traffic lights

 

Back in the new year, I was walking towards the National Bank in Copenhagen and traffic lights on the pedestrian crossing were against me.

Waiting on the pavement opposite side of Holmens Kanal, I realised that there were new, neat and slim traffic lights here with a less cluttered profile …. obvious against the plain stonework of the bank building. The lights themselves look larger but flatter - no heavy convex front as a lens - and they are bright and clear and no clumsy shades so presumably it’’s a narrow LED beam.

Tags on the traffic lights show that they are from the Austrian company Swarco. The PEEK label indicates they have the technology that gives emergency blue-light services priority.

Street furniture and road signs - particularly traffic lights - are a significant feature of any city-centre street scape and their size and exact position are determined primarily by the need for safety where traffic can be moving fast or where the arrangement of lanes and sight lines can be complicated and a visual distraction for any road user so they have to be obvious but, if they are badly placed or badly designed, they can have a huge and detrimental impact when silhouetted against important historic buildings.

This is a very busy junction with heavy traffic and, with various filter lanes, the roads are wide so lights for pedestrian crossings have to be well-placed and clear.

Over the last few months, these slim new lights have been installed at other junctions around the city …. here at the busy road intersection at Østerport railway station to the north east side of the city centre.

Swarco Alustar

Bispeengbuen - a new plan

Yesterday, an article in the Danish newspaper Politken reported that planners and politicians in Copenhagen might have come to a decision on the fate of Bispeengbuen - the section of elevated motorway that runs down the border between Frederiksberg and the Nørrebro district of Copenhagen.

One of several major schemes to improve the road system in the city in the late 1960s and 1970s, Bispeengbuen was planned to reduce delays for traffic coming into the city from suburbs to the north west.

At the south end of the elevated section, at Borups Plads, traffic, heading into the city, drops back down to street level and continues first down Ågade and then on down Åboulevard to the lakes and, if it is through traffic, then on, past the city hall, and down HC Andersens Boulevard to Langebro and across the harbour to Amager.

Between the elevated section and the lakes, the road follows the line of a river that, from the late 16th century, had flowed through low-lying meadows - the Bispeeng or Bishop's Meadow - and brought fresh water in to the lakes. In 1897, the river was dropped down into a covered culvert and it still flows underground below the present traffic.

From the start, the elevated section was controversial as it cuts past and close to apartment buildings on either side - close to windows at second-floor level - and the area underneath is gloomy and generally oppressive. Traffic is fast moving and generates a fair bit of noise and it forms a distinct barrier between the districts on either side.

There has been an ambitious plan to drop the road and its traffic down into a tunnel with the river brought back up to the surface as the main feature of a new linear park. The full and very ambitious plan - for ambitious read expensive - was to extend the tunnel on to take all through traffic underground, to Amager on the south side of the harbour.

There has been talk of a less expensive plan to demolish the elevated section, to bring all traffic back down to street level, which would be cheaper but would not reduce the traffic and would leave the heavy traffic on HC Andersens Boulevard as a barrier between the city centre and the densely-populated inner suburb of Vesterbro.

This latest scheme, a slightly curious compromise, is to demolish half the elevated section. That's not half the length but one side of the elevated section. There are three lanes and a hard shoulder in each direction and the north-bound and city bound sides are on independent structures. With one side removed, traffic in both directions would be on the remaining side but presumably speed limits would be reduced - so, possibly, reducing traffic noise - and the demolished side would be replaced by green areas although it would still be under the shadow of the surviving lanes.

It was suggested in the article that this is considered to have the least impact on the environment for the greatest gain ... the impact of both demolition and new construction are now assessed for any construction project.

There is already a relatively short and narrow section of park on the west side of the highway, just south of Borups Plads, and that is surprisingly quiet - despite alongside the road.

On both sides of the road, housing is densely laid out with very little public green space so it would seem that both the city of Copenhagen and the city of Frederiksberg are keen to proceed. Presumably they feel half the park is better than none although I'm not sure you could argue that half an elevated highway is anywhere near as good as no elevated motorway.

The situation is further complicated because the highway is owned and controlled by the state - as it is part of the national road system - so they would have to approve any work and police in the city may also be in a position to veto plans if they feel that it will have too much of an impact on the movement of traffic through the area.

update - Bispeengbuen - 14 January 2020
update - a road tunnel below Åboulevard - 15 January 2020

note:
Given the brouhaha over each new proposal to demolish the elevated section of the motorway, it is only 700 metres overall from the railway bridge to Borups Plads and it takes the traffic over just two major intersections - at Nordre Fasanvej and Borups Allé -  where otherwise there would be cross roads with traffic lights. I'm not implying that the impact of the road is negligible - it has a huge impact on the area - but, back in the 1960s, planners clearly had no idea how many problems and how much expense they were pushing forward half a century with a scheme that, to them, must have seemed rational.

My assumption has been that the motorway was constructed, under pressure from the car and road lobby, as part of a tarmac version of the Finger Plan of the 1940s.

The famous Finger Plan was an attempt to provide control over the expansion of the city, and was based on what were then the relatively-new suburban railway lines that run out from the centre. New housing was to be built close to railway stations and with areas of green between the developments along each railway line .... hence the resemblance to a hand with the city centre as the palm and the railway lines as outstretched fingers.

Then, through the 1950s and 1960s, the number of private cars in Copenhagen increased dramatically and deliveries of goods by road also increased as commercial traffic by rail declined.

I don't know who the traffic planners were in Copenhagen in the 1950s and 1960s but, looking back, they barely appreciated old building or existing communities, and, presumably, looked to LA and, possibly, to the Romania of Nicolae Ceaușescu for inspiration. Their ultimate aim, in their professional lives, seems have been to design a perfect motorway intersection where traffic flowed without any delays.

They wanted to build a motorway down the lakes and when that was thwarted they proposed a massive motorway system that was to be one block back from the outer shore of the lakes - sweeping away the inner districts of Østerbro and Nørrebro - and with new apartment buildings along the edge of the lake - between their new motorway and the lake - that would have formed a series of semi-circular amphitheatres looking across the lakes to the old city. The whole of the inner half of Vesterbro, including the meat market area, and the area of the railway station would have become an enormous interchange of motorways where the only purpose was to keep traffic moving.

We have to be grateful that few of those road schemes were realised but there is also a clear lesson that, however amazing and visionary a major plan for new infrastructure may appear, it can, in solving an immediate problem, create huge problems for future generations to sort out.

approaching the elevated motorway from the south
the motorway from Ågade on the east side
the motorway crossing Borups Allé

the river close to the lakes at Åboulevard but now in a culvert below the road

Bispeengbuen under construction showing how it cut a swathe through the existing neighbourhood - city archive 50675

the earlier proposal to bury the road in a tunnel and bring the river back up to the surface as the main feature of a new linear park

small area of park on the west side of the road

should restaurants be allowed to move out onto the public space of streets and squares?

During the pandemic, people could not sit inside a restaurant to eat or laws were strictly enforced that limited the number of people inside and set the distances there had to be between the tables and where and when staff and customers had to wear face masks.

One solution, that helped many restarants to at least keep some business running and some staff employed, was to move tables outside but many have been left in place, spilling over pavements and across squares.

Will this appropriation of public space become permanent?

this is Læderstræde, a busy pedestrian street, close to Højbro Plads, that is around 8 metres wide. A few small tables and chairs kept hard against the front of the restaurant is one thing but these boxes of dense shrubs and the red crowd-control ropes are a bit aggressive and lorries and cars making deliveries still have to get through

 

this is Magasin Torv close to Kongens Nytorv with Strøget - the walking street - across the far end and the busy traffic of Bremerholm forming one long side.
at one time the buildings were part of the Magasin department store so hence the name of the square.
the buildings were recently restored
in recent years, the main occupant was a large and popular florist in the taller white building and they spread over the square with cut flowers and house plants so it was a vibrant, popular and thriving public space
the tenant now is a large restaurant across the whole ground floor of all three buildings and they have colonised the space and fenced it off with large iron planters
if you try to walk across the front of the buildings then you get caught up with customers waiting for tables and with waiters cutting backwards and forwards you certainly feel as if you are intruding so most pedestrians keep to the narrow pavement against the bikes and traffic along the road
is this an aggressive colonisation of what is an important if small area of communal space?

cycle city Copenhagen

It has been said many times and in many places that there are a lot of bikes in Copenhagen but, even so, it's worth repeating because there really is an amazing number of bikes in the city.

Certainly more bikes than there are cars but the statistics actually show that there are more bikes than people ... approximately five bikes for every four people.

Four out of ten Danes own a car but nine out of ten Danes own a bike and, in Copenhagen, around half of all journeys to work or to school or college are by bicycle.

Bikes first appeared on roads in the city in the late 19th century and by the 1920s and 1930s bikes had become a common and popular form of transport for ordinary people.

The city is relatively flat and, even now, Copenhagen is relatively compact so it is about 15 kilometres (or 9 miles) from Charlottenlund, in the north, to Ørestad or Kastrup on Amager in the south and 13 kilometres (or 8 miles) from Brøndby on the old western defences of the city to the beach on the Sound on the east side of Copenhagen.

Children here learn to ride a bike when they are very, very young and many, from the age of seven, cycle to school alone. Teenagers, with several friends, are happy to pile onto a cargo bike to head out for the evening and everyday you see parents on bikes taking very small kids to nursery school or picking up a bike basket of food at the local shop. As many elderly people continue to use bicycles, they are clearly the popular choice for easy and cheap transport across all age groups.

Bikes are not just used for practical everyday trips but at weekends you see whole families or large groups of friends heading out on trips and racing clubs and bike events, like triathlons, are incredibly popular both with participants but also with large crowds of spectators.

In the inner city, with its narrow cobbled streets, bikes can certainly be quicker and easier than using a car and if you think that finding a bike rack is a hassle then try to find a place to park a car.

If you live in an inner-city apartment building then finding on-street parking for a car is almost impossible but most courtyards have bike racks and, if push comes to shove, or if you have a much cherished and very expensive bike, then carrying the bike up into your entrance hall or up and out onto a balcony, if you have one, is an option.

Each year about 500,000 bikes are bought in Denmark with a population of 5.6 million and I presume most of those are upgrades rather than replacements for bikes that have been lost or stolen although, to be honest, dredging the canals and the harbour for discarded bikes is a well-organised annual event. 

Statistics taken from Cycling Embassy of Denmark
Bicycle statistics from Denmark

Nørrebrogade in the 1950s

 

the bike lane on Vester Voldgade is well used but here, on this particular day, slightly less frantic than Nørrebrogade

this is the route from Lille Langebro, the new bike and pedestrian bridge over the harbour, to Rådhuspladsen - the City Hall and the square in front of the city hall

Lille Langebro

 

Københavnerkortet / The Copenhagen Map

What makes cycling in the city easy and popular is the infrastructure for bikes ... that's the network of designated bike lanes along roads - to separate cyclists from other traffic - that makes being on a bike as safe as possible and there are also green bike lanes, with bikes segregated from vehicles, that make riding a bike fast, safe and a pleasure.

The first bike lane was laid out along Esplanaden, below the citadel, in 1892 so, this year, that's an astounding 130 years ago.

But, of course, there is also a win-win situation for cyclists where the more bikes that there are in the city then the more bike shops and bike repair shops there are and the more enthusiasts and the more bike makers there are and the more chance there is to find exactly the right bike for you.

Perhaps, the only serious problem for cyclists in the city is finding somewhere to leave a bike while you are at work or shopping or when you're out for the evening.

For people commuting every day, cyclists who have lived much of their lives or all their lives in the city, they know exactly where they are going and how they are getting there. That is why cyclists here move fast and get frustrated with tourists or pedestrians who drift around on bike lanes or dither and saunter across at pedestrian crossings .... but, even if you know the city well, keeping track of new bike lanes or plotting a route out to a new place can be a bit of a problem.

I have been meaning to post about Københavnerkortet - The Copenhagen Map - that is an amazing on-line resource.

It's a dynamic map site that is great for planning analysis but you can select features such as bike lanes with bike parking and zoom in or out and turn and save jpg images or even print out maps. It's a great way to understand an area that is new to you or to plan a bike trip out.

Københavnerkortet

 

bike racks at Nørreport on the north edge of the historic centre … a major transport interchange with local buses, a metro station and the busiest train station in the country with suburban and inter-city trains

 

cycle routes across the city with “existing bike path” in maroon and planned bike paths dotted

A “Green Bicycle Route” is marked in green, appropriately, and you can also find the location of racks for City Bikes - the rental bikes - and find bike racks

bike lanes are getting wider .... they are generally 2.3 metres wide, so two people can ride side by side, but the most recent lanes in Copenhagen have set a new standard being 2.8 metres wide which means that a fast-moving cyclist can get past a cargo bike or two cyclists side by side without moving out into car traffic.

it has been shown that when a new bicycle lane is constructed, bike traffic on the road increases by between 10% and 20%

cycle lanes around the historic centre with bike racks … with narrow cobbled streets in the centre of the city, there are very few designated bike lanes although recommended routes are marked

coming into the city there are fast bike lanes into the centre from the north east along Store Kongensgade and out of the city along Bredgade, and from the harbour and the south part of the city to the city hall along Vester Voldgade.

new, better, cycle-friendly lanes are being laid out from Nørreport down Nørregade and, further out, recent road works have improved the bike lanes and road markings on Østerbrogade and along the city end of Amagerbrogade

bikes are given priority or separate time intervals for crossing at busy junctions with traffic lights and blue lanes across junctions are used both to mark clear routes for bikes and to warn drivers in cards and vans and lorries of the danger if they are turning across lanes where bikes have priority

 

POET SLASH ARTIST at Kunsthal Charlottenborg

Commisssioned initially for the Manchester International Festival and curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist and Lemn Sissay, the exhibition has been reconfigured for Denmark and includes the works of 35 Danish and international artists and poets. 

Work from Poet Slash Artist will also shown in streets, and at train stations and bus stops at several hundred locations across Denmark.

This is the first exhibition of what is to be a biennale event.

Poet Slash Artist
20 November to 31 December 2021
Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Nyhavn 2, Copenhagen

 

update - armors moved to Sankt Annæ Plads

 

ARMORS, the sculptures by Icelandic artist Steinunn Thórarinsdóttir, have been moved from Kongens Nytorv to Sankt Annæ Plads.

The installation has three pairs of figures and in each pair there is an androgynous figure who is set apart from and facing a figure in medieval armour.

The three figures in armour are different and are from the collection of the New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and have been reproduced through the use of 3D scanning. The androgynous figures are based on studies of the artist’s son.

These figures stand on the ground, rather than being set up on a pedestal, and, visually, seem to work better on the gravel surface here.

The statues remained on Kongens Nytorv for longer than suggested in the original programme.

armors on Kongens Nytorv

Steinunn Thórarinsdóttir
Galleri Christoffer Egelund
Kongens Nytorv from 24 August
Sankt Annæ Plads 15 September ? - December 2021

Nørrebro ... the coolest neighbourhood

Recently, TimeOut Magazine published the results of their poll to find the 49 coolest neighbourhoods in the world.

The common criteria seemed to be that neighbourhoods have to have good food and to be fun with strong and diverse cultures but - with cities still caught up in the pandemic - there also has to be space for life outdoors and some sense of community spirit, resilience and sustainability.

Generally these neighbourhoods are fairly central, on the edge of the city centre, and distinctly urban so generally densely built, preferably with historic or re-purposed industrial buildings and with little high rise so dynamic urban areas rather than areas concocted by political committee or ‘planned’ on a drawing board and barely a developer in sight.

For most of these neighbourhoods, green space and water - rivers or lakes - are a huge plus but also life seems to spill over, into and across the streets where there is a strong sense of the local so independent shops and new and upcoming restaurants with barely a global chain in sight.

Nørrebro - the inner northern suburb in Copenhagen - slightly to my surprise - came in as the number one neighbourhood in the world. That's no disrespect to Nørrebro, but, here in Copenhagen, citizens of Vesterbro, Østerbro and Christianshavn would all challenge the decision.

But the TimeOut poll concluded that Nørrebro " is a dazzling blend of historic landmarks, ultramodern architecture and food and drink joints to make this famously gourmet city proud."

Traditionally, Nørrebro has been an area of cheaper housing and mostly housing in older apartment buildings dating from the late 19th century or the early 20th century. It attracts students and newcomers to the city looking for somewhere to live and the mixture of cultures here means that there are vibrant, cheap restaurants and diverse food shops and there are also good cinemas and theatres.

On the down side, Nørrebro has less green space than any of the other neighbourhoods of the city although that is something the planners are trying to rectify but the south edge of the area is defined by a string of lakes that once formed a part of the outer defences of the old city and the paths around the lakes are now an incredibly popular place for people to walk or run. There are popular restaurants with outdoor seating on the Nørrebro side of the lakes.

These lakes form the boundary between the inner city and Nørrebro and a wide stone bridge over the lakes, with wide pavements and ornate iron street lights, has a parapet that faces south west so this is a good and often sunny place to meet up in the late afternoon or early evening as people head in and out of the city.

Fælledparken, a huge open area with sports pitches and gardens and lakes, is immediately east of  the district but the only large, open areas of green space within the neighbourhood are a long, curved park across the north side - on the line of an old railway - and the large cemetery - Assistens Kirkegård - that is crossed by paths and avenues of trees where families come to walk and look and sit on benches in the sun to talk. A Sunday afternoon stroll in a cemetery …. you can't get much cooler than that and it is an easy, traffic-free route to Jægersborggade ... a shopping street so cool it's almost very uncool.

the TimeOut poll

1 Nørrebro, Copenhagen
2 Andersonville, Chicago
3 Jongno 3-ga, Seoul
4 Leith, Edinburgh
5 Station District, Vilnius
6 Chelsea, New York
7 XI District, Budapest
8 Ngor, Dakar
9 Sai Kung, Hong Kong
10 Richmond, Melbourne

with the stations of the metro inner circle that opened a couple of years ago - marked here - and with Nørrebro train station on the suburban rail service and frequent buses along Nørrebrogade that run out to the airport, the neighbourhood is now well served by public transport

 

Assistens Kirkegård

 
 

Nørrebro Theatre
Dronning Louises Bro - crossing the lakes - is the gateway to Nørrebro
Nørrebro library and Nørrebrohallen sports halls in converted tram sheds

Nørrebro suburban railway station
Dronning Louises Bro on a quieter day
Superkilen park - a long and narrow urban park designed after extensive discussions with local people

 

Kunst & Psyke / Art & Psychology .... try walking in my shoes

An exhibition on Kongens Nytorv that marks World Mental Health Day on 10 October.

The aim is to increase awareness of mental illness and to help a wider public to understand some of the problems that fellow citizens have to deal with when they live with a range of problems from psychotic episodes to hyper activity and attention disorders.

Curated by Ane-Cecilie Tovgaard, each panel has a portrait of the person and a photograph of their shoes and an account - a pen portrait - about problems encountered and about the consequences, day to day, from mental illness or mental difference.

Yet again, this open-air exhibition shows how public space in the city brings important issues to a large number of people who might not go to a museum or gallery or indoor venue for a specific event but whose attention can be attracted as they walk across the space.

Kunst & Psyke
Try Walking in My Shoes
4 October - 25 October 2021

 
 

Car Free Sunday 19 September 2021


Much of the centre of the city was closed off to traffic for the Copenhagen Half Marathon in the morning and signs and bariiers and marshalls were in place so the restrictions were kept in place through the afternoon for Car Free Sunday.

All the gantries for TV cameras were still in place on Dronning Louises Bro but after the runners are passed along Nørrebro the normally busy road was converted with food stalls and play areas for children including dance lessons. DJs set up sound systems and people broght out their deck chairs or just sat on the kerb chatting to neighbours. Kids used chalks to cover the tarmac with amazing drawings.

It all showed, only too well, what we give up to cars.

 

the Ministry of Culture

the south front of the Ministry of Culture from Thorvaldsens Museum on Slotsholmen

On 19 September 1961, Julius Bomholt was appointed to be the first Minister for Kulturelle Anliggender or Minister of Cultural Affairs so today marks the 60th anniversary of the establishment of a Danish Ministry of Culture.

In 1986, after the minister was given additional areas of responsibility, there was a change of name to Kultur - og kommunikationsminister or Minister of Culture and Communications and then in 1988 the title was shortened to Kulturminister or Minister for Culture

The current Kulturminister is Ane Halsboe-Jørgensen. 

As a relatively small country, Denmark has just 20 cabinet minister -including the post of statsminister or prime minister - and, by tradition, the minister for culture also has responsibility for religion and for sport.

Beyond the major departments of government such as Finance, Justice, Defence and Foreign Affairs, the remit of the various ministers and their formal titles reveals much about the priorities set by a government and how ministers divide responsibility.

Denmark has a minister for children and education, a minister for science, technology and higher education and a minister for industry, business and financial affairs - all with some significant overlaps with culture.

On 16 September 1963 - so two years after it was established - the Ministry of Culture moved into the present building after the completion of extensive restoration works guided by the architect Peter Koch.

Kultur ministeriet / Ministry of Culture

now, the Minister for Culture is responsible for .........

cultural heritage in Denmark including:
archaeology, ancient monuments and dikes
buildings and environments worthy of preservation
building conservation

castles and properties through The Palaces and Culture Agency:
castles and castle gardens
construction projects
operation, development and events

cultural institutions including:
libraries
folk high schools
organisations and bodies for the performing arts
zoological facilities

cultural cooperation:
for children and young people
international cooperation
cultural agreements with municipalities

media:
grants for media
radio and TV
written media

 

note:
In France the Ministère des Affaires culturelles or Ministery of Culture was created by Charles de Gaulle in 1959 and he appointed André Malraux - author of Museum without walls as the first minister.

Since 1959, there have been thirteen changes of name as the minister was given new areas of responsibility including the environment, communication and the celebration of the French bicentenary.

In the United Kingdom, the Labour government was, presumably, wary of the idea of 'culture' so Jennie Lee was appointed the first Minister of State for the Arts in 1964. She played an important part in setting up the Open University and she consolidated and strengthened the role of the Arts Council.

In the UK Ministers of Culture rarely stay in the post for long, many seeing responsibility for art and museums as a stepping stone to something more important, so there have been 28 different ministers in all since 1964. As in other countries, the formal title for the minister has changed to reflect additional responsibilities so to Secretary of State for National Heritage from April 1992; Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport from May 1997; Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport from 2010; Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport from 2012 and Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport since 2017.

In Italy ministerial responsibility for culture came under education until 1974 when the Ministero per i Beni Culturali ed Ambientali, the Ministry for Cultural Assets and Environments, was established. There have been 27 ministers since 1974 and the official title of the minister has changed several times, taking on responsibility for cultural heritage and activities in 1998 and then tourism but in 2021 the ministry reverted to the simpler title of Ministero della cultura.

In Germany, presumably with politicians still wary of being seen to promote culture as a strong aspect of national identity, administration for culture is at the level of the Länder rather than under a single minister in the national government. 


the building on Nybrogade and Det Kongelige Assistenshuset

After the fire that destroyed a large area of the city in 1728, the building on this plot at the corner of Gammel Strand and Nybrogade - owned by the wealthy State councillor Christen Bjerregaard - was rebuilt in brick around three sides of a courtyard with the fourth side, towards the canal, closed by a wall and a gateway.

Main rooms were on the north frontage, towards Snaregade, and in the east range and on the ground floor of the west range there was a carriage house.

The building was let to Minister CA von Berckentin from 1740 until 1755 when he moved to a mansion in Bredgade (the Odd Fellow Mansion) and the house on the canal was then sold to two French hat manufacturers who conducted their business from the basement and rented out the rest of the property.

In 1757 the house was sold to the Norwegian Maritime Administrations Kvæsthus and Assistenshus and rebuilt to designs by Philip de Lange - the most fashionable architect of the period - with the work completed in 1765

A range of new rooms was added across the side towards the canal, where there was previously a screen wall. The main feature of the new front to the canal is an ornately-decorated entrance to the courtyard through a central gate arch.

The building was given more prominence in 1857 when the Vejerhus - the Weighing House - and Accisehus or Customs House buildings, immediately to the east, were demolished.


Det Kongelige Assistenshus was a mortgage company established by a royal ordinance in 1688. The privilege was granted first to the merchant Nicolai Wesling and the assistenhus was Initially in a building he owned on Kvæsthusgade close to Nyhavn. On the death of Wesling the privilege passed to Diderik Frandsen Klevenow in Frederikborggade.

Following bankruptcy in the middle of the 18th century, Assistenshus, by then in Snaregade, became a royal institution and appears to have moved to this building at the corner of Nybrogade and Gammel Strand in the late 18th century.

Increasingly unprofitable, presumably because it was unable to compete with commercial banks, the institution was closed by the Folketning in 1974 and unredeemed mortgages were sold at auction.

Daguerretype by T Neubourgh from 1840 showing Gammel Strand with Assistenshus just visible on the left edge behind the
Vejerhus - the Weighing House - and Accisehus or Customs House -
the large building that looks like a warehouse with a yard with low buildings
and, in front with a hipped roof, Pramlaugets Hus - the Bargemens' Guild House
these buildings, at the west end of Gammel Strand were demolished in 1857
- Museum of Copenhagen archive 74210

Assistenshuus in 1902 - Museum of Copenhagen archive 64215

note:
For a detailed assessment of how the harbour at Gammel Strand developed through the medieval and early modern period see Gammel Strand Archaeological Report from Københavns Museum following the excavation of the site in 2014 that was undertaken before the construction of the new metro station at Gammel Strand.

 

balcony blight has spread to Jægersborggade

With Coronavirus lockdown restrictions, it has been many months since I have been up to Jægersborggade but Saturday was sunny, and I needed some exercise, so I walked up to the lakes and then on along Nørrebrogade and through Assistens Kirkegård.

As soon as I got into Jægersborggade, opposite the north gate of the cemetery, I could see that construction work had started to add balconies to the front of several of the west-facing buildings.

This whole business of retrofitting older apartment buildings with new balconies has become a serious problem in the city.

read more

 
 

Understanding


A large new sculpture has been set up on Ofelia Plads - the long wide concrete pier or mole that runs out from the north side of Skuespilhuset - The Royal Danish Playhouse.

Work No. 2630 Understanding by the British artist Martin Creed was planned to be part of the celebrations in Roskilde for the 50th anniversary of the festival in 2020 where there were to be three giant words with peace and love alongside understanding but, with the pandemic, the festival was cancelled. The plan now is that the sculpture will be moved to Roskilde if the festival can be held in 2021.

The huge letters, outlined in red neon, form a work that is 8 metres high and 15 metres wide and it rotates so at night the reflection of the lettering pans across the water of the harbour.

 

Broens Skøjtebane / Bridge Street Iceskating

 

On top of everything else, Coronavirus seems to have distorted time. Autumn seems to have come and gone with barely a trace because the ice skating rink at the south end of the inner harbour bridge - Broens Skøjtebane - has just been set up on the square between the warehouses and the canal where, until recently, people were sitting out to eat at the food market.

The city is quieter than you would expect at this time of year and many of the traditional events have been cancelled or scaled back so there will be no skating this year outside the gates to the park at Frederiksberg; there will be no Christmas markets at Højbro Plads and Kongens Nytorv; and the launch of the Tuborg Julebryg - the special Christmas Ale - so an important evening on the calendar and always on the first Friday in November - was cancelled for the first time since the tradition was established in 1981.

Broens Skøjtebane / Broens Ice Skating Rink

 

Slægt Løfter Slægt by Svend Wiig Hansen

 

Slægt Løfter Slægt - a monumental bronze figure group by the Danish sculptor and painter Svend Wiig Hansen (1922-1997) has returned to a key position at the west end of Gammel Strand.

This long triangular space was redesigned and has been resurfaced since the new metro station at the east end of the space opened a year ago.

The site is in front of GL Strand - the art gallery of the Art Society / Kunstforeningen - and close to Kultur Ministeriet / Ministry of Culture Denmark at Nybrogade 2

Gammel Strand

Kultur Ministeriet
GL Strand

 

COBE on Frederiksberg Allé

select any image to open as sllde show

 
 

This new apartment building on Frederiksberg Allé - designed by COBE and built over a new metro station - sets a new standard for building in the city and deserves to win the Arne prize next year.

OK … it’s the slab and clad building method I rant about and rail against but that is when it is done badly with lazy or boring or cavalier design. This building shows exactly what can be done to produce an elegant and clever building by using the free tools any architect has of understanding and appreciating the use of proportion, logic, composition of masses, texture, colour tone and, with COBE, an astute knowledge of Copenhagen building traditions and an empathy with the city and its streetscapes.

The site is a square plot approximately 35 metres wide and 35 metres deep that was cleared for construction work on the new metro line and for an important new metro station here at the centre of the Allé. There was a large villa here that broke or weakened the street line so this project has been an opportunity to establish a clear and well defined street frontage but also with a sense of a new space created at the cross roads by stepping back to the corner in stages along both Frederiksberg Allé and on Platanvej - the side street.

Metro trains now run under the cross roads at an angle and, as the general principal for the metro is that both platforms and the ticket halls and entrance stairs all work in line with the train tracks, that set the angle of the lift tower to the platforms and dictated that the main entrance to the metro should be across the corner and not from either the main street or the side road. Of course the lifts and staircases could have been buried into the building, disguising or ignoring that diagonal angle, but that would not have been a challenge and much of the very best architecture is good because it works with and overcomes the problems of a specific site.

It is also important that the architects of the new building understand the main vocabulary or language of the buildings along the street …. that is, substantial apartment buildings of a high quality with angle turrets at road intersections and the use of decoration to indicate individuality or difference and status. Here the architects from COBE have resisted any temptation to produce a pastiche with domes or flourishes but use strong composition by building up elements to a corner tower and by doing that well they actually get away with producing a building that is much taller and much more solid than anything that might otherwise have been rejected by the planning authority. Given the importance of this historic street and given the potential criticism that could have landed on the desks of politicians from the wealthy and articulate people who live in the expensive homes in this neighbourhood, it had to be right.

The panels of pale brick have either areas of raised header bricks or raised courses of bricks for texture and plain sunk panels on some areas show that actually it does not need much projection or recession to throw a little shadow across the facade for definition. Many of the new buildings in the city are too flat - with no use of recession or projection - even by a slight amount - to give the facade some life.

Here, bricks are set horizontally, in the conventional way on walls where headers are pulled forward, producing a darker surface with the same colour of brick but set vertically and with much longer bricks than is normal on the sections of wall on the corner tower to produce a much softer tone that gives the wall a sheen that is almost like a textile. The windows have a projecting frame or simple architrave of headers and window frames are thin and set back but produce what looks almost like a graphic line to define the openings. There is a clever use of blind panels within the brick frames of the windows above the metro entrance to disguise a high lost area or service mezzanine inside. All this, and the good proportions of the whole and the parts, is an aspect of the design that any good 18th-century architect would understand and respect.

I’m still not convinced that the lack of any definition below the brick but above the wide openings at the corner does not look slightly weak. Steel and concrete can span any space like this without obvious support on the material of the wall face - structural features such as lintels or arches - but without them a wall hanging above a void looks insubstantial - as if it could all slide down - but here it does work because looking at the building, from the angle, it is rather like a chest of drawers with the drawers half pulled out and the corner lifted up. And then the glass tower of the metro lift slides forward under the whole lot like an actress taking the applause, slipping under the curtain of the proscenium arch. Prose too florid? Ok but it does reflect the drama of the building but drama done with an almost minimalist restraint. If this does not win an award for being the best new building in the city it certainly deserves an award for being the classiest.

To simplify what is a complicated plan, essentially, there are three parts to the building with that rectangular block cutting in from the corner and containing the metro station. On either side is a high open space rising through two floors, basically triangular and filling out the space of the plot on either side of that metro rectangle. On the initial plans there were small units on either side to create a food court with tables around the escalators that drop down to the metro platforms but in the end there are two larger restaurants and what is now a florist. On a mezzanine level are two small halls and facilities - the kulturhus - that can be rented for local events.

Above, and almost self contained, are 30 homes arranged in a squat L shape around an open courtyard that is a garden high above the street. From the courtyard itself there is access to six town houses each on two floors, with all but the corner house with dual aspects to the courtyard and to Frederiksberg Allé and then, piled on top, is another block pf six town houses above that and with roof terraces. On the west arm of the L there are relatively narrow studio flats, again with dual aspect but to the courtyard and to Platanvej - across the west side of the plot.

Upper levels of the housing are reached by open lift and stair towers with black metal framework and railings a little too much like cages. Lower apartments have entrance doors from the courtyard and the upper apartments from open external galleries … not the most common form of apartment building in the city where normally, in larger buildings, there will be a series of separate entrances along a front with separate staircases and lifts at each door and single apartments on either side at each level. Here, with the wide entrance to the metro across the corner and the commercial area on the ground floor, that was not an option.

On the courtyard side, the restrained style of the brickwork of the street frontages is abandoned for large panels of wood facing but with the grey brick used for a framing. Windows on the courtyard side are arranged with an unnecessary asymmetry and the staircases and balconies, with their black railings, begin to look a bit too much like an Escher drawing. What is good is that upper levels of the building not only step up to the corner so building up visually to the corner turret with its penthouse apartment, but they also step in or back at upper levels to disguise the height of the building when seen from street level and that also means that upper access galleries, from the lifts to the separate houses at the upper level, do not project but are on the roofs of deeper houses below and there are terraces or roof gardens on the set back so, for once, this is a major apartment block with no projecting balconies.

Frederiksberg mad-&kulturhus
COBE

 

a Copenhagen Ponte Vecchio?

For now, Copenhagen has its own version of the Ponte Vecchio …. even if it is only painted onto a tarpaulin.

Nyhavnsbroen - the bridge at the centre of Nyhavn - is being restored by Københavns Kommune … ironwork parapets on both sides are being stripped of old paint, repairs made and sections replaced and then the iron repainted in a stylish dark grey that has a deep sheen rather than gloss finish.

Nyhavn - or new harbour - was constructed in the 1670s but the first bridge across the centre was not built until 1874 and was in wood and the present bridge only dates from 1912. For those first two hundred years it was the tall masted sailing ships that came into the harbour to load and unload goods that were the priority and any bridge would have been an impediment.

The new harbour is a wide canal that runs back for about 420 metres from the main harbour so, on foot, it was relatively easy to go up to Kongens Nytorv - the large market square at the top of the harbour - and back down the other side if you wanted to get from one quay to the other.

In fact the two sides were rather distinct with city merchants in houses and warehouses on the north side and Charlottenborg - a royal palace - and the naval ship yards of Bremerholm - now Gammelholm - on the south side. There was probably little need to move from one side of Nyhavn to the other.

Toldbodgade, running away from the harbour on the north side, dates from the 1670s, when the area was established, and several timber-framed buildings from that period survive in that street, but Holbergsgade, running away from the harbour from the south end of the bridge, was only a main through road from the 1870s onwards when the dockyards were finally closed and the area was laid out with new streets and new apartment buildings so it was only at that stage that a bridge over Nyhavn became necessary.

The bridge was renovated in 1960 and then again in 1993. In the current work, the side towards the main harbour was repaired first and now the substantial scaffolding - erected to protect the workers and to contain dirt and water as the ironwork is pressure cleaned - has been moved to the inner side towards Kongens Nytorv although there the painted tarpaulin does not fit quite so well.

It has become popular to fix padlocks to the bridge with the names of couples scrawled on them in felt tip but following the cleaning this will no longer be allowed as the situation had got completely out of hand … over 5,000 locks were removed before repairs could start.

The scaffolding on the side towards the main harbour was dismantled over a Saturday so that it could be moved to the inner side for work to start there on Monday. By 10am on the Sunday morning the first new love locks on the new paintwork had appeared. Crazy.

looking across Nyhavnsbroen towards Toldbodsgade with the scaffolding and the painted tarpaulin over the parapet on the side of the bridge towards the main harbour

 

if the painted tarpaulin is a Ponte Vecchio on the cheap then this is the eternal love of Romeo and Juliet but the cheap version …. everlasting love for the price of a lock for 70 kroner - this first lock appeared by 10am on the morning after the scaffold was dismantled to be moved to the other parapet

 

just because ...........

The design store Hay is at the east end of Amagertorv and has it’s showrooms up on the second and third floor and the last time I was in there I looked out and realised that the light over the roof scape, looking towards Christiansborg, was good and, as always, if you have a camera, why miss an opportunity?

Copenhagen has the most incredible roof scape and up here, on a level with the gutters, you can see that architects and craftsmen spent effort and money on dormers and gables and entablatures that people can barely see from the ground.

This is not a great city for ornate chimney pots but then you can’t have everything.

 
 

design classic: the Copenhagen bench

This is the standard bench in the city - with iron end frames and planks of wood for the seat and the back rest that are painted Copenhagen Green - a distinct dark green that is close to black. 

The clever part is that the iron ends can be fitted with new planks if the wood is damaged or it rots. An iron tension rod underneath keeps the bench rigid and set square.

Designed for the Nordisk Industri- Landrugs- og Kunstudstilling Kjøbenhavn / Nordic Industrial, Agricultural and Art Exhibition in 1888 and still manufactured.

 

Flanøren / the flaneur

The new Museum of Copenhagen in Stormgade opened in February and has separate galleries or rooms for each of the distinct periods that together make the city what it has become …. the periods of construction and expansion that, together, explain the stages through which the city developed.

Space in the museum is good but certainly not limitless so objects from the collection in the different displays have been selected with care because they have to explain their part in a clear but sometimes fragmented story about important events and different periods of growth and of change. 

In one of the upper rooms there is a display about the city in the late 19th century with a large model of the new city hall at the centre … a building that was finished around 1905. This was the period after the ramparts and the gates of the old city were dismantled, so it was a period when the city began to expand outwards and the number of people living here increased rapidly. It was also a period of amazing developments in technology and in manufacturing … a period when trams appeared in the city and telephones and flushing toilets … a period when their lifestyle then seems familiar and not actually that different from our own lives now.

This particular part of the story of Copenhagen has been told by focusing on eight types or characters or professions from that period. People who have been chosen to represent the ways in which life was changing.

They include the Tram conductor; the Kiosk attendant; the Architect and the Engineer … so that's two jobs that were new in the city and two increasingly-important professions. There is also the part of the story of life in the city that is told through The Child because so many schools were built in this period and it was when education became available for more people and changed more and more lives. There is Cyclisten - or the cyclist - representing both new popular transport but also to show that this was a period with more leisure time for more people, and there is Kanonfotografen or the street photographer and Flanøren.

 

 

For fairly obvious reasons the last two - Kanonfotografen and Flanøren - were of particular interest ………

By profession I'm an architectural historian and a social historian but, throughout my career, looking at photographs and taking photographs have been essential parts of my work … so, taking photographs as a record; using historic photographs as important and reliable evidence that document change and using carefully-selected photographs to get across information in books and exhibitions and lectures. But I would not describe myself as a street photographer even though now I spend much of my time in the street taking photographs.

There are two types of street photographer covered by that broad term:

The first - and the focus in the museum in the gallery about the late 19th century - could be described as commercial photographers who took their studio to their customers and often, but not always, with a mobile dark room. They were taking pictures of people in the street who wanted their photographs taken - or were persuaded by the photographer that they wanted to have their picture taken. Street photographers produced the outdoor version of the studio portrait.

Until I saw the camera in the museum, and the background information with it, I had not understood just how quickly street photographers became common in the city or just how popular they were right through to the 1960s. There is one view of the square in front of the city hall that appears to show at least three cameras set up so trade must have been good and clearly, for many visitors, part of a good day out in Copenhagen was to have a photo taken.

Presumably, some of these photographers moved across to using polaroid cameras but as these became cheaper, and people could afford their own Polaroid camera to take their own instant pictures, and then, as Polaroid cameras were, in turn, replaced by cheaper and cheaper digital cameras and then phone cameras, these street photographers disappeared.

Of course, where they have resurfaced is with the photographers who work the fashionable streets of cities like New York or London or Milan and take pictures of people on the street because of their clothes or their style and then post the images to Instagram …. but that’s another story.

The second type of street photographer in Copenhagen were the photographers who photographed the streets and of the buildings and of life on the streets in the city and their works can be seen throughout the museum.

Some were taking photographs of the new streets and new buildings or of the historic buildings for books or for magazines or to sell as prints or for popular postcards and major events in the city were photographed - particularly for newspapers. Some photographers where taking photographs to document and to reveal social situations or social interactions and would now be described as a photo journalist rather than as a street photographer.

One of the first and perhaps the greatest of the early photographers to record everyday and more mundane aspects of life in a city was the French photographer Eugène Atget, who, working in Paris, took photographs of unlikely subjects like alleyways or shop windows or piles of old clothes in second-hand shops. There were also major American photographers like Paul Strand and then Walker Evans, who recorded the reality of the life of the poor. They would not have described themselves as street photographers but that was where they worked.

The Danish photographer Jacob Riis was actually eight years older than Atget. Initially, he was a journalist but then became a photographer and is now described as a documentary photographer. Riis emigrated to New York when he was just 21 and worked there rather than in Denmark so I am not sure how much his work influenced photographers working here but certainly there are amazing photographs in the city archive that record the slums and the alleys of the city that have long gone so photographers in Copenhagen were not simply interested in polite and middle-class subjects.

Kongens Nytorv ….
photographs taken around 1900

above all,
these photographs show just
how much space
cars need and take

the photographs
are from the City Archive

 

street camera
in the Museum of Copenhagen

 

not all the old photographs of Copenhagen are of the affluent streets and squares - this is Adelgade where the old house were deemed to be slums and were demolished in the 1950s

At first I was perplexed by that word Flanøren until I read the information panel where it explained that it comes from the French flâneur … a word translated as loafer if you want to be rude or, in some dictionaries a flâneur is defined as “an elegant idler” which is marginally more polite but not much more.

And they were mostly young men that you see in the photographs. Apparently, they had also called themselves Boulevardiers so obviously they strolled backwards and forwards along the fashionable streets and through the squares of Copenhagen seeing and being seen. It is fascinating that this was clearly a time when anything French had to be good …. from the boulevards to the mansard roof.

I realised that I spend much of my time walking up and down the streets of Copenhagen to take photographs but I don't think anyone would call me elegant - idler maybe - but elegant no unless it was with irony. 

Kongens Nytorv by Paul Fischer

 
 

Both the paintings and the photographs by the Danish artist Paul Fischer - he took photographs as a first stage for composing his paintings - show how the public space of the streets and the squares then played an important part in everyday life in Copenhagen and, significantly, well over a century later, the way that people in the city use the public space of the streets and the squares continues in much the same way.

Walk along Sønder Boulevard - particularly on a Friday evening after work or on a sunny Sunday afternoon - and you'd probably assume that the large number of people sitting outside and the number of children playing and the number of people using the sports courts or exercise equipment there must all be part of a relatively recent Copenhagen - a Copenhagen with much more leisure time - but, actually, using public space for exercise and for socialising has a strong and well-established history.

Copenhagen was tightly constricted by the city ramparts and even in the 16th century it must have felt crowded …. after all, the first deliberate expansion of the city was with the building of Christianshavn in the early 17th century.

Certainly through the 18th century and the 19th century, it must have felt as if everyone was living on top of each other. Through to the 1860s, when the ramparts and gates were dismantled, houses and people were tightly packed together. Over the centuries, because the city could not expand out beyond the defences, garden plots and courtyards were built over and if you look at older houses that survived the numerous fires then you can see that most started with two floors or two main floors with basements and attics but over the years nearly all of them had extra floors added so they were enlarged to three and then four and finally five floors of apartments. And, as now, if an old and low house was demolished then what replaced it was inevitably taller.

Even after the ramparts were removed and the city was able to breath … imagine taking off a tight corset after three centuries … it was not the end of densely packed housing. The new districts of Nørrebro and Vesterbro were built outside the ramparts but both areas had and still have some of the most densely-packed areas of housing in Europe. That's one reason why the public space of Sønder Boulevard, running across the south side of Vesterbro, is now so important for the people who live in the area.

It is hardly surprising that people in the city took over the streets and the squares and the wide roads immediately inside the ramparts and walked on the broad path on top of the ramparts as places to exercise and socialise. The King's Garden was opened to the public in the late 18th century and citizens have been using it ever since. Families stroll through the cemeteries in the city at weekends and there are traditions for taking the first walk in the Spring around the ramparts of Kastellet or taking a Sunday walk along Langelinie to look out across the Sound. Even Tivoli seems to be as much about walking and talking and sitting and drinking as it is about rides and thrills.

If Coronavirus has proved one thing it's that it's hard to keep Copenhagen indoors.

Paul Fischer (1860-1934)
self portrait (above) and
one of his photographs of
Kongens Nytorv in the snow

Fischer did not paint the gritty reality of life in Copenhagen around 1900 but, generally, the life of the middle classes although there are studies of flower sellers and market traders