Dansehallerne to move to Kedelhuset / The Boiler House in Carlsbergbyen

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A major industrial building - part of the old Carlsberg Brewery in Copenhagen - is to become an international centre for dance.

Kedelhuset - The Boiler House - was designed by Carl Harild (1868-1932) and was completed in 1928 to supply steam and hot water for the brewery. 

Carl Harild had been a pupil of Hack Kampmann and he succeeded Kampmann as architect at both the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotekk and at Carlsberg Brewery on Kampmann's death in 1920.

The Boiler House is a massive and impressive building at the centre of the brewery site. It is faced in red brick with a series of deep arches at the street level, with tall narrow windows at the main level and small square windows above that. Perhaps the most striking feature of the exterior are four large chimneys for the boilers on the south side.

Both Kampmann and Harild were proponents of the architectural style that is known as Nordic Classicism and features of classical architecture are obvious in the Boiler House with the careful use of symmetry and a plain stripped-back style with little decoration but architecture that relied on strong features and the use of classical forms such as lunettes and well-proportioned panelled doors and windows that are regularly divided with simple glazing bars and plain glass.

It is the interior of the building that is most dramatic with bold engineering for what is, after all, is an industrial space. There are huge concrete arches in pairs that support an impressive roof with raised  lantern with glazing for top lighting down the length of the main space.

Boilers and pipework have been stripped out and the space of the main hall is now to be adapted to be a new centre for dance and performing arts for Dansehallerne. The building will include a large performance space with different possible configurations of seating as well as rehearsal areas and meeting rooms to create flexible space that can be used for performances, dance festivals, talks and training.

Dansehallerne is a national and international organisation for dance and choreography that was established in 2012 when Dansens Hus and Dansescenen merged. They were based on the Carlsberg site, at Tap E  - opposite the Boiler House - but moved from there in 2017 when development of the brewery site started and they are currently based on HC Andersens Boulevard.

Mikkelsen Arkitekter AS are the architects for this major project that has financial support from the AP Møller Foundation.

 an introduction to the historic buildings

Mikkelsen Arkitekter AS
Dansehallerne

Svanemølleværket is to be a new museum of technology

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It has been confirmed that Svanemølleværket power station will be decommissioned by 2023.

After the building is passed to the control of By&Havn - the port authority of Copenhagen - it will be converted to be a new museum of technology with the collections of Danmarks Tekniske Museum in Helsingør moved here to the old works. Dorte Mandrup has been appointed architect for the project.

This was announced provisionally in February 2019 but the final decision has been delayed by the pandemic.

Swan Mill Works was the last major design by the architect Louis Hygom (1879-1950). Work began in 1947 and the massive building was completed in 1953. The power station is constructed in reinforced concrete but is faced with brick.

Originally the power station was coal fired but in 1985 it was converted to gas to produce area heating from its six boilers and five turbines. 

The works is dramatic and monumental in scale. Hygom, who also designed later parts of HC Ørestedsværket - the power station at the south end of the harbour - was an architect of the  Neoclassist school in the early decades of the 20th century and the design is not only rational and functional but it has striking and even beautiful proportions.

The challenge in this next stage will be to keep to a minimum changes to the fenestration and restrict the insertion of new windows and doors.

HC Ørestedsværket

Danmarks Tekniske Museum
Dorte Mandrup

 
 
 

the staircase in the south range of the Arsenal

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If you go out to the Arsenal to check out the new Ferm store then make sure you look at the main staircase that is just inside the entrance at the east end of the building.

This has turned balusters with closed strings and a very substantial wooden handrail and it rises from the ground floor to the first floor with a straight flight of steps but with a landing half way up.

The style suggests it should be from the original construction of the building in the 1760s although contemporary plans indicate that then the staircase was at the other end of the building - at the north-west corner - and with a different arrangement or plan that was a tight dogleg with half landings.

The range was originally part of the Arsenal where cannons were stored on the ground floor and other weapons and equipment kept on the first floor but in the 19th century the building was modified by the navy to be used as a gymnasium and the staircase may have been rebuilt or moved and reconstructed here at that stage.

What is interesting about the staircase is that, with the restoration work, the sub structure has been left exposed and this shows hefty or robust and high-quality timber framing below the staircase with heavy posts, cross beams supporting three strings below the steps and substantial cross braces. Clearly it was designed for heavy use.

update - Hilton Hotel on the harbour

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Work is moving forward to convert the old Nordea Bank offices for a new Hilton Hotel on this prominent harbour site by Knippelsbro. Now you can see just how high the extra story will be and you can see just how the hotel will break through to the quay - to colonise it as an attractive new feature - a valuable commercial asset - for the new hotel.

And in return ……… the city gets some new steps down to the quay from the bridge.

The old office building was much too big and, with hefty concrete cladding, brutal and ugly but in part it was those things for clear reasons. When it was constructed in the 1950s, the harbour was a working port and not a tourist destination and this was the offices of the Burmeister & Wain ship yard that was crucial for providing jobs for the city and was a major player in the post-war effort by the country to restore the economy. Looking pretty was not on the design brief.

But right here, right now, if the Hilton Group had cleared the site and started again, a scheme for a building of that size and in that position would not be given planning permission.

And then they pushed the boundaries by asking for and getting permission to add an extra floor on a building that was already too big.

Until last year I lived in an apartment buildings to the south, behind the church, and looked out across the top of the trees in the churchyard with a clear sky line broken only by the church tower and with no one looking in. Then work started and the Nordea building took a deep breath and puffed out and began to loom over the trees.

Those apartment buildings are not the most stunning design but they are well designed and carefully designed to create pleasant living space and good streetscapes on land where there had been dry docks and sheds that no one could see a way of preserving after the yards closed. More to the point, planning controls kept the apartment buildings to the same overall height as the gutter or eaves of the church …. so not to the overall height of the church roof and not to the overall height of the spire but to the height of the body of the church. That development showed at least some respect for the historic buildings that still do and still should dominate the area.

In the general sweep of things I'm only a visitor to the city so it is not my place to be offended on behalf of københavnerne - who are certainly more than capable of defending their own values - but there seems to be something basically undemocratic about these huge international hotels that break the spirit if not the letter of Janteloven. The Hilton will make use of the nearby metro - though I guess most guests will arrive by taxi - and the ferry is at the back door to serve hotel guests and the quay will make a ‘picturesque’ backdrop from their harbour-side café or bar but I'm not exactly sure what citizens get back in return. Presumably, that huge glazed new top floor will be expensive restaurants and spaces for events but how many people in the city will ever use that unless they go just once to see what is up there. They don't need another ‘new perspective’ to see over their own city or a viewing platform to look down on their fellow citizens.

 

Ørkenfortet / Desert Fort, Christianshavn

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Work is moving forward fast on Ørkenfortet, the Desert Fort - the large office building that is at the centre of the harbour at the Christianshavn end of Knipplesbro - the central bridge that crosses the harbour between the centre of the city and Christianshavn.

The interior at all levels has been gutted and all original windows and all external cladding have been removed. Work has started on cutting down new internal courtyards or light wells within the concrete structure of the block and on removing hefty concrete retaining walls along both the street frontage towards Torvegade and at the level of the quay on the end of the building towards the harbour that formed a base for the building.

Ørkenfortet was designed by Palle Suenson (1904-1987) and was completed in 1962 as offices for Burmeister & Wain who were a well-established and major engineering and ship-building company in the city. However, the engineering works closed in the 1990s and many of the buildings were demolished and replaced with office blocks along the harbour and large apartment buildings along the canal to the south.

The building by Suenson was taken over by Nordea Bank in the 1990s but, in 2017, they moved to a new office close to the metro station at DR Byen further south on Amager and the harbour building is now being converted into a hotel with almost 400 rooms for the Hilton Group.

read more

Planning Statement - appendix to the Local Plan
updated news on the development from atp ejendomme

notes:

In Danmarks Kunstbilbliotek / the Danish Art Library in Copenhagen there is a drawing of the building by Palle Suenson Inv. nr. 53296 - a perspective from Knippelsbro

While tracking down information on the building I came across a web site that revealed that the building was given a nickname by locals who called it Røven or The Arse. Initially, I assumed that was because the building was thought to be butt ugly but actually it was because at lunchtime workers in the office came out onto the forecourt and sat along the parapet of the wall along Torvegade and, for people walking along the pavement below, the only thing that could be seen from the street was a line of backsides.

 

photograph from 1965 showing Knippelsbro and Torvegade with the office building designed by Palle Suenson in the foreground and the engineering works of Burmeister & Wain beyond along the harbour as far as the canal and around the south and east side of Christians Church

 

Limbo AccrA at SPACE 10

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Concrete Skeletons: Exploring the Liminal Space of an African Metropolis

An exhibition at Space10 curated by Limbo AccrA with experimental media including sculpture and photography.

Rapid modernisation can mean that as new shopping malls and new apartments are built then buildings in older neighbourhoods are abandoned and buildings that have been started can be left unfinished …. left in limbo.

Limbo AccrA are based in Accra in Ghana and they take over unoccupied buildings and use spatial art installations to explore the role of architecture and they highlight rapid change in their city - the liminal spaces - in that time “between the what was and the what’s next.”

 

the exhibition continues until 22 November 2019

SPACE10, Flæsketorvet 10, 1711 Copenhagen
Limbo AccrA

 

The Renovation Prize 2019

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It has just been announced that the winner of the Renovation Prize for 2019 is the Hotel Herman in Copenhagen - a major project where a former electricity transformer station in the centre of the city has been converted into a major hotel and restaurant.

The substation was designed by Hans Hansen and completed in 1963.

The challenge for the conversion of the building to a hotel was to retain the character of the original facade - with it’s distinct and tightly-spaced bronze slats - but bring light into a space that is hard pressed by tall buildings at the back and on both sides. Large entrance gates, concrete floors, walkways and staircases were all retained inside the building.

With 157 renovation projects from all over the country under consideration for the prize this year, six were shortlisted and, along with the Hermann Hotel, these included:

  • Postgården (the old post office building) in Købmagergade, Copenhagen

  • Store Kongensgade 53, Copenhagen

  • Sønderparken, Fredericia

  • Villa i Sydbyen, Silkeborg

  • GAME Streetmekka Viborg, Viborg

Hermann Hotel K, Renover Prisen 2019
details for each of the shortlisted projects

 

Himmel & Hav - By & Havn at Nordhavn

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On Saturday and Sunday, By & Havn opened their exhibition in The Silo about the development of Nordhavn - or the North Harbour as one of their contributions to Kulturhaven … the harbour culture festival.

There were models, plans, historic photographs and maps to show how the harbour has developed as more and more land has been claimed from the sea and docks and quays constructed.

A relatively new terminal for the ferry to Oslo and the large dock for cruise ships along with the last area of container dock survive but the oil terminal and most commercial docks have gone and the bonded warehouses converted to offices. Now, much of the land and large areas of newly claimed land that have been built up with spoil from digging the tunnels for the new metro are now streets and squares of large apartment developments.

One task of the exhibition is to show how the development of Nordhavn will be completed through the next stages as an extension of the metro is completed but it is also, in part, a way to show new sustainability goals and to show how this area has taken on board the latest ideas about contending with climate change so, for instance, water from cloud bursts is filtered and taken into the harbour rather than being allowed to overwhelm sewage systems.

By & Havn are the development body that is also overseeing planning and the extensive and ongoing construction work in Ørestad, on the Amager side of the south harbour, and the next stage of development around the power station on the city side of the south harbour and By & Havn will oversee and control the proposed development on new islands north of Refshaleøen.

The exhibition will be open to the public again next weekend - Saturday 31 August and Sunday 1 September and after that can be opened specifically for organised groups by arrangement.

By & Havn

 
 

a new library for Nørrebro

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At the beginning of August a new public library opened in the old tram sheds in Nørrebro.

The building is set back from Nørrebrogade with a large square at the front where trams originally turned into the sheds and the original high and narrow openings towards the road have been retained but with new doors that have stylised versions of giant book cases.

Inside, the single huge space of the shed has been retained with arched openings in the brickwork along the east side towards Bragesgade kept as a strong architectural feature and to flood the space with light. The industrial roof has been kept and is now painted black.

Fittings are in pale plywood and divide up the space and there are integral breaks in the shelving with desk spaces and benches that create quiet places to work but also form views through the space.

Across the west side of the library are smaller spaces on two levels with meeting rooms above for meetings and teaching that the community can use and, like all libraries in the city, there is a play area for children to encourage even the youngest to see the library as a fun place to visit.

Further back from the road is a second huge tram shed and that was converted some years ago to a sports hall - Nørrebrohallen - and there is now a large entrance area and large cafe between the two - between the library and the sports halls - as a place where people can meet.

Running back from the road and along the west side of the buildings is the famous city park - Superkilen - with its outdoor play and sports so this area is now a major hub for the community around. It is anticipated that visitor numbers to the library could soon exceed 1,000 a day.

 

select any image to open the photographs as a slide show

sport and space consultancy KEINGART
have published a pdf file on line with
plans of the library and cafe area

 

Refshaleøen as a venue for the Copenhagen Photo Festival

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Although there are exhibitions all over the city, Refshaleøen is the centre for the Copenhagen Photo Festival.

The area - with huge but abandoned buildings from the shipyards here until the 1990s - has an incredible atmosphere - part dereliction and decay and part alive with energy as the area is being transformed.

It's definitely photogenic with amazing materials, colours and texture and with strong contrasts between areas of decay hard against buildings and areas being given a new life.

But there is an odd disjunction ….

The area has become a playground for the city. Of course that's not in itself a bad thing because Copenhagen needs somewhere where people can make a noise - the heavy metal festival Copenhell is out here at the end of the month - or make a mess and it's somewhere artists and makers and young start-up companies can find work space with low or relatively low rents for now in this interim period before developers and money men move in and they are driven out. The area feels consciously edgy but maybe slightly hyper because everyone knows the clock is ticking.

There are actually expensive places here to eat and drink alongside a huge variety of foods from the food market … and I'm not knocking any of that … I'm as middle class as you can get and come out here to Lille Bakery to buy some of the best bread in the city … but ……

And this is where my inner puritan kicks in …Refshaleøen was a huge and, for the post-war Danish economy, a crucial industrial site where thousands of men worked and worked hard and the memory of that is fading and disappearing. Machinery, hoists, cranes have all gone with little remaining to tell you what was done and where.

I'm not romanticising work that must, for many, have been hard and grim. It's just that it is now 30 years since ships were made here so there must be fewer and fewer people alive who actually worked in the yards. Should people now still try to understand all that and remember? Do we need to understand how we got here to make sense of where we are going?

If you stopped any of the foreign students arriving in droves on their bikes or any of the tourists off the ferry and asked them then very few would even know that this part of the city had been a shipyard. Does that matter?

My first trips to Copenhagen were after the ship yards closed, so I have no first-hand idea of what this area was like through the 1950s and 1960s, except from looking at old photos and maps  and maybe that is the other odd thing that few visitors will understand … this land was claimed from the sea, became a major industrial area and failed and dismantled and abandoned in just three decades. In an age when we are more and more concerned about our impact on our planet, is Refshaleøen a stark example of man moving in, transforming a landscape and moving on leaving the mess … so a monument to hubris … or a lesson in pragmatism … our ability to salvage and make something new once the old is no longer of use?

And if I missed the shipyards, I do remember the area before gentrification began … exploring and taking odd photographs of scrap yards and wire fences and vicious guard dogs and feeling uneasy, knowing I was intruding, and waiting to be challenged or seen off at any moment.

Again I'm not romanticising that in any way but maybe cities need scruffy land on the edge of regulations and outside planning and controls although, I guess, that is not on the agenda of the politicians and developers.

 

previous posts:

Lille Bakery

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Lille Bakery at Refshalevej 213A is in what I've been told were the drawing offices for the apprentices at the ship yards.

The bakery was launched on the savings of a group of friends and with crowd funding so there is a very strong community feel to the project. The space has communal tables with a comfortable mix of furniture and is open to the kitchens and bakery.

Sourcing of ingredients is ethical and, where possible, local and the bread is fantstic … the large sour dough loaf I tried had a strong and incredibly tasty crust and it is certainly worth my bus trip or 30 minute walk preferably walking both ways to justify trying all the different cakes.

Check out their web site - it could hardly be better and includes information about booking the space for events and for their "bread subscription" to order loaves by the month.

Lille Bakery

 
 

KAFFE Cobe

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When work started on the new development on Papirøen / Paper Island at the centre of the harbour opposite the national theatre and the warehouses there were demolished then Cobe - the planning and architecture studio of Dan Stubbergaard - had to move out and they moved to Nordhavn to former warehouses on Orientkaj.

This is more than appropriate for Cobe produced the masterplan for this major area of redevelopment and, of course, designed the restoration of a concrete silo here that is now apartments and slated to become possibly the iconic building of contemporary Copenhagen.

At the old site, behind the popular food halls, they had a fairly open house and here, to encourage visitors, as the new community out here grows, they have opened a café at the entrance from the quay.

In partnership with Depanneur, they serve good coffee, basic but good rolls and cakes and beer and so on. There is a long communal table and also low seating and Cobe show models and photographs of their work around the space and there is a carefully-selected range of books and design items for sale.

Depanneur
Cobe

 
 
 
 

FORSK! - research projects from Aarhus School of Architecture

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This exhibition at the entrance-hall level of the Danish Architecture Centre in Copenhagen is on the work of eight research students and graduates from Aarhus School of Architecture. 

These projects cover a wide range of subjects from understanding natural and historic man-made drainage as it has to adapt or be adapted for increased rainfall - a consequences of climate change - through new possibilities in the way we use traditional materials like concrete and, for wood, how new techniques of digital fabrication can be used to develop new forms of construction. 

 As people move into cities some buildings in rural settlements in Denmark have been abandoned and one of the projects looks at how we assess buildings that are no longer needed and might be demolished and looks at how we understand and remember buildings that are part of a common cultural heritage.

The project by Elizabeth Donovan explores how a strong visual or graphic presentation that shows the complex history of sustainability over a century reveals new connections and suggests hierarchies or priorities when “bridging the gap between discourse and practice.”

“Each project further illustrates a rising need for interdisciplinary dialogue to both develop and build knowledge and hereby influence the world.

Aarhus School of Architecture labels this research by design. This methodology, developed at the school, tests ideas and theories through real-life case studies … a proposed solution to a relevant problem, rather than a theoretical consideration.”

Timber curtain by Niels Martin Larsen and Maya Lahmy
explores how we shape materials - here by using digital control of a router to cut precise joins to construct a complex lattice of curved and twisting sections of timber.

Mass and Manipulation by Jon Krähling Engholt
Concrete is normally flat and relatively smooth but here a rubber membrane that has a pattern of cuts made with a laser is used for the former and is supported in different ways as the concrete sets. The weight of the concrete means that the rubber stretches and as the cuts stretch they distort or twist to reveal a different characteristic of concrete that as it sets changes from a viscous fluid to a solid.

Don’t Blame the water! Katrina Wiberg
In many settlements, particularly if they are low lying or close to the coast, modern expansion is often over marginal land - building on meadows and marshland that had taken or slowed down surface water when rain was heavy. 

Maps can show features of the landscape that have been overlaid by man-made drainage systems over decades or even over centuries.

The study area for this project was the settlement of Lystrup. Historical maps, contemporary maps and flood maps were compared to correlate  historical wetlands with flood-prone residential areas to resolve the actual relationship.

Decisions about climate resilience have to include "the planning processes and decision-making mechanisms that shape urban development."

We claim or reclaim land for new developments to extend urban areas and settle in places that in the past were considered to be either unsuitable or difficult for habitation and studies like this will make it possible to distinguish between the Dry and Wet City because "When the cloudburst occurs, the water takes over, and the ice age landscape emerges. The Wet City awakens."

 

Bespoke Fragments Anders Kruse Aagaard
 … explores concrete wood and steel but uses them in a way that challenges our perception of these traditional materials that normally we barely notice.
Concrete is twisted over curved and almost free form steel reinforcing rods to create shapes that are closer to sculpture than structure and in Intermediate fragments from 2014 ash is cut and curved and twisted using digital machining and then slotted into a complicated concrete base for a striking interplay of materials and forms.

Urban Carpet by Polina Chebotareva
10,000 pieces of Douglas fir were linked together with steel wire, the wood charred to form an unfamiliar surface that protects the surface from moisture using a technique related to the Japanese Shou Sugi Ban. 
When it rains the wood gives off a slight scent of smoke that enhances the experience and with use the colour changes to brown so you can trace where people have walked.

For the festival in Aarhus in 2018 the Urban Carpet was installed on a traffic Island in the middle of the main road in front of the central railway station - an area of 100 square metres. 50,000 people cross over here every day but normally people do not notice the island so it is described as an overlooked urban space. The carpet challenges preconceptions and invites people to experience a familiar route in a new way.

Transformation of the abandoned Mo Michelsen Stochholm Krag
This project looks at the impact as people migrate from the country to the town and buildings are abandoned. It recorded but also intervened in the decay cutting through some buildings that are destined for demolition to reveal new views and a new focus on both the structure and on perceptions about how it was used and its role in the community as it is  lost from a common history.
Biopsies of the abandoned 2015 looked at a farmhouse in Ydby dated 1780 and tracked the decay of a pig shed.
The reverse biopsy 2016 looked at an abandoned confectionary in Hurup  two months before it was demolished. The building was cut through and for the first time that opened a view and link between the shop in the front and the bakery at the back and revealed a stratification and private history to stimulates a reassessment of the place these buildings had in the lives of people … those who lived in them and those who visited them or possibly knew them only from the outside.

 

Den Hvide Kødby / The White Meat City …. Local Plan Report 562

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At the end of June a local plan - number 562 - was published by the city for Den Hvide Kødby /  the White Meat City district of Copenhagen. 

This is the west part of a large area of market buildings and slaughter houses that developed here from 1879 onwards when the meat market was moved from a site further north, closer to the lakes.

The market, sometimes referred to now as the Meat District, is west of the present central railway station and immediately south of a long open public space called Halmtorvet that continues on west into Sønder Boulevard and forms the north boundary of the site. 

Den Brune Kødby, the Brown Meat market, was the first part of the market to be built and is in brick. The buildings to its west - sometimes referred to as Den Grå Kødby or the Grey Market and included in this plan - were extensive additions to the market from around 1900 in grey or white brick and Den Hvide Kødby or White Meat City - primarily low and mainly flat-roofed buildings in concrete with white facades was a large addition to the meat market dating from the 1930s. 

In part because these are essentially industrial buildings but also because of the clean simple outlines with no decoration, then, in terms of style, this part of the market built in the 1930s is generally described as an important example of Functionalist architecture.

Note that the popular reference to the east part as the Brown Meat market only emerged after the construction of the additions of the 1930s - to distinguish the different parts the names refer to the colour of the buildings and not to the colour of the meat.

The area is owned by the city and this is certainly important for the long-term conservation of this area and for appropriate controls on detrimental development .

read more

Copenhagen Contemporary

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Copenhagen Contemporary is an independent institution for modern art.

From June 2016 they ran a pilot project in the warehouses on Papirøen - Paper Island - in the centre of the harbour just south of the opera house - where CC took over four of the halls and were there until the end of 2017 when the buildings were returned to the developers for demolition and for work to start on new apartment buildings on the site.

Now, with funding from the city and from private organisations, Copenhagen Contemporary have reopened in a larger space - some 7,000 m2 - in what was the welding hall of the shipyard of Burmeister & Wain.

The ship yards were closed back in the 1990s and for the last two decades the area has been taken over by small workshops and boat repair yards. A yacht repair company, the restaurant Amass and La Banchina - a popular cafe and bar - established new businesses out here and this summer they have been joined by the new food market - many of the stalls also relocating from Papirøen - and there will be more artists' studios and craft workshops opening as more of the buildings are adapted.

Copenhagen Contemporary has a lease here for 10 years and they have ambitious plans to establish a new space for the display of modern art in the city and particularly for large-scale installation and performance art. 

The city is gaining a major new venue on the lines of the galleries in Gateshead and the Turbine Hall at the Tate in London or the galleries at MoMA in New York and the programme here should compliment exhibitions of modern art at the established galleries in Copenhagen with Den Frie, GLStrand, the space of the Kunsthal in the former church of Sankt Nicolaj and the galleries of the Royal Academy at Charlottenborg - all in the centre of the city or close to the centre - and the gallery down the coast at Arken and, of course, Louisiana - north of the city with its amazing location on the shore of the Sound.

Work on the building for the gallery on Refshaleøen has kept many of the features from its industrial use with huge sliding doors, high exposed roof structures and high-set windows that flood the space with light and give views out to nearby workshops.

In the next phase of development, space on the upper level will be opened for CC Studio for their proposed education programme.

 

previous posts on danish design review

Copenhagen Contemporary

Copenhagen Contemporary
Refshalevej 173a
1432 København K

 
 
 

if you like to eat your food straight out of the container .....

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Popular food stalls that were in the warehouse on Papirøen - Paper Island - are back but on a new site further north - out on Refshaleøen - the island that until the 1990s was the yards of the ship builder Burmeister & Wain.

Called Reffen, the first phase is an open area with the kitchens and food stalls in shipping containers grouped around a new square and running down a short street towards the water of the harbour. The next phase will be more food stalls but inside in a hall in a former workshop.

There is open space that will be used for events and the newly reopened gallery of Copenhagen Contemporary is in massive former workshops just to the east.

Get here by taking the harbour ferry or a 9A bus that runs out here frequently from the central train station - this is the last stop where it turns round and heads back so you can't get lost - or you could always come out to Refshaleøen by bike.

There is a short description of each of the food stalls online on the Reffen site along with information about opening times and details about events.

Reffen

 

select any image to open the photos as a slide show

 

the buildings out on Refshaleøen through a rose-tinted lens?

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select any image to open the photos as a slide show

 

 

It's difficult. 

How do you preserve somewhere like this? Or at least keep some of the buildings and some of the features that make the place so interesting.

How can you keep the colours and textures of somewhere that only looks like this because it was abandoned and for twenty years has - for the most part - been left or had a series of people working out here without the money or the security of tenure to do much beyond patching and repairing. 

Of course there have been exceptions … a yacht yard has extensive workshops and the restaurant Amass is well established in a workshop building that was reconfigured by the architect Dorte Mandrup.

But even the land itself - the island - is hardly a long-term feature of the harbour with a long history. This land was all claimed from the sea in the late 19th century and until the mid 1990s this was the shipyard of Burmeister & Wain with a huge area of workshops and dry docks with buildings that had been added or adapted as necessary and as and when there was new work to be completed. The massive dry dock out the east - such a prominent feature of the works - was only constructed around 1960 so it only had a working life of around 30 years.

Maybe there is also something wrong about romanticising or fetishising the decay of industrial buildings when actually they are all that is left to mark the tough and dangerous working lives of thousands and thousands of men ..... it's sobering to read that the workshops where Amass have their restaurant and garden now was workshops where some of the men who were too old or had been injured at work could find less dangerous jobs in servicing and repairing machinery.

Small boat yards and engineering works colonised the space after the ship yard closed and that large hall has been used for events and for rock and pop concerts but Refshaleøen is now entering its next phase with the opening of new gallery space for Copenhagen Contemporary in workshops across the front of the music venue and in an area towards the harbour there is a new food market and there will be craft workshops and studios in some of the other buildings.

Even this next phase is short term - or relatively short term in the broader context of planning and future 'investment' in long-term development. This is valuable land just across the harbour from the city and much will depend on whether or not there is the motivation to build a new road tunnel to link Nordhavn and Refshaløen. 

If that happens then the whole character of the island will change.

Even now this is hardly what you would describe as marginal land but with or even without the tunnel this will not survive like this for much longer. The gallery has been told that they can stay for 10 years and some of the industrial buildings might survive to be given new uses but what merit will rusty steps and broken windows have then? What is the value of patina? What is the best rate of return on rust?

 

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Refshaleøen

Industrial buildings on Refshaleøen and Prøvestenen

Reffen / The Reef

 

Kultur Tårnet a year on

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22 June 2018

 

Since 1620, there has been a bridge at the centre of Copenhagen harbour. Knippelsbro was constructed to link the old city to what was, in the 17th century, a new and prosperous settlement of Christianshavn that was being built on land claimed from the sea and - from a new south gate of the city - there was a way across and on to the island of Amager.

Over the centuries the bridge was rebuilt several times but these all crossed the harbour at the level of the quay so there was restricted headroom for boat traffic to pass through unless the bridge was opened. This became a problem in the early 20th century as the wharves and quays south of the bridge dealt with more and more goods so more and larger commercial shipping was coming through the harbour and as the number of people use the bridge to cross backwards and forwards increased with the building of large new apartments blocks along Islands Brygge and south of Christianshavn with new housing in Amagerbro and then in Sundby.

A new bridge - the present Knippelsbro - was constructed and opened in 1937 designed by Kaj Gottlob. This has a much higher deck level - with long ramps up on either side to take road traffic up and over the harbour and more shipping could pass through without opening the bridge - the current harbour ferries pass under the bridge without it having to open. There were two copper-clad towers - with that to the north for the main control room for opening and closing the centre span and a south tower contained sleeping accommodation for the bridge master and his men.

From the 1940s and through the 1950s and 1960s, the docks to the south of the bridge prospered with commercial quays extending down on both sides - so the bridge must have been manned throughout the day and the night - but with the decline and then the shutting of commercial wharves on the inner harbour, the number of times the bridge was opened each day declined and the south tower became redundant and was left empty and unused.

Lars Erik Lyndgaard Schmidt and Malthe Merrild saw the waste of abandoning such a prominent historic monument and came up with possible ways of using the building.

Last year, after several years of them putting considerable pressure on the city and after opening for a trial period to see if there was sufficient public interest … there was … and after extensive restoration work, the tower was opened to the public.

It is now an amazing viewing platform from where you can see up and down the harbour but more than that it's a very unusual venue for events; a very unusual place that can be hired for business meetings during the day and, despite the tight space, it's a venue for gastronomic events and concerts.

Today marks the first anniversary for Kultur Tårnet. Congratulations.

 

Kultur Tårnet

Papirøen - Paper Island

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Papirøen or Paper Island is at the centre of the harbour in Copenhagen, opposite the National Theatre, immediately south of the Opera House and north of Christianshavn.

The settlement of Christianshavn, with its houses and warehouses and canals, dates from the early part of the seventeenth century when land was first claimed from the sea in the relatively shallow water between the old city and the low-lying island of Amager.

For nearly a century, the area of water to the north of Christianshavn provided sheltered moorings for naval ships but a map of 1710 shows a wide arc of recently-constructed defences …. a line of bastions curving out and round towards the Kastellet - towards what is now Refshaleøen.  

In stages, over the following centuries, new islands were created within these defences, divided by canals or open areas of moorings, with boat yards and stores that were, initially, for the navy but then, through the late 19th and the 20th century, increasingly for commercial trade.

The distinct rectangular island, now known as Paper Island but officially Christiansholm, and an island immediately to its east - Arsenalholm - are shown on a map of 1749 much as now but then linked by a central bridge rather than the present bridge at the south end of the canal between the two islands.

In the 18th and 19th century there was a masting crane on the island and it also appears to have been used as the arrival point for naval officers rowed across from the main buildings of the navy close to Christiansborg.

In more recent, post-war years, there were large and grimly basic but relatively low concrete warehouses where newsprint was stored before being taken on to the printing shops of the newspapers in the city …. hence Papirøen, or Paper Island, as its popular name. After the warehouses were closed, the buildings have been used for under-cover car parking and, more recently, for a very popular home for street food and for the modern art gallery known as Copenhagen Contemporary.

In the 1990s, both the navy and commercial shipping were moved out of the central harbour and there is a fascinating account by Klaus Kastbjerg - about how he acquired the island - that was published in the catalogue for Our Urban Living Room - an exhibition at the Danish Architecture Centre last year about the work of the architectural firm COBE.

COBE have drawn up the master plan for the redevelopment of this prominent site at the centre of the harbour and construction work will start at the end of the year. 

Although not everything in the scheme has been finalised, drawings have been published over the last year or so that show a mixed development around a large courtyard or public garden with taller blocks of apartments but on the ground level there will be large halls that replicate, to some extent, the spaces of the warehouses that have become such a popular venue for Copenhagen Street Food and for Experimentarium - before they moved to new buildings in Hellerup - and now the gallery space of Copenhagen Contemporary.

The public walkway, on the quay around the island, will be retained but with steps down and timber terraces for getting to the water to swim or to get to moored boats.

The style of the new buildings has, to some extent, been inspired by the materials and the pitched roofs of historic warehouses and workshops along the harbour. However, three of the apartment buildings will rise up to 12 or so storeys and even the lower buildings will be much more prominent than the relatively low warehouses here now although they will slope back on the upper floors to give a tapered silhouette that should reduce their impact when seen from below and, if the colours and textures of the facing materials are not too stark, could add some focus and vertical interest to the skyline of the waterfront rather than simply dominating it.

Initial proposals are for a swimming pool at the north-west corner of the island and there should be public access to the courtyard.

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