money made available to restore the Soup Tureen

The city has just now announced that a block of money has been made available for a number of restoration projects and for work to improve a number of streets or public areas.

One of the projects will be the restoration of the pavilion on the major road interchange north of the lakes at Trianglen.

Dating from 1907, the building was designed by PV Jensen-Klint and was waiting rooms and public toilets where several major tram routes terminated or crossed.

The copper roof, with it’s distinct and striking shape, soon earned the building the nickname of Super Terrin or Terrinen although it was also known as Bien … the bee …. from the name of a kiosk here at one time.

Bien at Trianglen
Trianglen

Trianglen in Østerbro

 

 

Trianglen is a busy triangle-shaped public space in the district of Østerbro - so north of the lakes and immediately to the east of the new metro station that will take the same name. 

This is where two main roads in the city cross at an angle rather than at 90 degrees and it illustrates well how a dynamic townscape evolves over what is often centuries through a combination of factors including, of course, topography but also military and strategic history, wider patterns of roads and transport - so where people are travelling to or from either away from the city or within the city - and inevitably ownership and property boundaries and, in many cases, the direct involvement of a monarch, a city council and - from the 20th century onwards - planning authorities and transport companies. 

Oh … and as much as anything it’s often about the way people use a space or even how they cut across corners that ends up fixed in the position and line of roads, pavements and buildings.

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Bien at Trianglen

Trianglen Bien.jpg
 
 

 

This is one of the more extraordinary buildings in Copenhagen. 

It is at the east end of Trianglen in Østerbro, on the traffic island that was a tram car stop and it was a kiosk; a room for a traffic controller and public toilets and there were benches not only in the recessed spaces on the east and west sides but also around the outside where people could sit if they had to wait for trams at this busy interchange.

The architect was PV Jensen-Klint and it was commissioned in 1904 by the Østerbro Grundejerforening or Landowners Association to replace a wooden hut on the same site. A number of designs were presented before a final design was approved and the building was completed in 1907.

It has a sort of exuberance and delight in playing with variations of shape and form that is associated with Art Nouveau architecture but here the columns on each side with strong entasis - the bowing out in the middle - and the almost Baroque elements with curved shaped heads to windows and doors picked up in the line of glazing bars makes it more robust and strongly architectural than buildings you would find from the same period in Paris or Brussels.

The oval shape of the building and its copper roof meant that it was soon given the nickname of the Super Terrin or Terrinen - it looked like a large soup dish with a lid with the heraldic animals on the top like a knob or handle although they are actually flues for the stoves. The building is also known as Bien or The Bee from the name of the kiosk here at one stage.