Alfred Nobels Bro

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Alfreds Bro Map.jpg
 

A new harbour bridge, Alfred Nobels Bro, was opened in the middle of December.

In the south harbour, south-west of the centre, the bridge crosses Frederiksholmsløbet - a wide canal off the main harbour - and links Enghave Brygge and the area around the shopping centre of Fisketorvet - to the large area of new apartment buildings of Teglholmen.

The north side of the bridge is close to the power station H C Ørsted Værket and close to the site for a new metro station. Until the excavations and work for the metro are completed in 2023, the new bridge can only be used by cyclists and pedestrians but it will then take all vehicles.

This is the final link that completes the 13 kilometre circuit around the inner harbour for bikes and walkers and runners.

The canal here is 90 metres wide and the bridge deck is wide with two lanes for traffic at the centre; wide lanes for bikes on both sides and wide pavements. The pavement on the side looking inwards, down the canal, is bowed outwards and has a broad single bench, with its back hard against the road, 70 metres long and with a bowed shape that follows the plan of the bridge itself.

It's not clear why the bench faces down the canal rather than towards the open harbour unless the idea is that people will sit here to catch the last of the evening sun - an attempt to repeat the way that Dronning Louises Bro over the lakes to the west of the city is used as a popular place for people to sit in the evening before they head home from work.

The deck is supported on pairs of concrete columns that lean outwards but the structure is so large that it can hardly be called elegant and until the new apartment buildings are completed it really would be difficult to describe the views from the bridge as attractive.

The team behind the design of the bridge were COBE Architects, the engineers MOE, Arkil Holding A/S and G9 Landscape who made the mahogany bench.

 

Knippelsbro - KULTURTÅRNET

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At the centre of the harbour is Knippelsbro - the bridge between the historic centre of the city and Christianshavn. There has been a bridge here since the early 17th century when houses and warehouses were first built on land claimed from the sea in what was then a wide stretch of open water between the walled settlement of Copenhagen and the island of Amager.

The present bridge was completed in 1937 - designed by Kaj Gottlob and built by Wright, Thomsen & Kier with Burmeister & Wain - an engineering company whose works were just to the west of the bridge and whose ship yards were then to the east at Refshaleøen.

Earlier bridges had been at the level of the quay so had to be raised for most shipping to pass and were relatively narrow. As the port expanded, traffic crossing over and passing under the bridge increased so the new bridge, with a deck well over 27 metres wide, meant there could be tram tracks in each direction down the centre, wide lanes for traffic and wide pavements and, set much higher, with long approach ramps on both sides, the bridge only had to be raised for the larger ships passing through to the quays where the National Library now stands and to a long line of quays along the Islands Brygge side.

With its two copper-clad towers on distinctive stone piers, set just out from the quays, the bridge is an iconic and perhaps the iconic feature of the inner harbour.

Those towers held control rooms and sleeping accommodation for the men who supervised and opened the bridge but with the decline in harbour traffic the bridge is now controlled from the tower on the city side and the tower on the south or Christianshavn side of the bridge has been redundant for many years. A long campaign of lobbying and a serious programme of restoration work has lead to the south tower reopening as a new cultural attraction in the city. Visitors can climb up to the upper viewing gallery for amazing views up and down the harbour and in the process appreciate the quality of the well-thought through and careful design of the tower itself … now restored as one of the major monuments in the city from the 1930s that can be seen in its original form.

Some facilities were upgraded, including the fitting out of a new kitchen, so the tower can be used for social and cultural events including as a venue for meetings and meals and there have even been a couple of jazz concerts.

For information - Kulturtårnet or email l.lyndgaard@gmail.com

 

Cirkelbroen

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Last Saturday there was an official opening for the most recent bridge to be completed in Copenhagen … the Cirkelbroen that crosses the south end of Christianshavns Kanal where it re-enters the harbour opposite the Royal Library.

Cirkelbroen is part of a much wider plan to link together routes for cyclists to cross the harbour and for pedestrians to walk through Christianshavn and Holmen. Two new bike and pedestrian bridges opened on Holmen this summer. Another major bridge over the harbour for cyclists and pedestrians near the Skuespilhuset, the Royal Danish Theatre, is close to being finished and the construction of another bike bridge further south down the harbour has just been announced.

Last night, walking back from supper out, I cut around Christianshavn to see the finished bridge and to take photographs. Cirkelbroen was designed by the Olafur Eliasson Studio in Berlin and has a very unusual construction with a series of interlocking circles forming the bridge deck. These are supported by what look like a series of ships' masts and the circles will pivot apart to allow taller boats to leave or enter the canal from the main harbour.

Olafur Eliasson, the Icelandic/Danish artist, explained the form of the bridge in an interview published on the archdaily site and there are diagrams and videos on the artists own site show how the bridge opens.

“While working on the bridge, I remembered the fishing boats I saw as a child in Iceland. In the harbour, the boats were often moored right next to each other, and it sometimes seemed that you could even cross the harbour just by walking from boat to boat.”

“As many as 5,000 people will cross this bridge each day. I hope that these people will use Cirkelbroen as a meeting place, and that the zigzag design of the bridge will make them reduce their speed and take a break. To hesitate on our way is to engage in bodily thought. I see such introspection as an essential part of a vibrant city.”

When I visited Your Rainbow Panorama by Eliasson at ARoS in Aarhus I had expected children to be running around the circuit - the art gallery was packed out with school parties who were all really well behaved but even so … Then when I got up to the roof-top walkway I was amazed that people slowed right down, walking slowly, talking quietly, looking out over the city. It can’t always be like that but the calm and peace were impressive.

Equally, at Louisiana last summer with his Riverbed installation, I have rarely seen so many people quietly lost in thought as they walked slowly through the galleries. Amazing.

Last night I expected a tangle of cyclists and walkers - it is unusual for cyclists in Copenhagen to slow down for anything - but again people were standing around in small groups admiring the engineering, talking quietly, or leaning against the railing of the bridge to admire this new place to stop to look out over the harbour. Cyclists slowed down. Great. Long may it last.

 

Cykelslangen / The Cycle Snake

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This is Cykelslangent or the Cycle Snake … the most recent bridge to open in Copenhagen.

Designed by the architectural practice Dissing+Weitling, it forms a crucial part of the rapidly expanding network of cycle routes around the city and forms an important link between the west and east sides of the harbour. 

Coming from the city side, the new bridge curves out and over one of the boat basins on the west or Havneholmen side and crosses in front of the Fisketorvet shopping centre, before linking with the older pedestrian and cycle bridge, the Brygge Broen or Brew Bridge, that crosses over the harbour itself and was completed in 2006.

That older bridge was also designed by Dissing+Weitling and is shown here from the west side looking towards the distinctive Gemini Residence - converted from grain silos that were originally part of a soy-bean-cake factory - but now with 84 apartments designed by MVDV / JJW Architects and completed in 2005.

The cycle route links the Vesterbro quarter of the city, immediately west of the main railway station, with extensive new blocks of apartments on the Islands Brygge side of the harbour and, beyond the apartment buildings, with the new part of the university, on the Amager campus.