage and identity.
This year's seminar took place on Brobygaard, Funen
The occupation period and the Danish manors
Seminar on Wednesday, May 16th 2018
The theme of this year's seminar was: Nobility and manor in light of war and occupation. Including on the one hand as a symbol of treason and on the other hand of the war's assault on the national cultural heritage. The seminar was held on Fussingø near Randers. Central to the seminar as a perspective on Danish conditions was PhD Elyze Storms-Smeet's new research project on the manors on the German-Dutch border before and after the Second World War. The day before there was a study trip to manors in Himmerland, where Lindenborg, Nørlund Gods and Overgaard were visited.
