Kulturnatten 2023

Kulturnatten is a major annual event when museums, galleries, churches, major historic buildings and departments of national and city government in Copenhagen and Frederiksberg open for an evening - most from 6pm through to midnight.

There will be special exhibitions, concerts or demonstrations and, at many organisations, there are tours of areas that are rarely open to the public so this is when citizens can see what happens behind the scenes.

At many of the venues there will be stalls for street food and drink and, because Kulturnatten is always on the Friday of the mid-term school holiday, many of the events are aimed at families.

This year 230 organisations or venues across the city will be participating.

Over the years I've seen mock trials in the law courts; explored the main rooms and offices of city hall; seen the work of conservators; explored behind the stage of the national theatre; wandered through the main rooms of the Treasury and watched demonstrations of horsemanship and carriage driving at the Royal Stables.

This year I'm planning to see inside the Mast Crane at the north end of the harbour; see the great steam engines at the power station at the south end of the harbour working and possibly this will be a chance to look around the Traffic Tower where the train system for this half of the country is controlled. I'm also keen to see rope making on Nyhavn and the displays at the Ministry of Climate.

Entry to all the buildings and events is with a Culture Pass - DKK110 for adults - that can be downloaded through an app or can be bought at 711 stores throughout the city. Entry for children under the age of 12 is free.

The pass gives free use of public transport within the city from 4pm through to 4am on Saturday and includes the harbour ferries and rides on a fleet of veteran buses brought out for the evening.

Every year has a distinct graphic style for publicity and posters from previous years can be seen on an online archive that goes all the way back to the poster from the first Kulturnatten in 1993.

Kulturnatten
programme of events
posters

3daysofdesign 2022

This year,  3daysofdesign - a major design event in Copenhagen - has shifted times and days.

In previous years, studios, design stores and venues opened on the Thursday, around lunchtime, with opening parties or launches for new products on the Thursday evening. Friday was a packed day and then Saturday was slower with a relatively relaxed winding down ending mid afternoon.

This year, it seems more focused because events start on Wednesday morning and run through three complete working days .... so Wednesday 15th June, Thursday the 16th and through to Friday 17 June.

In the past, 3daysofdesign was part serious design event - an open house for visiting buyers and professionals - and part a local celebration for people in the city, who work in the design industry, to show off proudly what they have done recently or reveal what is in the pipe line but it was also a chance to see friends and colleagues. People could meet and socialise and I hope that survives.

The official web site for 3daysofdesign is fantastic and it’s absolutely essential if you want to see as much as possible.

This is a design event for and by designers so it should not be surprising that a lot of effort and thought has gone into the web page and the app but they have deceptively simple graphics for what is a very sophisticated guide that has good photographs and a lot of information .... not just addresses and times, but good pen portraits so anyone can track down new companies or just refresh their memory on the hardy perennials. There are also short Journal entries with some interesting interviews.

On the site, Programme is where you start if you want to organise your time around openings or talks or even - just possibly - to find when and where wine and food will be available.

A section headed Search the Exhibitions is the what-is-where section and, even if you think you know which company is where, remember that companies do splash out on some adventurous one-off venues and smaller companies - particularly if they do not have a base here in the city - will open a pop-up shop or will camp out in a design hotel or an embassy.

This year there are 214 sites ... so you can see that - to have any hope of getting around what you want to see - you have to plan your route or your route march with some care .... even if it is only to be in the right place for the right food or the right booze. Your excuse, in that case, is that good design and good food are close cousins that bring out the best in each other.

The entry in Exhibitions will open up a pen portrait of the designer or the design company along with photographs and links to company sites and Instagram pages and so on .... a great way to get the right background information before trying to chat to a designer or the CEO.

There is a useful section on the site where you can Explore the Districts.

Copenhagen may seem compact - if you compare the city with New York or London or Milan - but remember tourists have suddenly been let loose here so, at the very least, plan your route so you only cut across Strøget and not walk along it.

 

it’s 50 years since the last trams ran through the city

Today is an interesting anniversary because it's now fifty years since the tram service in Copenhagen was shut down with the last trams running through the city on 22 April 1972.

The first trams in the city were horse drawn but electric trams were brought in from the 1890s and the first tram routes were established by private companies but in 1911 the city took over the operation of the tram system.

New trams, tram terminals and street furniture for the tram service were then designed by the city architects department.

At one stage the length of the tram routes through and around the city was just under 100 kilometres in total.

an unbuilt tram station for Rådhuspladsen March 2020
Bien at Trianglen July 2018

horse-drawn trams on Kongens Nytorv in 1913
Copenhagen City Archive reference 51787

a tram on Amager in 1966

 

tram designed for the city in 1910 by Knud V Engelhardt (1882-1931) - Denmark’s first industrial designer

 

still threatened with demolition?

the Palads cinema building alongside the railway trench at Vesterport suburban rail station (above) and proposal from BIG for the Palads site (below)

With the pandemic hanging over the city, much of day-to-day life seems to have been put on hold although building work - particularly on the site of the old Carlsberg brewery on the west side of the city - seems to have continued.

Decisions about two very different buildings appear to have been suspended but for very different reasons.

The first is the Palads cinema, close to Vesterport suburban railway station and alongside the railway trench. It dates from the early 20th century although it is probably best known for it's bright colours when the exterior was painted in 1989 in a scheme by Poul Gernes in dark pastels but primarily in pinks and deep sky blue.

The building itself has been altered extensively over the years, so cannot claim to be of great architectural significance so there have been two applications to demolish with two separate schemes for redevelopment of this prime site - one with the railway trench built over and with a large group of towers, including a new hotel, and the other scheme by BIG - the Bjarke Ingels Group - with a cinema below ground and with a huge glass tower of offices and apartments above that would be as high as the SAS Royal Hotel nearby.

Both schemes mean the total demolition the existing building in order to develop the whole site but both seem to have underestimated just how many people in the city feel that the present cinema should be kept. They have fond and happy memories of coming to the cinema and restaurants here that, for many, go back decades and, for some, back through several generations.

The second building that is, apparently, awaiting a final decision about its survival, is very different.

It is an apartment tower on Amager that is immediately north of the south campus of the university and is part of a large development by the Bach Group.

Before work was completed, it was discovered that there were serious problems with the concrete of the foundations and then suggestions that there were also problems with the concrete structure above ground.

The developers have claimed that the concrete can be reinforced but since then there have been no further reports in the newspapers so, presumably, a final decision - to demolish or to reinforce the tower and complete the fitting out - is still to be resolved.

is the redevelopment of Vesterport still on track?
another scheme for the cinema site

update:
22 March 2022. An article yesterday, on the Byrummonitor site, stated that the sale of the tower to a large Swedish property group has been cancelled by mutual agreement. The article also said that remedial work on the foundations of the tower were completed last year.

 

Njals Tårn from the west

Monocle magazine top cities for quality of life 2021

Since 2007, the magazine Monocle has published an annual Quality of Life Survey that ranks cities around the world as "liveable locations".

They thought that it was inappropriate to produce a list last year, at a high point in the pandemic, but their journalists and research team now see cities "building back bigger and better" so their criteria for the list in 2021 - recently published - have changed to reflect this with emphasis on "confidence and the push for a quality of life that works for all."

In the introduction to the list, Monocle sets out key requirements for a liveable city including "robust, dependable services, plenty of green spaces and strong leadership" and their important message is to "get the basics right and it's easier to weather the catastrophe."

I assume that the typical reader of Monocle is relatively young but well established - so 25 to 45 and professional; well off or affluent rather than wealthy; used to travelling frequently for work or for leisure and with high expectations when it comes to food, eating out and spending on clothes and furniture. This is reflected in their assessment of each city but the magazine has always been astute about and critical of public services - particularly international, regional and local transport - and this makes their survey as much about governance and good business as about simple consumption.

On first seeing the list, the obvious observation is that Nordic capital cities take three of the top four places and these are cities with strong, left-of-centre or socialist governments at local and national level.

The entry for Copenhagen points out the importance for the city of its sense of pride in social cohesion and that has certainly been important as the city went into lockdown.

Most parts of the city have easy access to green space and to the clean waters of the harbour for exercise, swimming, a huge range of outdoor sports and for leisure and through the pandemic these public outdoor areas have been crucial as safe outdoor areas where anyone and everyone can exercise and socialise.

In their short assessment Monocle spotlights the new Metro ring that has “made it easier to access all parts of the city, and the Refshaleøen district is particularly appealing these days due to the presence of of the Copenhagen Contemporary art museum and an eclectic range of dining options."

Quality of Life Special Edition
July/August 2021 issue 145
Monocle

 

Monocle top 20
Liveable Cities

① Copenhagen
② Zurich
③ Helsinki
④ Stockholm
⑤ Tokyo
⑥ Vienna
⑦ Lisbon
⑧ Auckland
⑨ Taipei
⑩ Sydney
⑪ Seoul
⑫ Vancouver
⑬ Munich
⑭ Berlin
⑮ Amsterdam
⑯ Madrid
⑰ Melbourne
⑱ Kyoto
⑲ Brisbane
⑳ Los Angeles

 

Copenhagen - capital of architecture

 

Whenever possible, I walk and it’s not often that I go out without a camera. It’s possible that I have walked past some of these buildings hundreds of times but the light changes through the day and over the seasons and there is always something new to see or something to understand or to photograph in a different way or from a different angle because it is seen in a different context.

Copenhagen is an amazing city - a rich and diverse built environment that is to be UNESCO Capital of Architecture in 2023.

select any image to open in a full-screen slide show

 

Copenhagen - Capital of Architecture

 

I have to admit that I probably spend too much time talking about planning in the city and too much time getting angry about bad buildings or inappropriate developments so this is a way to reconnect … a way to celebrate the amazing quality and the amazing variety of the buildings in the city - old and modern - and to encourage people to look around and to look up because this is a city that has amazing buildings of all shapes and materials and forms and styles.

select any image to open in a full-screen slide show

 

the staircase in the south range of the Arsenal

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.

Coronavirus and lockdown … is this the time to rethink tourism in Copenhagen?

In 2004 Copenhagen had 136 hotels that provided 4.9 million nights for hotel guests and in that year 250 cruise liners called at the port bringing an annual total of more than 350,000 passengers to the city. Back then, there was no such thing as Airbnb … that only got going in 2009.

And by 2009 that figure for overnight stays in hotels in Copenhagen had risen to 20 million overnight stays and by 2019 risen again to 29 million and that is predicted to DOUBLE by 2030.

In 2019 there were 940,000 passengers "welcomed" to the Port of Copenhagen but the increase in the number of passengers on ships docking here is rising fast. A new fourth terminal at Oceankaj out at Nordhavn will provide facilities for even larger ships - ships with more than 5,000 passengers - so, despite the drastic impact of the Coronavirus pandemic and despite the incredibly negative press with pictures and news programmes about passengers trapped in infected ships all over the World, it is still hoped that the number of cruise-ship passengers doing a stopover in Copenhagen will increase and at a significant rate.

Exact figures for the number of tourists staying in Airbnb accommodation in the city is difficult to find on line although one site has a map showing 26,016 properties in the city that were listed at the end of last month.

That number surprised even me.

Just 4,712 of those listings are for a room in someone's home - the original idea behind Airbnb - but 21,766 are for renting the whole home - houses or apartments.

It seems to be impossible to work out exactly how many tourists are staying in Airbnb properties at any one time and Airbnb is no longer the only player in that business. It is also clear that owners and certainly Airbnb themselves have absolutely no idea how many people will actually occupy a place … they know only the number of beds advertised but can’t know how many are in them or sleeping on the sofa or the floor.

Some of these properties are owned by someone travelling or working away for a fixed time and let their property to someone to take care of it and bring in a modest income and that is fine but exactly how many of those properties registered with Airbnb are owned commercially to exploit what, for now, looks like good returns from short-term rental income? How many long weekends equals 12 months?

The reality is that all, apart from rooms let by an owner in their own home, are homes that should be for permanent residents of the city but are no longer available for long-term rent or to own. By a rough calculation those 21,000 properties could be homes for 30,000 people or maybe more …. about the same number of people that should be housed in Lynetteholm …. the island that will be reclaimed from the sea at considerable expense for new housing and new jobs. Seems sort of crazy.

For three years I lived in an apartment block where there were 16 Airbnb lets around the courtyard. Many people came, stayed, went without a problem. Often the only obvious nuisance was the sound of travel-case wheels being dragged over the cobbles in the early morning or in the evening as people headed out to the metro for the airport … you can always tell which wheelie bags are incoming Airbnb just from the noise because they stop at regular intervals to consult a phone map or the app with details of how and where to get the key. Is there no such thing as quiet wheels for rough surfaces and what happened to the days when people packed just what they could carry on their back?

But there were also bad weekends such as the one when two separate groups, with balconies on either side of the street and just a few metres along from my bedroom window, decided it would be fun to share and exchange music by blaring it out turn by turn across the street from their separate all-night parties.

And I now live in a building with just four apartments but one Airbnb listing, though thankfully that is the smallest in the block and let infrequently, but next door the building has three large apartments and all three seem to be let short term and I can tell you that, although with lockdown tourists may be rare, owners are now finding new ways to bring in income and out of the last six weekends, four have had all-night parties and by all night I mean all night with one cove, drunk or stoned or both, still shouting obscenities and witticisms to anyone and everyone walking past until 6am from a balcony just 2 metres from my bedroom window and this last weekend was the worst with very loud parties on Friday, Saturday and Sunday and with none of them starting until midnight. And by loud I mean very with women screaming for what sounded like a competition and I'm someone who can and does sleep on any train or bus or deck of a ship … the person who, notoriously, muttered and turned over and snuggled up to the warm funnel of the ship (not a euphemism) and slept through a volcano erupting with everyone up on deck to watch and ooh and ahh at an amazing spectacle where I was there but wasn’t.

Hotels, cruise ships and Airbnb bring huge numbers of people to a relatively small and densely-packed city and that is becoming more and more of a problem.

One of the major and most positive things about Copenhagen, among many positive things, is that, unlike so many cities, people do live right in the centre. The more Airbnb in the city, the less people living here. The more tourists the fewer butchers and bakers and candlestick makers and the more burger bars and tourist tat.

Most visitors want to see and tick off the same few things and, although the city council have talked about trying to encourage visitors to go out to a wider area of the city, I'm not sure how you get that across and particularly to the cruise-ship brigade who do a quick dash in on coaches to look at the shops and buy an ice cream and to tick off that list but also to complain about just how small and disappointing the Little Mermaid looks “in real life” as if either a small statue or a cruise could ever be described as real life.

In the first stage of opening the borders from lockdown, visitors from Germany, Norway and Iceland will be able to enter Denmark but what is interesting is that they can visit the city but not stay overnight and to enter Denmark they will have to have confirmed bookings for at least 6 nights outside the capital. Apparently that will remain in force until the end of August. It’s a short-term measure but could provide important information about how much it is possible to manage tourism without killing it.

Obviously, tourists bring money in and jobs are created but is there a full and independent audit of how much visitors spend? And a tally of how much profit is exported to international investors; how many jobs are real so good, permanent jobs for local people and how many jobs are temporary and taken by workers from other countries who themselves have to be housed within the city.

I'm a newcomer and I can certainly confirm that people here are welcoming and are very proud of their city and the life-style is very good - as proved by all those life-style surveys - but, curiously, few tourists seem to appreciate that that life style is actually about family life and facilities for schools and libraries and quiet parks and street corners with communally owned picnic tables in communal courtyard gardens that tourists never see but, if the numbers increase, tourists could so easily overwhelm all that.

from the ridiculous to the sublime?
Oh OK maybe the city can be too quiet.

Like most people who live here, I avoid Strøget - the Walking Street that is now more like Crowded and Frustrating Amble Street than strolling street - and at the west end, with few exceptions, it is filled with shops which seem to be aimed at visitors rather than locals.

The lockdown has meant that people in the city realise just what it is like to have quiet streets and the city to themselves. The novelty will probably wear off if it turns out that restaurants and shops cannot survive from local customers alone but it is certainly the time to reconsider just how much tourism is good for Copenhagen. It's not as bad as Barcelona or Venice or Prague but, once it becomes as bad as Barcelona or Venice or Prague, then it will be much, much more difficult to back track.

note:
In 2018 OECD published figures for tourism in Denmark in their report
OECD Tourism Trends and Policies 2018

 

new ferries for the harbour

Copenhagen is to have new, battery-powered, ferries for the regular service up and down the harbour.

Movia, the operating company, have taken delivery of five of the ferries and they are now being put through the last stages of testing before going into regular service and I'm not sure I like them.

Don't get me wrong. They are exactly the right way to go for the environment and it’s impressive technology. After all, they are large vessels that will carry around 90 passengers and they will have to work hard through every day on a 7 kilometre route from Teglhomen to Refshaleøen. Batteries will be completely recharged at night but will be topped up at each end of the route on the brief turn around.

So my objections?

Well there are two but basically they come down to much the same thing. Because they don't sound right and they don't look right so they don't feel right.

I will have to wait until they are in service before I see inside and can judge what they are like for passengers but recently, as I was taking photographs of the CPH container housing at Refshaleøen, one of the new ferries snuck into the dock and snuck seems like the right word.

At first, I thought it was drifting but then it came round the corner of the quay sideways, like a crab, and pulled forward to the ramp with little more than a gentle hum but quite a lot of bubbles. It's going to take some getting used to …. I realised then that I like the churning water and the deep throb of the engine you get on the old ferries and maybe that’s simply because they sound as if they really can take on the weather and the rain and everything that the harbour and the Sound will throw at them. The old ferries are reassuring - not in a comfort blanket way but you know what I mean.

I like standing on the back platform of a ferry as the churn of the water and the sound of the engines drown out any inane chatter around me so, even on a busy day, I can focus on the view and the light over the harbour - from dazzling sun to lowering steel grey of an imminent storm - and I suspect I'm going to miss that. For a start, the new ferries do not have an open platform at the back.

And the new ferries look too swish - so sharply angled rather than reassuringly rounded - so stylish but somehow not solid. They don't look as if they were built in a shipyard but somehow look as if they were manufactured in a nice clean factory. No obvious plates of heavy metal and rivets from ship builders who know how to build a vessel that would survive most things that could happen at sea … and I know it’s a sheltered harbour but at the north end, around Refshaleøen, it's more open and exposed and more like real sea than the tamed and domesticated water at the south end of the harbour.

I have to confess that, of the ferries now in service, I even preferred the older ferries with their steps at the back of the cabin, only marginally less steep than a ladder, with a hefty iron door at the top to get to the back deck and a bulkhead you had to step over rather than the more recent version with fully-glazed patio doors that knew you were approaching so opened automatically … well at least they did as you moved from inside to outside but with a well disguised button to get from outside on the deck to back inside.

The new ferry I saw 'dropped' its ramp down and even that glided and hovered and it looked narrower and looked light and for some strange reasons, that I don't quite understand, I know I'm going to miss the ramps of the old ferries that drop down onto the pontoon with an almighty clang that makes everyone jump - even hardened commuters who use the ferry twice a day every day - but, somehow, that's a solid and reliable sound.

Basically, the new boats don't sound or look like a workhorse ferry but like a tourist water bus.

 

new planning and building regulations in Copenhagen

At the end of last week, a new municipal plan for the city was adopted with some significant changes to building regulations.

The regulation for a minimum size of 95 square metres for new homes in Copenhagen will now apply to just 50% of the floor space provided in a development so that 50% of the area can be used for smaller homes.

Homes cannot be smaller than 40 square metres in floor area but the changes in the regulations are also looking at the need for housing for certain groups of single people and for students. The regulations will now allow for student housing with a gross area of 25 to 50 square metres but with an option to divide this between communal areas and private space as small as 13 square metres. The city has identified an urgent need for housing at an acceptable rent to provide new accommodation for 12,000 students in Copenhagen.

There are new recommendations about access to green space so, in future, there should be a minimum distance of 300 metres to walk from a new home to an open green area and that has been defined as a park, a pocket park, planted space or open water of a lake or the harbour. The emphasis appears to be on providing access to green space for some form of recreation and it has been proposed that the long-term ambition should be that no home should be more than 500 metres from a larger green space defined as an area over 2 hectares.

In a draft it was suggested that planning should encourage a one third division for transport so that a third of journeys in the city should be by bicycle, a third of journeys by public transport and no more than a third of journeys by car but this was amended and now reads that the aim should be that no more than 25% of journeys should be by car by 2025 and, in the debate before the vote, the regulations were also amended so there will now be fewer parking spaces in the city with a reduction by 30%.

There were also an interesting but not binding suggestions that developers must be encouraged to use sustainable materials such as timber in the construction and that the city should cut space for private cars on the roads if that releases space for recreation or for public transport or climate change adaptation.

skating at Broens Gadekøkken

Sometimes, good planning in a city is simply about leaving space for people.

This is the square at the end of the Inner Harbour Bridge that crosses the harbour between Nyhavn and Christianshavn.

Through the year this has been the Broens Gadekøkken / The Bridge Street Kitchen for street food but over the Christmas period it has been transformed for one of the seasonal ice rinks in the city.

Formally, this is Grønlandske Handels Plads …. the wharf that was at the centre of trade between Copenhagen and the Faroe Islands, Iceland and Greenland from the middle of the 18th century … after the land was sold to Det almindelige Handelsselskab  / The General Trading Company - who obtained a monopoly for trade with Greenland so these wharves and warehouse were packed with furs, fish and whale oil.

The large brick warehouse was built in the 1760s and is now known as Nordatlantens Brygge or North Atlantic House and is a cultural centre with gallery space and conference facilities.

Ice Skating at Broen will continue through to 23 February

 

Grønlandske Handels Plads

climate change and sustainability in Denmark? - information on line

 

Many of the major reports on new policies to tackle climate change and directives on sustainability from the Danish government and by city councils and by organisations such as Realdania or Danish Industry are published on line and often published in English although it is now relatively easy to translate even pdf files from Danish using Google.

read more

Here the images of the report cover are links to the on-line site where the report can be read and, in most cases, downloaded as a pdf file.

 
 

Lokalplanner i København

For the city of Copenhagen, plans for proposed developments - including extensive schemes to deal with flooding from rain storms - are published on line as part of the public consultation process and, for planners and architects from other countries, these readily-available reports provide a useful introduction to developments in planning and major engineering projects for climate change mitigation in the city.

The front page has a map where the reader can zoom in to find a specific report for a district or city block or square or specific building and the map is live or active so take you to the on-line pdf reports.

More recent reports have extensive research on historic context and function so they are as much an impact assessment as a public consultation document

 
 

climate change - Scandiagade

 

Rain storm works at Scandiagade were completed and formally opened in June 2019 and I visited a few days later to take some photographs and explore the area but have only just got around to writing the post.

I'm not sure why it has taken so long and it now feels like a serious oversight because this is a brilliant piece of landscape planning and the designers - the architectural studio 1:1 Landskab - have created a beautiful and really quite amazing new public space.

read more

20180503_Plan farve_0.jpg

new electric buses in Copenhagen

one of the new electric buses on its route out to Refshaleøen in front of Christiansborg - The Danish parliament

 

On Sunday 8 December, following a trial period of two years with electric buses on the 3A cross-city route, 48 new electric buses were rolled out on the routes of the 2A bus between Tingbjerg and Refshaleøen and the 18 bus that runs between Legravsparken, to Ørestad Station and on out to Emdrup Torv.

Buses on the 2A route are from the Dutch manufacturer VDL with nickel-manganese-cobalt batteries that weigh 3 tonnes. Charging is generally at the end stations at Tingbjerg and Refshaleøen and for 6 hours at night in the garage.

The buses on route 18 were made in China by BYD and have lithium iron-phosphate batteries that are charged only at the garage which takes three-and-a-half hours.

These electric buses are three to four times as energy efficient as diesel buses and are much quieter particularly when they pull away from any stop.

It has been calculated that 11 million annual passenger journeys are made on these two routes and the electronic buses will reduce CO2 emissions in the city by 4,300 tonnes annually.

In Copenhagen, politicians have decided that all diesel buses will be replaced with green electric buses by 2025.

Movia

 

the maps of the two bus routes from Movia are highly stylised but they emphasise the important intersections of bus routes or the interchanges at stations for the Metro and suburban train services for a joined-up public transport system

waste collection on Nyhavn

The photograph of rubbish piled around a street bin - posted with a quotation from Paul Mazur on Black Friday - was actually taken on the morning of Black Friday.

I had planned to post the quote because it seemed appropriate for this odd day that was contrived by marketing men in the States to make people spend. It’s the day after Thanksgiving - that public holiday when you spend time with families rather than spend money shopping - so presumably Black Friday is the bargain sale to hook you back into spending, just in case you forgot how spend having just had a day off. Is the message here that if you buy something you don't need then at least buy it at a knock-down price? Or maybe if you don't actually need it then by offering it at a sale price you might be persuaded to change your mind.

Anyway, I was heading out to take a photograph at the recycle centre on Amager - to go with the quote - but then there was this on the quay right outside my front door.

Everything had been abandoned - including a large and fairly new suitcase along with a good small metal case and various pictures in frames - so it looked as if someone is moving on from one of the apartments around here and what they were not taking with them had been dumped on the pavement sometime during the night. At least it gave me as good an image as any to represent our throw-away society.

In any case, the bin system here is of interest and I had been thinking about a post for some time. It might look like an ordinary street bin but it's one of a line of bins along the quay that are the above-ground part of a sophisticated waste system from ENVAC.

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the old Museum of Copenhagen

the forecourt and the main range of the 18th-century building from Vesterbrogade

The Museum of Copenhagen will reopen in February but in a different part of the city - in a refurbished building on Stormgade close to the city hall - and there is now a growing controversy about the future of the building that they occupied on Vesterbrogade that is now vacant.

In the 1950s, the museum of the history of the city moved to this very fine house that dates from 1782 and was built as a new home for the Royal Copenhagen Shooting Society … a society had been established back in the 15th century to train citizens to defend Copenhagen. 

In the late 18th century, in their new building, outside the west gate of the city, there were gardens and shooting ranges that ran back from the house as far as the beach. However, in the 19th century, after the construction of the Copenhagen to Roskilde railway, that ran across the end of the shooting range and with the subsequent and rapid development of the west suburb, including apartment buildings on the south end of the shooting range and along what is now Istedgade, a high brick wall had to be built in 1887 across the end of the ranges to protect pedestrians walking across on the new road along the beach.

After the war, the Shooting Society moved out of the city to Solyst, north of Klampenborg, and the land and buildings on Vesterbrogade were acquired by the city. Much of the old garden and the shooting range behind the 18th-century house became what is now a very popular inner-city park and Vesterbro Ungdomsgård - a club and sports facilities for young people in this district - was built in 1952-53 across almost the full width of the garden and close to the back of the house so, although there is still an impressive forecourt towards the road, there is surprisingly little land behind the house for such a large and important historic property.

Inside, the house there are large and distinctive rooms with fine interior fittings so the property is protected and any new owner would be restricted in what they could do to the building and that could, in turn, limit how it is used.

Initially the building was offered on the commercial market for sale but, after some discussion, there is now a possibility that the house will either be retained by the city or it could be restored for a social or public function so that some public access would still be possible.

The battle now would seem to be between sections of the city administration who see the building as an important asset owned by and for the city that has to be kept in public ownership and control for the citizens and political factions who see it as financially astute to realise an asset that will have serious upfront and ongoing costs to restore and maintain but for now the building is unused and looks more and more unloved.

the gardens of the Royal Shooting Gallery

the old museum building from the air … the distinct grey-tiled roof with hipped ends of the main building from 1782 is approximately at the centre of this view with the forecourt towards Vesterbrogade running across at an angle at the top or north side of the view.
The L-shaped buildings and the square area of grass immediately below the old building are Vesterbro Ungdomsgård

photograph of the house and forecourt and the service range across the west side of the forecourt
Københavns Stadsarkiv, reference 20087

 

Autumn is here

 

With Kulturnatten this Friday, it feels as if we are definitely into Autumn.

There are still a lot of tourists here but there is a marked change as outdoor tables at cafes and restaurants are packed away or blankets and heaters are brought out but, if you find a spot in the sun, then it’s still pleasant to sit outside for a morning coffee.

The leaves are beginning to change but it will be a week or perhaps more before the parks in the city and the forests out at Klampenborg and Charlottenlund take on their full Autumn colours.

For me, the light at this time of year shows the city at it’s best. There can often be clear bright, deep blue skies and, with the sun now lower in the sky, even in the middle of the day, the shadows are rich and heavy so architecture and sculpture around the city looks fantastic for photographs. Of course, evenings arrive earlier and earlier but in that transition from late afternoon to early evening the light over the water of the harbour and the lakes is amazing and even rain can mean striking dark grey skies.

 
 

Kulturnatten / The Night of Culture on Friday 11 October

Kulturnatten 2019.jpeg

Kulturnatten has been an annual event in the city for 26 years and is on the Friday at the start of the Autumn break for schools.

More than 250 museums, theatres, libraries, churches, government ministries, city institutions, including the city hall and the court houses, and parks open for the evening with special events, displays, lectures and tours to show what they do and why.

There is street food and often drinks and food in the venues themselves. Entrance is free with the culture pass - this year just 95 kroner for adults - and with that pass all public transport around the city is free.

With so many events and spread around the city - from Frederiksberg and through the historic centre and down to Amager - its sensible to look at the programme and plan a route around what you want to see. Nearly everything starts at 6pm and runs through to at least 10pm with many continuing on to midnight or later. It is a huge and popular evening for families and this really is Copenhagen at its best and most open and most friendly.

Kulturnatten PROGRAMME

 
 

The Renovation Prize 2019

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