celebrating the 90th anniversary of S-tog

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Journeys today on suburban trains through and around Copenhagen will be free to mark the 90th anniversary of S-tog, the S-train system that serves the city and its suburbs and outer towns.

The first train line in Denmark, from Roskilde to what is now the central station in Copenhagen, opened in 1847 and then, through the second half of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th century, a network of train tracks were constructed to run around and across the city.

In 1926 a commission was set up to look at electrification of the train service. They presented their report in 1929 and the first sections, with electric trains running from Klampenborg to Hellerup and from from Vanløse to Frederiksberg, opened on 3 April 1934.

S-tog now has 170 kilometres (110 miles) of track and with 87 S-train stations … with 104 electric trains with eight cars and 31 trains with four cars … S-trains and the metro system together carry around half a million passengers a day.

To the north of the city centre there are S-tog lines out to Farum, Hillerød and Klampenborg with lines out to Køge to the south, to Høje Taastrup to the west, and out to Frederikssund to the north west of the city. These lines meet and cross through the central station that is still the main traffic hub with interchanges to regional and international trains but there is also an outer S-tog service that runs in a wide arc across the west and north parts of the city from what is now called København Syd (formerly Ny Ellebjerg) to Hellerup and that crosses and links all the radial lines.

From the start, S-tog trains were promoted as not just a transport system for workers coming into the city in the morning and heading back home in the evening but also as a reliable and cheap way for citizens to get out into the countryside or out to beaches and the coast.

In 1947 this radial system of train lines became the framework for a crucial new planning proposal for Copenhagen that was to control urban development and prevent sprawl. Stations along the lines were to be nodes for commercial development or were to serve new areas of housing. It was called the Finger Plan as on maps - or at least on schematic maps - it looked like a hand spread out with the old centre of the city as the palm and new development along the fingers - each with an S-tog line - and with green spaces between the fingers that were, where possible, protected from development.

S trains today at the station at Østerport

a new tunnel for suburban trains?

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This week, in the newspaper Politiken, there was a short article on a proposal, that has been presented to the parliamentary transport committee, to consider the construction of a new tunnel, for suburban rather than for metro trains, that could form a fast link from the existing station at Hellerup, in the north part of Copenhagen, to the transport interchange at Ny Ellebjerg to the west of the city.

The new line would be over 8 kilometres long and journeys through the tunnel would be rapid because there would be few intermediate stations but these would link to the metro at strategic points.

Hellerup is a small municipality immediately north of the city and is already a busy and important interchange for suburban trains from the north but, from there, the trains run to Østerport, Nørreport, Vesterport and the central railway station through relatively narrow cuttings that date from the early part of the 20th century and from the central station curve on out through to Carlsberg and Valby or to Sydhavn and Ny Ellebjerg. All these stations are well-used interchanges and there are also smaller but also busy intermediate stations. It is a regular and relatively fast service but trains can be crowded and many of these stations are extremely busy and must be close to capacity.

Few people will travel regularly from Hellerup to Ny Ellersbjerg but a new tunnel would provide shorter and much quicker links through to alternative interchanges for joining the suburban train lines or the metro circle line at more appropriate points to get into the city or to get out to outer suburbs.

As proposed, on a new line through the tunnel, there would be just four intermediate stations ….. a station at Vibenshus Runddel - connecting to the new circle line of the metro and serving the national football stadium; a new and important station for Rigshospitalet and then new interchanges with the metro at Forum and Frederiksberg.

Trains would be short - like the metro train - and could be automatic, so driver-less, and could run every four minutes and, of course, trains would continue to run on the existing line.

This switching from train to metro or even to bus sounds complicated and frenetic but actually commuters know their routes and platforms and do most journeys on auto pilot anyway but, for other passengers, travel apps on mobile phones, updated in real time, show the best route and current arrival and departure times, platform numbers and the quickest route and electronic displays at platforms and on trains and buses now show arrival and connection times.

This is joined up planning. Planners and politicians are not resting on the laurels of what is being achieved with the construction of the new metro lines in the city but are already thinking about what has to be done next.

Østerport
Nørreport
Copenhagen Metro
the new Cityringen

Østerport building appears to be in limbo

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Work on the shop and office complex adjoining Østerport station appears to be in limbo.

Very odd and inappropriate dark pink glass cladding was actually taken off the new building last summer but what is left is a strange anaemic shell … like telling someone their new trousers are completely wrong and inappropriate and making them take them off but then leaving them standing there in their Y-fronts. Everything just looks wrong.

Now Arkitekturoprøret / Architecture Rebellion - a lobby group with the motto Lad os bygge smukt igen / Lets build beautiful again - has voted this the ugliest building in Denmark from the last five years.

It's difficult to see how or why this development has gone so wrong but it does raise important issues.

One reason - though not an acceptable excuse - might be that this not a new building but is an extensive remodelling of existing buildings to the street frontages but with a new addition in what had been a back service area. Were the planners less critical of the scheme and did they apply different criteria than they would have done if it had been a new building on a new site?

There was a brutal concrete block of shops here that are still at the core of the main range facing Oslo Plads but with a new façade and new offices above and there were earlier buildings back along Folke Bernadottes Allé - the main road to Nordhavn and Hellerup - and there the new work is even stranger, sitting across the top of the old as if it was intended to be some sort of symbiotic relationship but it looks more like a science-fiction horror movie where the new is swallowing the old and is simply waiting for a bout of indigestion to pass before finishing the job. The new building is a squat tower block in the angle of the earlier buildings that manages to loom over and overshadow the station platforms but is slightly but only slightly less obvious from the road. 

Surely, with such a prominent location, controls should have been much tighter.

Even a good building that is well designed is not a good, well-designed building if it is in the wrong place or does not respect and enhance the street or the district in which it is built. And this building seems to have broken most of the conventions without knowing what to put in their place.

Too often, architects and/or a developers see their most important aim should be to produce a unique/novel/trend-setting building that ‘pushes the boundaries’ and establishes the name or the reputation or, worse, is to be used as bait to lure in a prestigious tenant but when ego projects go wrong then boy do they go wrong.

 

the new work from Folke Bernadottes Allé …. even with the raspberry pink glass cladding removed, this is a very weird building

Oslo Plads - the new development in a post from April 2019
curious - a post here in August 2019 when the cladding was removed
the restoration of the railway station at Østerport

 

restoration of the railway station at Østerport

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Østerport station is at the centre with its distinct hipped roof. The track to Klampenborg and Helsingør is to the north and the later tracks, along the line of the fortifications, to the south - the bottom left corner of the view. The road across the front of the station is here called Oslo Plads with the Nyboder houses to the south - the bottom of the view - and the edge of Kastellet - the earthworks of Kastelvolden to the right and the trees and lake of the public park of Østre Anlæg to the left. This was taken before work on the metro station was finished but the glass pyramids over the metro platform and the steps down into the station can be seen in front of the apartment building north-west of the station

photograph of the station from the marshalling yard to the south taken in 1896 - before building work was completed

the construction of the Boulevard line in 1917 to link Østerport to the central railway station. The corner of a building on the left is Statens Museum for Kunst with the trees of Østre Anlæg beyond and Østerport station in the distance

 

outline history of the station …..

1897 Østerbro Station  designed by Heinrich Wenck (1851-1936) completed

Station known to local people as Østbanegården

1917 Boulevardbanens / Boulevard Railway constructed along the line of the old city defences across the north side of the old city to connect Østerport through to the Central Station via new stations at Nørreport and Vesterport

1923 Østerport Station rebuilt under Knud Tanggaard Seest (1879-1972) chief architect for Danish Railways from 1922 to 1949

1934 suburban line to Klampenborg opened

1 July 2000 new service started with trains from Helsingør to the central station and then on to the airport and across the newly-opened bridge to Malmö. 

September 2019 Metro Station on Cityring opened

Danske Statsbaner - DSB or Danish Railways - have restored the railway station at Østerport with an extensive and major project that has taken two years.

The station was designed by Heinrich Wenck (1851-1936) and it was completed in 1897 as the terminus of the coast line from Helsingør to Copenhagen although, twenty years later in 1917, the Boulevardbanens or Boulevard Railway was constructed along the line of the old city defences across the north side of the old city to connect Østerport through to new stations at Nørreport, Vesterport and then on in a wide curve to the Central Station.

The railway lines here are below street level and the distinct station building runs across the top at street level and faces on to a broad street called here Oslo Plads but in fact a part of the busy main road out from the centre to Hellerup and on along the coast to Klampenborg.

The building takes the form of a large elongated hall parallel to the street with timber posts that support a large hipped roof. Inside there are two cross corridors, running back from the street with high barrel ceilings lit by semi circular windows set in large dormer windows in the front and back slopes of the roof.

Over the years the interior had been altered with secondary walls subdividing the space but, with the restoration, waiting rooms and a large information office have been removed and suspended ceilings taken down to open out the space.

In the new arrangement, there is still a large station store, a coffee shop and office space but by using glass walls there are now open views diagonally through the building that creates a new feeling of this as an open and unified space.

Archaeological investigation uncovered the original colour scheme and this has been reinstated using linseed oil paint with deep iron red and dark blue green colours that give the interior a richness but without being overbearing … an effect that is in part achieved because the paint finish is matt rather than having the gloss of a modern paint.

The terrazzo floor has also been restored.

The original building had a deep veranda across the front and the ends but in the alterations in the early 20th century, the outer walls were moved forward to the front edge of the roof but it was not possible to reinstate those features.

It is where the building looks weakest because this later brickwork, along with poorly detailed windows, look too simple and too rustic or 'vernacular' for what is a major public building.

However, we should just be grateful that the building survived because in the 1960s there were plans to demolish the fine 19th-century station and replace it with a high-rise tower although, fortunately, that scheme was abandoned.

A strong feature of the new arrangement of the interior is the broad and open corridor that runs across the full width of the building to provide a clear access to the doorways to the staircases down to the platforms so circulation seems obvious and rational with good natural and good electric lighting and careful placing of signs and departure boards. At one end the corridor takes you out to the Irma food store - while keeping under cover - and at the other end there will access to take passengers out and down to the new metro station that opened at the end of September.

With the completion of the large new metro station, this restoration of the railway station is part of the complete re-planning of public transport for passengers coming into or travelling round or through the city.

Østerport will now be a major hub with an interchange between suburban trains, a regular service with trains to the airport and from there over the sound and on to Malmö and the new metro circle line and with local buses and links to the ferry terminal for the boats to Oslo and with the terminal for cruise ship further out at Nordhavn. For now these links are by bus or taxi but the metro station at Østerport will be the start of the next stage of the metro line with the completion of the M4 line to Orientkaj and then an extension to the terminal for cruise ships.

Passenger numbers for Østerport are expected to increase from 30,000 to 45,000 people a day.

The work on the restoration has been by KHR Architecture who designed the concrete shopping centre and the sunken office with a pyramid roof and a third staircase down to the platforms for the trains to Sweden that are all also being restored and extended.

fresh herbs from Irma

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The large Irma food store alongside the railway station at Østerport in Copenhagen is now selling herbs that are grown in the store and they are growing in full view in the middle of the vegetable section immediately inside the entrance.

There is a large double cabinet with a hefty black frame but with glass on the sides and in both the doors. It looks a bit like the normal cool cabinets used now in many food stores to keep salad stuff fresh although here there are four shelves in each half and on each shelf a turntable but instead of a flat platter these turntables have grooves or channels that spiral out from the centre.

Herbs are sown in a growing medium in a small plastic pot …. cone-shaped and just over 30mm high and internally just 25mm across internally at the top and with a small lip that holds the 'pot' in its place on the turntable. There is no bottom to the cone …. that's where the roots grow out.

In the pots at the centre of the turntable there are just a few shoots breaking out but as they are turned under lights they move outwards and grow as they go so the finished plants are harvested from the edge. The full growth period is three weeks and the cabinets are planted half a week apart to provide a continual harvest.

Plants taken from the outer rim are put in a waxed brown-paper cone with labelling and set out for sale on shelves across the front of the unit.

At the moment the store is growing Greek basil, Italian basil, coriander and parsley.

The herbs are about as clean as any natural product can be; there are no synthetic pesticides and the system is said to use 95% less water than growing the herbs in a glass house and there should be little or no waste …. both for the store who can judge uptake or for the customer.

The whole system comes from the German company Infarm.

It was launched officially on the 21 November 2019 by the Danish Food Minister Mogens Jensen.

oh ….. and that plug of basil in the last photo …. enough to go with fresh pasta and pine nuts that night and a tomato salad the night after.

read more

Irma - Østerport
infarm

 

curious!

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April 2019

August 2019

And no the captions are not the wrong way round. That’s what is curious.

This is the new building alongside the suburban railway station of Østerport in Copenhagen designed by KHR Architecture … or rather it is an extensive remodelling of an existing line of shop units that had a fairly brutal street frontage in concrete and now has a new frontage, now offices above the shops and a new office building behind.

Everything is clad - or more accurately everything was clad - in rather distinct panels of glass with a sort of strong raspberry-ice-cream colour. The design has been heavily criticised in the press, in part as being inappropriate on this prominent site, and in part for the glass that reflected bright sunlight and was said to dazzle or even blind car drivers. One critic described it as the “grimmest building” in the city.

Photographed yesterday - as I happened to be walking by on my way somewhere else - it looks as if all the cladding on the front towards the road has been removed. I’m curious to know exactly why and will watch to see what happens next.

Oslo Plads
voted the grimmest building in Copenhagen

 

Oslo Plads

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Osterport Air.jpeg

Oslo Plads is in front of the station and takes the road over the railway
the building being converted and extended by KHR is in the top angle of the junction with the Citadel to the right - to the east - the main railway station building to the left - to the west - Den Frie opposite, on the other side of the junction and the northern-most houses of the famous 17th-century Nyboder centre bottom

towards the top left of the view are the engineering works for the new Metro station that will open this summer and on the left edge of the view are the earthworks and lakes that survive from the historic city defences … it would be difficult to find a more prominent or more sensitive site for a new development in Copenhagen

Designed by the Copenhagen architects KHR - this building, on Oslo Plads in Copenhagen, is not finished but has, already, attracted a huge amount of criticism.

It has been described as looking like a collapsed cake; one national newspaper critic has suggested that it should be nominated for an award as the grimmest building in the city; someone on the board of a conservation society has demanded that work should stop immediately and members of the planning committee are already stepping back from their decision to give consent by saying that it looks nothing like the drawings.

It is not actually a new building but a dramatic remodelling of a single-storey and very brutal concrete block that was a supermarket and sports shop with an extension to the railway station - Østerport Station - immediately to the left in this view.

The building was L-shaped, facing onto both roads with a courtyard at a lower level to the back, in the angle of the L, where a new office building has been constructed.

The design was bound to be contentious because this is an incredibly sensitive site … the ornate station building dates from just after 1900; opposite the building - behind the camera in this view - is a very quirky wooden building that was used by a famous group of landscape painters and is now an art gallery - Den Frie - Gustafskyrkan - the Swedish Church on the other side of the road, to the right in this view, was completed in 1911 and is a very fine building and, more important, immediately behind the church is the Kastellet - the citadel - with ramparts dating from the late 17th century and one of the most important green spaces in the city.

An extra floor has been added above the supermarket but it is the odd, raspberry-sorbet colour of the glass cladding and the unrelenting horizontal line of the front that seems to be the problem.

A wider issue is actually one about road planning: this is an incredibly wide junction with traffic heading out of the city along the coast to Hellerup and Klampenborg to the north that crosses in front of the station and traffic for the Oslo Ferry terminal, traffic for the new district of Nordhavn - North Harbour - and tourists buses for the cruise ship terminals all head along the road past the church.

The solution, over the years, has been to make the roads wider and wider - to create separate filter lanes for dealing with the traffic lights - and this has taken away much of the pavement but it is hardly a ringing endorsement for a new building to say that it might look better set back beyond a deep pavement heavily planted with trees.