det grønne strøg / the green line - the high-level landscape of Kalvebod Brygge

An ambitious plan to create a raised landscape at a high level between new buildings on the railway side of Kalvebod Brygge was set out in the local plan of 2006 where it was described as if it was to be a series of hills.

The first part of the gardens, at the north end - with a steep slope up from Bernstorffsgade, between the towers of the SEB offices, was completed in 2009 and the gardens were soon extended on across the roof of a new archive building and through to the Tivoli Hotel and Congress Center. Then the new developments stalled.

The west end of the landscape gardens, through the Nexus building, has just been planted but construction work on the middle section, across the roof of a new IKEA store, has only just restarted.

All these new buildings, that frame the gardens, are between Kalvebod Brygge and Carsten Niebuhrs Gade and, when finished, the high-level landscape will extend for over a kilometre from Bernstorffsgade to a new railway traffic control tower on Otto Busses Vej.

Lokalplan nr. 403 "Rigsarkivet" 2006

the landscape scheme starts at Bernstorffsgade at the SEB buildings
a winding concrete path climbs up a steep slope from the road with well established trees

this sequence of photographs shows the gardens from Bernstorffsgade to Arni Magnussons Gade and the bridges across to Hotel Cabinn

At the city-centre end, at Bernstorffsgade, the landscape starts at street level with pathways twisting from side to side to climb up between the SEB buildings to a point 7 metres above the level of the pavement.

There is then a wide bridge that crosses a service road for the State Archive and the gardens continues between the archive stores on the side towards the railway and a newly-revamped office building, now known as KB32, on the Kalvebod Brygge side. That straight section of garden, 190 metres long and 29.6 metres wide, is 8 metres above the pavement of Kalvebod Brygge.

Maintaining that level, there is a single narrow bridge over another service road before the gardens open out between the towers of the Tivoli Hotel and Conference Centre.

Beyond the Tivoli hotels, there is a slightly odd and over-complicated series of narrow bridges - with handrails that would grace a multi-storey car park - that cross a wider street called Arni Magnussons Gade. It is a dual carriageway that will be the access to a new bus station between Carsten Niebuhrs Gade and the railway.

Here, the landscaped area first forms the canopy over the entrance to the Hotel Cabinn before the garden then climbs up steeply between the two towers of the hotel where it now ends abruptly at a fence before the next section where work has just started on building a new IKEA store.

There, about 17 metres above the pavement of Kalvebod Brygge, the garden or "green lounge" on the roof of IKEA will be level and will cross over Dybbølsbro.

Then, between the two towers of Kaktustårnene or The Cactus Towers designed by Bjarke Ingels, the gardens will drop down at a very steep angle to the entrance level to the two blocks of the new Nexus building and then, between the those two office blocks, drop down again to end at the level of Carsten Niebuhrs Gade.

 

map from 2006 in Kalvebod Lokalplan 403 with the different stages of the development of this area from the SEB site at I through to the IKEA site at IV ….
then, the green line was only to extend as far as the area where Kaktustårnene are, beyond Dybbølsbro, but not the site of the railway control tower

①  Danske Banks Hovedsæde / headquarters for Danske Bank by Lundgaard & Tranberg - under construction
②  SEB Bank & Pensions by Lundgaard & Tranberg 2008-2011 and The City Dune by SLA design studio
③  Rigsarkivet / State Archive by PLH Arkitekter
④  KB32 by Vilhelm Lauritzen Architects and JJW ARKITEKTER completed in 2021
⑤  Tivoli Congress Centre by Kim Utzon 2009-2016
⑥  Hotel Cabinn 2019
⑦  IKEA store by Dorte Mandrup - under construction
⑧  Kaktustårnene / The Cactus Towers by Bjarke Ingels - under construction
⑨  Nexus for Energistryrelsen Trafikstyrelsen and Banedanmark by Arkitema 2014-2019
⑩  Trafiktårnet Øst / Railway control tower by Tranberg Arkitekter 2013-2015

A Bernstorffsgade B Carsten Niebuhrs Gade C Kalvebod Brygge D proposed bus station E Dybbølsbro F Fisketorvet G Metro station opens 2024

 

the gardens on the steep slope where they climb up between the towers of Hotel Cabinn

from the bridge over Arni Magnussons Gade, the gardens climb steeply up to a temporary fence where the gardens will continue on over the roof of a new IKEA store

 

details of the planting and concrete paths on the slope up from Bernstorffsgade between the two SEB buildings by the landscape designers SLA

Planting is well-established between the SEB buildings with a good selection of trees, many with decorative bark, and with some that have grown up through large holes in the prominent concrete canopies of the buildings. Narrow slots in the concrete path channel away rain water that is recycled for watering the trees and shrubs.

Across the roof of the archive, the design is more architectural with low planting and trellis that form a sequence of simple spaces with seating. The gardens help control the temperature and internal climate of the archive.

The section through the Tivoli Hotel has well-established shrubs and trees but the spaces could be better used. This is one area that might be treated like public squares and might even be used to host events. It would also be the one place, along the length of the gardens, that might benefit from a small coffee bar or cafe although, generally, the main character of the gardens is that it is quiet or peaceful ... when taking some of these photographs on a Sunday morning, only two people walked through and there were birds singing loudly in the trees.

The steep path up between the towers of Hotel Cabinn has no trees and although the low planting is good - with a variety of leaf types and shrubs - the plants could be in bolder groups, to create a stronger architectural character against the stark buildings, rather than being scattered. There are benches at intervals up the slope where you can take in the views.

At various points through the gardens there are views out between the buildings to the railway and Vesterbro on one side and through to the south harbour on the other.

There are drawings of the proposed garden on the roof of the IKEA store but it is difficult to imagine how the areas of planting will then drop down the steep slope between the Cactus Towers although Bjarke Ingels has produced planted areas at a similar steep angle on the 8 Building in Ørestad and at Copenhill on the roof of the Amager Bakke incinerator.

Where the garden drops down again between the two blocks of the Nexus building, new planting has established itself quickly and there is an interesting concrete rill or channel to take rain water down through the garden.

Back at the city end, when finished, new headquarters for Danske Bank on Bernstorffsgade immediately north of the SEB towers, will have broad flights of steps up between the buildings to a new terrace overlooking the railway and this will be connected to the main landscaping by a bridge over Carsten Niebuhrs Gade between the SEB building and the Archive.

When finished there will be public access for the full length of the high landscape and with steps up to the gardens at several intermediate points.

new steps up to the gardens with Tivoli Hotel to the left and Hotel Cabinn to the right and with the cross road Arni Magnussons Gade between the two hotels

 

the gardens on the roof over the IKEA store with the two Catus Towers beyond

the far end of the gardens where it drops down between the two blocks of the Nexus building with a view of the new railway control tower beyond

 

a new Natural History Museum and the Botanic Gardens

 

The Botanical gardens in Copenhagen have reopened from the lockdown and they look superb.

The gardens here were laid out in the late 19th century as part of the expansion of the city after the city gates; the ramparts, and the outer defences dating from the 17th century were removed.

This work had been discussed for some years but became a priority with an outbreak of cholera in 1853 when there was a substantial loss of life. It is not surprising that the first major new buildings that were constructed as the defences came down were a new hospital completed in 1863 and a new water works on the site of a bastion on the outer edge of the old defences and just inside the lakes at their south end. Both groups of buildings survive.

Initial plans drawn up in the 1850s showed the ramparts and outer ditches removed or levelled completely and new streets and squares as a continuous band of large new residential areas around the north and west sides of the old city that continued out as far as the lakes.

But the next priorities for the city are less obvious and more interesting. A new Observatory, the Østervold Observatory, was completed in 1861 to replace the royal observatory on the top of the Round Tower in the centre of the old city and it was built north of the King's Gardens on one of the highest points of the defences.

By then, the decision must have been made to retain sections of the outer water-filled defences below the ramparts and these stretches of water then became the centre of a series of parks that were laid out in an arc around the old city.

The park below the observatory became a new Botanical Garden that replaced gardens just south of Nyhavn and behind the palace of Charlottenborg.

A Palm House designed by Peter Christian Bønnecke for the gardens was completed in 1874 with a new Botanisk Museum by H N Fussing near the south corner of the gardens completed in 1877 and the Botanical Laboratory was completed in 1890.

On the north side of the gardens, a Technical and Engineering College was opened in 1889 and at the north-east corner and close to the National Gallery, Statens Museum for Kunst, a Museum of Mineralogy was completed in 1893.


The reopening of the Botanical Gardens at the end of May was an opportunity to see the major excavation works for a new Natural History Museum that is being built within the buildings and courtyards of the Technical College. Den Polytekniske Læreanstadt is a large and fairly severe brick building around a courtyard that was designed by Johan Daniel Herholdt with an entrance front to Solvgade and a long frontage to Øster Farimagsgade.

The new Natural History Museum has been designed by the Danish architects Lundgaard & Tranberg with a striking whale hall that will be in the courtyard of the 19th-century building and there will be new galleries and museum facilities extending back towards the Palm House but below ground with a new landscape above.

Early articles, about this new museum, have promoted this development as part of a new centre for earth sciences and it will provide an amazing, world-class centre for research and teaching.

Natural History Museum of Denmark, Botanical Gardens
the new Natural History Museum
Lundgaard & Tranberg Arkitekter

 
Botanic Garden.jpg

①   Østervold Observatory, Christian Hansen, 1861
②  Palm House, Peter Christian Bønnecke, 1872-1874
③  Botanisk Museum, HN Fussing, 1877
④  Den Polytekniske Læreanstadt / Technical and Engineering College,
Johan Daniel Herholdt, 1889
⑤   Botanical Laboratory, Gothersgade, Johan Daniel Herholdt, 1890
⑥   Mineralogisk Museum, Hans Jørgen Holm, 1893

Ⓐ  Nørreport - train station and metro station

Ⓑ  the entrance to the 17th-century palace of Rosenborg
Ⓒ  Statens Museum for Kunst / National Gallery of Art, Vilhelm Dahlerup, 1896
Ⓓ  Den Hirschsprungske Samling / the Hirschsprung Gallery, 1911
Ⓔ  the General Hospital completed in 1863 from designs by Christian Hansen

 
 

reopening

Frihedsmuseet / The Freedom Museum or Museum of Danish Resistance in Churchillparken, at the entrance to Kastellet, was destroyed in a devastating fire in 2013.

Fortunately, almost all of the collection was saved and a new museum has been built on the site. Designed by Lundgaard & Tranberg, the main galleries will be below ground.

The building above ground - with the entrance, the shop and cafe and staircases and lifts down to the exhibition space - is reminiscent of a concrete pillbox. Fine wires will support greenery as camouflage. The museum is expected to open on 5 May.

Lundgaard & Tranberg Arkitekter
Frihedsmuseet

 
 

on with the old ....

L1260730.jpg

Axel Towers by Lundgaard & Tranberg

As the calendar moves to a new year it’s a good time to look back and a time to look forward but that old trope - out with the old and in with new - really can't apply to architecture and planning.

There might be a great buzz as a new building is finished and opened - this year in Copenhagen it was Axel Towers opposite the main entrance to the Tivoli Gardens designed by Lundgaard & Tranberg Arkitekter that won a popular vote for the best new building in the city and the new BLOX building down on the inner harbour designed by the architects OMA that opened in May that caused most 'buzz' - but buildings take years to evolve and major planning decisions take years to resolve and their impact can last for decades if not centuries.

I wonder how many merchants in 1618 muttered and moaned about how difficult it was to get their boats in to the old wharves along Gammel Strand now the King was doing all that work around Holmen and as for those fancy new warehouses on the other side of the harbour emerging out of what was open water … well who could afford those prices and wasn’t it a pity to have lost that nice view across to Amager?

But back to 2018. Particularly towards the end of the year - there was what seems like a rush of planning decisions in December where some major schemes have been put on hold and some, that were apparently abandoned, seem to have been resurrected.

L1320042.jpg

BLOX by OMA

 

If New Year is good for anything then it's as good a time as any to reflect and reconsider.

The BLOX building is a good example. I find it really really difficult to like the building and I'm certainly not alone. It's not a bad building as such but with hindsight - yup that wonderful thing hindsight - I'm curious to know if that project was starting right now, rather than in 2005, when the land was purchased, would Realdania and DAC be sketching out now a building like that for that site?

If you had to pick just one really controversial problem for planning right now, it would be the huge pressure on the city to break the skyline by breaking through the long-established height limit for new buildings. If any developer buys land anywhere in the city outside the centre, even close to the historic centre, then the go-to solution is to go up.

One of those new towers at Axel Torv has 16 floors and taller buildings are proposed for a different development on the area immediately to the north which could involve not only demolishing the much-loved Palads Teatret at the north end of Axel Torv but also building massive towers across the top of the railway as it heads out north from the central station in what is now a wide cutting. The problem with that scheme, as with proposals for any tower building, is that it can have a huge impact on nearby buildings, by blocking views, creating shadows and funnelling wind and of course, as with the new Maersk building on the north side of the lakes, towers impose themselves by dominating the views from a wide area as they rear above the historic roof scape. Permission for a series of new towers on the site of the old post sorting offices south of the central station were delayed in the summer as people protested about concerns that they would throw a shadow over the harbour swimming baths.

Even more drastic changes are proposed but one of the curious things is that although people seem to crave novelty and love the new, when push comes to shove, they are wary or very wary about change.

Maybe that is the real problem for planners … people will be nostalgic when they see a sepia-coloured photograph of a long-lost streetscape or watch an old film of the city and reminisce but if you ask them what a specific building looked like after it has been demolished then they will struggle to remember. A new metro station on the square in front of the city hall is close to being completed and right now they are planting a forest … well all right … planting a glade … of trees across the site of the old bus station but I struggle to remember what that looked like.

The point is that with all the new buildings and all the major planning changes that have been proposed over this year, the real need is for lively and informed public debate both before plans are finally approved but also after a new scheme is completed because it helps to be able to say why we don’t like something … not just, slightly vaguely, that we don’t like it.

Some of the plans in the pipe line will change the city for ever so now is the time for people who live in Copenhagen to decide if what is proposed is actually what they want for their city five, ten, fifteen or more years from now.

People in the city have a proud tradition of protest - sometimes violent - as when housing around Blågårds Plads was demolished in the 1970s or the Youth House on Jagtvej was demolished in 2006 without local consultation.

Some major schemes, like the motorway down the lakes that planners proposed in the 1960s, can be abandoned when everyone, planners and citizens, realise that actually it is a bad idea, but that is rare. Other schemes get built and it's only then that people can see the impact and only then that they realise that the real problem is that buildings like that don’t get unbuilt.

Bygningspræmiering / Building Awards 2018

On the 7th April 1902 the city council of Copenhagen voted to make awards annually for "beautiful artistic designs for construction projects on the city's land."  

There had been some discussion with the Association of Academic Architects about creating an award that recognised the best designs for new buildings in the city but from the start the awards were also to provide guidelines or a model and an incentive for owners and clients when they commissioned work. 

It is important to understand that the council appreciated fully the importance of historic buildings in the city so the awards were, in part, to encourage the design of new buildings of an appropriate quality to stand alongside the historic buildings but they also went further to include awards for major projects for the restoration of existing buildings and to recognise improvements to the townscape or urban scape that provided the best and most appropriate setting for those buildings.

Nor did the awards just focus on major or prestigious buildings but over 115 years they have also recognised the best private houses, new apartment buildings and commercial buildings, factories and schools in Copenhagen. 

For 2018, eight buildings have been recognised with an award but, for the first time, these will all go forward for the selection of an overall winner by a public vote.

That winner will be announced at a ceremony at the City Hall on 3 May. 

 

 

 

Axel Towers, Axeltorv 2
Lundgaard & Tranberg Arkitekter A/S

Five circular towers, tightly grouped and interlinked, with shops and a cafe at the lower level, a new public space at an upper level between the towers, offices and a restaurant at the top overlooking the city. The nomination for an award appears to be in part for the quality of the exterior and for the new or rather the replanning of the public space running back from the street across the west side of the new buildings.

 



Carlsbergfondets Forskersboligerne / Carlsberg Foundation Graduate Housing, Bohrsgade 7-13
Praksis Arkitekter ApS

Apartments on an important and sensitive site overlooking the JC Jacobsen Gardens. The award appears to be for the quality of the design, attempting to set a standard for the redevelopment of this area, previously the site of the Carlsberg brewery. There is an interesting loggia across the street frontage that takes its form from covered links between and across the front of original brewery buildings and the form of the brickwork, with panels of bricks set diagonally to create a zigzag dog-tooth pattern, shows a clever and sympathetic and appropriate respect for the facade of the adjoining brick building on the garden side by Eske Kristensen that dates from the 1960s and was itself an award-winning design.

 

 


Konstabelskolen, Luftmarinegade 1
Vandkunsten

New youth housing in buildings on Margreteholm that date from 1939 - an early and important concrete post and beam construction that has been derelict for some years.

 

 

 

Mærsk Tårnet / Mærsk Tower, Blegdamsvej 3B
C F Møller Architects
Landscape SLA

Prominent new building for medical research - for the university Panum Institute and the Novo Nordisk Foundation Centre on the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences site. The award, in part, seems to recognise the technical aspects of the building, particularly energy saving for such a large structure; in part recognises the complex planning for such a complicated high-tech role and in part is for the landscape around the building that takes into account controls for surface water - as cloud bursts become more common, and potentially much more destructive with climate change - but also has interesting planting and a dramatic use of elevated public walkways to encourage people to enter the site or cut through.

L1260671.jpg

 

Dehns Palæ / Dehn’s Palace, Bredgade 54
Wohlert Arkitekter A/S

An 18th-century palace - designed by JG Rosenberg and close to the royal palace and the Marble Church - has been restored for Danmarks Apotekerforening / Denmarks Pharmaceutical Association following an extensive fire in 2010. The award recognises that because the building is so important, restoration work was completed using original materials with original working techniques.


 

Åbenrå 16
Entasis A/S

Apartment building constructed on a plot in the historic centre of the city close to the King's Garden that has been vacant since 1970 when a number of old houses were demolished ahead of a major scheme to rebuild the street that was then abandoned.

 



The Silo, Lüdersvej 15
COBE

Prestigious apartments and a roof-top restaurant in the conversion of a concrete silo for grain that was the largest industrial building in the North Harbour. The challenge was to give the building a relevant and financially viable function to justify its survival; respect the scale of the building, with what are exceptional heights between the floors, and to retain qualities and the drama of the raw concrete of the original building but bring the spaces up to current standards of insulation. 


the two silos in May 2015

 

Frihavns Tårnet, Helsinkigade 18-20
Praksis Arkitekter ApS

Housing in the conversion of a former DLG silo close to the Silo. The industrial building was given a distinctive framework of balconies on three sides and the award recognises the quality of the apartments - “the decor and the choice of materials” but also appreciates that the design has created “liveable” homes particularly in terms their orientation to the natural light.

 
 

note:

There is a page on the web site of Københavns Kommune - under Housing, Construction and Urban Life - on the Building Awards that has information about each of the nominated buildings with photographs, including some interiors, and a short video for an assessment of each of the projects by the City Architect Tina Saaby (in Danish).

Frihedsmuseet / Museum of Danish Resistance

Work on the new museum of Danish Resistance on Churchillparken seems to be moving forward fast with the excavation of the site visible through windows in the hoardings. The construction of a new museum followed an arson attack in April 2013 that destroyed the building although the collection and the archive was saved. 

Following a competition, the new museum has been designed by the architects Lundgaard & Tranberg whose scheme has an oval pill box like structure for the entrance at the level of the park but with the display galleries set underground … a compact and restrained design for a building that is in a sensitive location.

The timber buildings of the old museum certainly had a quirky charm but this solution allows for larger and more open areas for the displays and means up-to-date facilities and not just for visitors but of course also for the conservation of the collection.

Lundgaard & Tranberg

Axeltorv

 

 

Hoardings are down and there is now public access to the new square and to the new building at Axeltorv. This major new development, opposite the main entrance to Tivoli, was designed by Lundgaard & Tranberg Arkitekter and is described as ‘five fused circular towers of different heights.’

Round towers are relatively unusual in the city - Rundetaarn or round tower at the west end of Trinitatis Kirke being one prominent example - but the round form of the towers in the new building may have been inspired by its site on one of the bastions of the old defences and the lower part of a medieval, circular, brick tower from the old wall survives nearby at Jarmers Plads.

 

 

 

The new Axeltorv is a stunning building and the facade, with its cladding panels and distinctive fins in the brass alloy tombac, is a visual link with Vesterport - the important office building further west by Povl Baumann and Ole Falkentorp that dates from 1930-1932 - although the tombac will presumably not take on the same green patina as the copper.

 

 

 

Clearly the building has created an important public square between Tivoli and Jerbanegade and public access has been taken high up into the building by a dramatic main staircase and narrower secondary staircases that rise between the towers to an upper court that has mature trees and good, high-quality hard landscaping with cobbles and seats that pick up the circular theme. And this upper space is very dramatic with curved upper links between the towers supported on simple but very tall and elegant columns.

 

 

 

But … and there is a big but … although the building and the square attract and pull the visitor through, it seems curiously not site specific. It is a virtuoso design but it fits unhappily with the street to its north and the buildings to its east where the older buildings have just been sliced off and there is a grim alleyway between the old and the new with views into back courtyards that were and are not meant to be seen. Yes, it is boring and safe to respect and retain street frontages and building heights but to break through them so dramatically here, on this site, undermines rather than pulls together what is already a confusing, crowded and visually distracting and fragmented townscape between the city hall and the main railway station.

Lundgaard & Tranberg Arkitekter

Ofelia Plads

 

looking north across the new pier or plads from the theatre with the Admiral Hotel beyond a dock basin 

Work on Ofelia Plads - a large, new public space in Copenhagen - has just been completed. 

To the north of the Skuespilhuset (Royal Danish Theatre or Playhouse) there was a 19th-century staithe or pier that was constructed parallel to the shore with a basin, Kvæsthusbassinet, and a wharf with a large brick warehouse, now the Admiral Hotel, on the west side and the main channel of the harbour to its east. Most recently it was used as the dock for ferries to and from Oslo and to and from the Baltic islands and ports.

In an ambitious and extensive engineering project that has just been completed, the pier has been excavated or hollowed out to create a large car park that has three levels below ground - or, perhaps it’s more important to point out, there are three levels below water level in the harbour - and the surface was then reinstated with a number of simple, small, low, new, metal-clad structures for staircase entrances to the parking levels and ventilation systems.

This hardly sounds devastating or dramatic in terms of city architecture but it actually shows Danish engineering design and urban planning at its very best - very, very well thought through; carefully and efficiently executed and with no attempt or need to show, in any flashy way, just how much money was spent. In fact the project was a gift to the city through a collaboration between the Ministry of Culture and Realdania.

read more

 

Havneholmen

looking across to Havneholmen from the east side of the harbour

 

 

On a walk down to the shopping centre at Fisketorvet on a clear sunny Autumn afternoon and happening to have a camera, it was a good opportunity to take photographs of the apartment buildings at Havneholmen.

There are two courtyard blocks here designed by the architectural firm of Lundgaard & Tranberg that were completed in 2008.

read more

 

 

from the street or entrance front looking through to the courtyard, to the boat moorings and to the main harbour beyond