century for use in replacing the national fleet that was lost with the bombardment of Copenhagen in September 1807. The front of the building was originally designed with large glazing panels in order to see the shell of the auditorium from the harbor side. However, Mærsk emphasized that glass does not age well, so the façade was changed to a metal grid. The front façade of the building was designed and built by Austrian façade specialists Waagner-Biro. The foyer floor is Sicilian Perlatino marble. The central foyer holds three spherical chandeliers created by the Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson. Each chandelier consists of several pieces of glass, which are semipermeable allowing some light to pass, and some to reflect. The patterns change when viewed from different angles. Designer and artist Per Arnoldi designed the logo for the opera, visible in the marble floor just inside the entrance. Painter and sculptor Per Kirkeby (1938–2018) created four bronze reliefs for the wall to the auditorium, just below the maple wood part. Per Arnoldi also designed the Front curtain for the main stage, made of multiple color threads creating a three-dimensional effect, that does not reproduce well in photographs. The rear wall of the foyer and balcony faces are maple. The architects' original intention was to make the wood look like that from an old violin. However using the same technique would have been far too expensive. Instead, they have tried to imitate the color using more traditional staining techniques, and the result is very close (the official homepage says differently, but the guides in the Opera tell this story). Due to the orange color and its form, it is suitably known by locals as the pumpkin. The auditorium ceiling is gilded with about 105,000 sheets of almost pure carat (100%) gold leaf. The floor in the main auditorium is smoked oak. The balcony faces have been designed with openings in a special pattern to improve sound quality, and LED-based lighting that can be illuminated in a variety of patterns. Controversy After the inauguration of the Opera, architect Henning Larsen took the unusual step to write a critical book about the building and how it was built. Larsen here distances himself from the Opera and calls it a "mausoleum" for Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller and "without comparison the most owner-infected [bygherreinficerede] 'worst-case' in my fifty years as an independent architect – squeezed between the Phantom