early afternoon on a warm Saturday in May

Today was the warmest day of the year so far.

I did some shopping in Amager and then sauntered across Kløvermarken and through Christianshavn and over the inner harbour bridge to Nyhavn and the square at Kongens Nytorv.

People in the city make use of the streets and squares and open spaces of the city to sit outside at any time of the year but particularly if the weather is good. I took a few photographs and it was only when I downloaded the photos that I realised nearly everything here is about eating and drinking outside but there are also major events, exhibitions and participatory sport outside and through most of the year.

On Holmblådsgade, a main street that cuts east west across Amager, there are now several cafes and bars with outdoor seating but here a side street on the west side of Nathanaels Kirke has been closed to through traffic and the restaurant and bar on the corner can spread it’s tables out across what is a good sun trap. Rather than being a problem, passing traffic and people walking along the pavements is a good distraction and means that there is a good amount of banter and interaction with locals.

The open green space is in that intermediate area between Christianshavn and Holmen and is behind the Hal C sports centre. This was a loud and well-supported rugby tournament for women though the food and drink and barbecues for families and friends there to give support seemed to be as important as the sport.

Crossing over the harbour bridge and looking back down onto the quay at Krøyers Plads, it was clear that again this summer the wood decks here will be the place to pose and see and be seen if you are in your teens or 20s or even your wanna-be-young-again 30s but it certainly helps if you are happy to dive into the water even if it is still numbingly cold.

The restaurant and bar at Charlottenborg - the 17th-century palace of the Danish Royal Academy - is another great sun trap and here, tucked around the corner from the gate from Nyhavn, you are barely aware of the press of tourists just metres away as they jostle for tickets for the harbour boat tours or argue with their kids about what ice creams they want or do or do not deserve.

 

a revamped Fisketorvet

the main entrance on the north-west side is at the end of a long bridge over the main railway tracks from the suburban train station at Dybbølsbro

the main entrance to Fisketorvet from the west … here, Kalvebod Brygge, the main road into and out of the city from the south, is down in an underpass with high retaining walls for the slip roads

Construction work has started on a major revamp and upgrade of the Fisketorvet shopping centre at the south end of the harbour. The restaurant area at the north-east corner of the building is closed and the exterior is now under scaffolding.

There was a fish market for the city here from 1958 through to 1999 when it was moved to the North Harbour.

The shopping centre with a large cinema was designed by Kiehlers Architects and it opened on the site of the fish market in 2000. Inside it is light and really it’s not bad for a large shopping centre from that period with shops on well-lit malls on the level of the main entrance from Dybbølsbro and on the level above and a large supermarket on the south-east side at a lower level that is reached from a quay alongside a canal.

However, the exterior is certainly looking a bit tired and more than a bit dated. A series of six tall dark towers across the south end and down the south-east side towards the canal are stark and oppressive.

A new metro station will open in 2024 at the south-west end of the shopping centre, where there was a car park, and in the last three or four years new apartment buildings have been constructed in this part of the city so, presumably, major investment in the shopping centre, can now be justified.

The centre has a service road at the lowest level, on the side towards Kalvebod Brygge - a dual carriageway with heavy traffic that is a main way in and out of the city from the south - and there was parking at the lowest level. Like so many shopping centres of that period, it was inward looking - so punters were not distracted from the whole spending experience - but the plan now seems to be for new, outward-facing shops that will be built to make the centre more inviting and more open to the community around.

Havneholmen, the sharply-pointed island, has apartment buildings and office blocks built since 2000.
Fisketorvet is the roughly-rectangular block between the island and Kalvebod Brygge - the main road from the south into the city centre … the concave entrance front is obvious at the end of the long bridge over the road and the railway.
the new metro station will be across the south-west end of the shopping centre and is on a new metro line that will open in 2024 to run from the central station out to the south harbour and on to Ny Ellebjerg

Fisketorvet now …. from the north with the harbour for the old gasworks and the cycle bridge … and from the south

proposals by Schmidt Hammer Lassen for remodelling the exterior

CHART Architecture

CHART Architecture is an annual competition to design pavilions that are erected in the two courtyards of Charlottenborg and they have a major role as they are the venues for drink and food served through the four days of the CHART Art Fair.

To give focus to the initial design process, there is a theme for each year and this year it was to explore the concept of Social Architecture where spaces and objects “sets a tone and a stage for social or private engagements.”

Forty-six proposals were submitted by graduate students or newly-graduated architects, designers and artists from 28 different countries.

In the Spring five finalists were selected by an international jury that included:

Bjarke Ingels, architect and founder of BIG
the architect Shohei Shigematsu, from OMA
David Zahle, architect and partner from BIG
Sabine Marcelis, award winning designer from Holland
Simon Lamunière, director of OPEN HOUSE
Danish artist Nina Beier

CHART 2021
CHART Architecture 2021

courtyard stage by the Swedish designer Fredrik Paulsen


Situated Exteriors
by Kathrine Birkbak, Anja Fange, and Joe Mckenzie

 The architecture of Charlottenborg is echoed in wire panels.


OM
by guilt.studio
Diana Claudia Mot, Marius Mihai Ardelean, Claudia Lavinia Cimpan, and Mihkel Pajuste

 A pavilion constructed with aluminium ventilation ducts.

 


Leverage
by Rumgehør
Rasmus R.B. Maabjerg, Nikolaj Noe, and Victor Tambo

Made from dunnage bags - light inflatable bags used generally to secure and protect freight.

Winner of CHART Architecture 2021


CURTAIN CALL
by Rosita Kær, Nina Højholdt, Thomas Christensen, Sam Collins, and Lauda Vargas

The textiles are reused to create “curtain walls” that define and divide the spaces.

 

 


FIELD
by Torsten Sherwood and Benedicte Brun

 The green canopy over a long communal table is fresh bean shoots.

 

new buildings on the roof of Det Danske Filminstitut / the Danish Film Institute

Det Danske Film Institute from the King’s Garden

Planning permission has just been granted for an extensive new development on the roof of the Danish Film Institute.

With two courtyards, this large building that covers a complete block in the centre of the city was built in two stages for the great Danish media company Egmont.

The first part - the west half of the block with a frontage to Vognmagergade - dates from 1912-1914 and was designed by the architect Bernard Ingemann. The second part - the east half that faces onto Gothersgade and looks over Kongens Have - the King's Garden - dates from 1926-1928 and was designed by the architect Alf Cock-Clausen. Egmont have a large office building opposite on the other side of Vognmagergade.

By the late 19th century, this part of the city, just inside the old defences, was tightly-packed with old houses around narrow and crowded courtyards that had become notorious slums. In the 1890s and into the 20th century the area was rebuilt. The courtyards and buildings were demolished and a major new street, Christian IX's Gade, was laid out, at an angle, to cut through the old area to the corner of the royal gardens, with new offices, new institutional buildings and large new apartment blocks were built on either side.

Gothersgade 55 - the east part of the Egmont building - is now occupied by Det Danske Filminstitut who have three cinemas here to show classic films under the name Cinemateket and there is also the library of the national museum of film with its reference archive of magazines, books and film posters.

The extensive work on the roof will create a new, cinema with 127 seats and there will be extensive terraces and pavilions for a cinema foyer and a café and areas for displays and exhibitions of historic film artefacts from the film museum.

 

Det Danske Filminstitut
Tagterrasse med filmmuseum
Egmont

the view from the roof of the Danish Film Institute looking towards Nyhavn
and the trees on the outer defences of Christianshavn

 

Broens Skøjtebane / Bridge Street Iceskating

 

On top of everything else, Coronavirus seems to have distorted time. Autumn seems to have come and gone with barely a trace because the ice skating rink at the south end of the inner harbour bridge - Broens Skøjtebane - has just been set up on the square between the warehouses and the canal where, until recently, people were sitting out to eat at the food market.

The city is quieter than you would expect at this time of year and many of the traditional events have been cancelled or scaled back so there will be no skating this year outside the gates to the park at Frederiksberg; there will be no Christmas markets at Højbro Plads and Kongens Nytorv; and the launch of the Tuborg Julebryg - the special Christmas Ale - so an important evening on the calendar and always on the first Friday in November - was cancelled for the first time since the tradition was established in 1981.

Broens Skøjtebane / Broens Ice Skating Rink

 

Parken, the Danish National Stadium, is to be modernised

Parken - the stadium from Øster Allé

Parken, the national stadium, in Østerbro, has a prominent location on the east side of Fælledparken, and is on the site of an earlier stadium - Idrætsparken.

Designed by Gert Andersson, work on the new stadium started in 1990 and it opened in 1992 with a capacity of 38,000.

Record attendance is actually 60,000 people but that was not for a football match but for the Michael Jackson concert in 1997 and the roof was not added for the comfort of players or spectators but for a Eurovision Song Contest.

In the new work under the architects CF Møller, capacity in the stadium will be increased, with the stands rebuilt, and new office buildings will be constructed at three of the four corners.


Kulturministriet - the Danish Ministry of Culture - is in the centre of Copenhagen - in an old merchant’s house on Nybrogade - at the west end of Gammel Strand

With the return of the government to Borgen for the Autumn session, there have been rumours that Kulturministriet - the Ministry of Culture - could be reorganised.

Joy Mogensen, the current Minister of Culture, has a double portfolio for she is also Minister of Ecclesiastical Affairs but, in addition, has ministerial responsibility for sport in Denmark.

I know many describe football as an art and fans worship their star players and follow their chosen sport with religious devotion and, maybe - in our post-Coronavirus world - getting crowds back, is the priority now, for managers of football stadiums and managers of theatres, but can religion, culture and sport really be seen as completely easy bedfellows under a single minister?

This spotlights … or maybe floodlights …. a problem that all small or relatively small countries have and that is how you cover everything with a relatively small number of people.

In Denmark, there are around 25 ministerial departments and the ruling party here - currently the Social Democratic Party - has 48 members of parliament out of a total of 179 who are elected to Folketinget - the Danish parliament - so in theory over half of the MPs could be ministers.

In comparison, the Tory Prime Minister in Britain appoints ministers from its 364 members of parliament - out of a total of 650 seats in the Lower House - and they can also bring in as ministers any of the 245 Conservative peers, out of a total of 1,422, in the House of Lords. In theory, that is a much larger gene pool but I would not dare to comment on which ministers from which parliaments in which country can be seen to be better at running things in their respective countries at the moment.

 

the Danish Architecture Center has reopened

Hello Denmark … the new exhibition in the Golden Gallery

 

The Danish Architecture Center at BLOX reopened this week.

The main exhibition - Kids' City - will now stay until 18 October and there are two new exhibitions and a new installation.

Hello Denmark is in the Golden Gallery and can be seen until the 18th October and Syv meningsfulde / Seven homes with a purpose is in the entrance area and again can be seen until 18th October.

The installation is a giant spiral slide that drops down from the main exhibition level to the book shop at the lowest public level so quite some ride.

Danish Architecture Center
BLOX, Bryghuspladsen, 1473 København K

 
 

Public Space & Public Life during Covid 19

Jan Gehl and his staff, with the support of Realdania and the City of Copenhagen, have looked at how the coronavirus pandemic and restrictions imposed for necessary social distancing have changed the ways in which people are using streets, public spaces, parks and playgrounds during the "lock-down."

A team of 60 surveyors completed observations over 12 hours on two days, a Friday and a Saturday, in Copenhagen, Helsingør, Svendborg and Horsen.

Information was logged using their digital platform called Public Space Public Life to record who was using public space for activities and when; to record if people were stationary or moving through the space and to record if those people who were outside were alone or in small groups.

Conclusions from that data have now been presented in their report as what are called 'snap shots' with charts, dynamic maps and simple graphs to record the time and the location of activity.

Downtown or commercial areas, particularly shopping streets, had less use than would be normal but local places with activities such as playgrounds were used more and used by more children and older people than before and observers recorded changes in gender distribution, so women were often seen in pairs while men tended to be either alone or in groups of four or more.

The research was undertaken because "Major global crisis, such as pandemics, economic depressions, and wars shape our societies and the way people experience everyday life."

No one can be sure how the pandemic will progress or what, if any, the immediate and the long-term consequences will be but this report forms an important and appropriate starting point for any changes and any new planning policies for public space that might be necessary.

the full report is available online in Danish or in English
Jan Gehl - People

 

new areas for swimming in the harbour

Some politicians at City Hall have suggested that there should be more official swimming zones in the harbour … in fact up to 17 more areas where citizens could swim.

In part, this is to remove pressure from the numbers using the existing swimming areas in the harbour that can become crowded.

People swim outside the designated areas but the danger then is from boats and existing swimming areas have warning signs if weather conditions mean that there are high levels of algae or if sewers or drains have overflowed.

It has even been suggested that the system of designation should be reversed so that swimming is allowed anywhere apart from in a few specific and marked zones.

new swimming areas:

  • Sandkaj (to extend the present zone)

  • Søndre Frihavn - the East basin at Pramrenden

  • Refshaleøen at Halvandet (to extend the present zone)

  • Refshaleøen (havnebad / harbour baths)

  • Refshaleøen at La Banchina

  • area north of Operaen / The Opera

  • Erdkehlgraven - kanonbådsskurene

  • Nordatlantens Brygge (rejected before)

  • Havnegade

  • Islands Brygge, at the wooden pier (rejected before)

  • At A-huset (rejected before)

  • Teglværkshavnen, at solnedgangstrappen (rejected before)

  • Teglværkshavnen, at TDC

  • Teglværkshavnen, at Aalborg Universiy

  • Teglværkshavnen, at TV2

swimming at Kalvebod Bølge - JDS Architects 2013

another scheme for the cinema site

Another scheme has been submitted for the site of the Palads Teatret in Copenhagen.

This design, from the Bjarke Ingels Group, has a series of massive blocks that are stacked up but offset to follow the curve of the railway and of Hammerichsgade that together mark the west side of the site.

At the lower south end is what looks like an open amphitheatre that would step back and up from street level but it would face what is now a very busy road and would look across to a less-than-attractive block at the back of the Axelborg building.

At the north end of the proposed complex, these blocks would be stacked so high as to be as tall or taller than the tower of the SAS Royal Hotel nearby so - like the other scheme for a series of tower blocks bridging the trench of the railway - it would throw a deep shadow over streets and buildings to the west and north and would certainly dominate and interrupt the skyline from many parts of the historic city centre. Is the design really that good to be that intrusive?

The design of the exterior appears to be a stripped-down, simple and open white framework - a relatively elegant variation on international modern - but it could be anywhere - so it hardly seems to be site specific, apart from the curve, and, if it could be anywhere, then why not anywhere but here?

And there could be 12 cinema spaces within the building although that is hardly obvious from the exterior but then that is hardly surprising because the cinemas will be in the basement to free up valuable rental space where tenants will pay for their views out.

There is that overworked phrase about form following function in good design but it is still useful when turned the other way round because, in many situations, buildings are better when their function is reflected in their form. Cinemas now, since the arrival of the multiplex, are smaller and, in any case, cinemas, from their very function, have little relationship to the world outside once you are inside - detachment from the real world, some would argue, is a crucial part of going to the cinema - but this looks like an office block paying little more than lip service to being an entertainment complex.

In some locations this would not matter but here, just west of the city hall, the commercial life of the city has always existed alongside major venues for popular entertainment so this is or should be downtown offices alongside Times Square night life where the city made its money and spent it.

National Scala, a complex of restaurants and tea rooms and concert halls - the building that was on the site of what is now Axel Torv - closed in the 1950s but the amazing Cirkus building from 1886 survives across the square from the cinema site and, of course, Tivoli is just a block away.

Redevelopment of this site should be a reason for trying to not only revitalise the area but also to pull it together in a coherent way but, in the design shown here, this building would completely dominate the view from the entrance gates of the Tivoli gardens.

Surely there has to be a comprehensive development plan for this important but now rather vulnerable part of the city, that should re-establish the links between the fragmented areas of public space and should set parameters for what new buildings can or should be allowed, because each of the recent developments have gone their own way and that has meant destruction by an unrelenting attrition from developers.

 

what would be the view of the development from the entrance of Tivoli

 

the dotted line is the building line of Hammerichsgade extended across the trench of the railway tracks …. the one advantage of the other scheme - the development that would construct blocks across the trench - had this line as the back edge of a new public square with the 1930s building of the Vesterport suburban station at the centre and with all the new tower blocks in the wedge between that line and the Vandværksviadukten but with one large building beyond the viaduct.

the scheme from BIG respects the curve of Hammerichsgade on the west side but leaves a series of odd triangular spaces against the pavement - so undermining the line of the curve - and makes the line of Ved Vesterport the alignment of the entrance

Waterfront Design Catalogue

 

More and more articles in newspapers and planning reports in Copenhagen are talking about green and blue planning policies …. so policies that look in a coherent way at green nature in the city but alongside policies for water quality and for making the harbour and lakes a more crucial part of life in Copenhagen.

Recently, I came across this publication from the Technical Department of the city council that was published in 2013. Drawn up by, among others, the architectural studio of COBE, the illustrations are good at showing just how many different ways there are to deal with the hard edge of the quay around the harbour that forms the link between the land and the water and there are many ideas about how to encourage more access to the water and more activities.

The cycle route around the harbour is now complete and at over 13 kilometres it draws in a large area of water of the inner harbour and, as work on the new district of Nordhavn moves forward, more and more facilities on the water have been provided. The new swimming area in Nordhavn opened last year.

City planners are now considering the possibility of designating the wooden decking and the inner part of the dock at Ofelia Plads, north of the National Theatre, as a new official swimming area.

download PDF

Tivoli Hjørnet / The Corner

This building - a new Tivoli food hall designed by the American architects Pei Cobb Freed & Partners - has just won a major architecture award -  the 2020 AIA Award from the American Institute of Architects - and I really cannot understand why.

It is on a tightly-constricted plot at the north-west corner of the gardens but could hardly be more prominent being immediately to one side of the main entrance to Tivoli and with a long street frontage facing across to the main railway station. Anyone arriving in Copenhagen by train walks across to and along and around the corner of this building as they walk into the city centre.

I can understand why it was a major commercial project for Tivoli but the design of the building fails in so many ways.

It crowds up to and swamps the red-brick entrance gates that date from the 1890s and looms over the historic building.

The glass of the street frontage is a strange colour and the street frontage has no vertical features or, rather, few features at all …. so it has a stark minimalism that emphasises rather than disguises it's bulk.

The pavement along the long side to the street was always narrow. The waving form of the new front, over sailing the pavement and with the doors into the food hall set back, does allow for more space but this is now piled up with pavement tables and chairs of different types to ‘attract’ in punters.

On the side towards the gardens there are terraces that sound amazing as described by the architects ….

“the building's terracotta terraces weave together and step back, beneath the Copenhagen sky. Hemmed with lush planting ….”

….. but the brick tile cladding is a strange pale, off-yellow buff colour and the terraces seem pinched and squeezed in and the planting, when I looked at the building, seems to be thin and wilting because the planters are not big enough.

From both sides of the building - from the street and from the gardens - there is a messy roof line that is mostly giant vents on the garden side and odd terrace furniture for the upper restaurant on the street side.

Once inside you realise it is just a fairly standard food hall from any motorway service-station with closely-packed independent - so disparate - food stalls and a ceiling of electric ducting and ventilation systems.

Inside, you can see that the exterior design disguises the high ground-floor commercial space by acting as a pelmet to give the frontage a more human scale. Not so much form follows function but form follows kroner.

The blurb by the architects describes their design as being inspired by the historic defences of the city but I am not convinced.

Above all this building seems to barely recognise the character of the gardens - let alone the character of historic buildings in the city beyond. Tivoli is an absolutely amazing place … all about escape and fantasy and entertainment but those are qualities obviously lacking in this new building.

While I was taking photographs I did come across one of the famous white peacocks from the gardens but he looked pretty tired and pretty disorientated as he grubbed around the waste bin looking for food.

This is simply a food hall for feeding people on an industrial scale. It may well deserve an award for being a successful commercial investment but does it really deserve an award that suggests it is an outstanding example of contemporary architecture?

Pei Cobb Freed & Partners
2020 Award from the American Institute of Architects

 
 

“Cantilevering out on the city side, the building shares in the vitality of the street. It enfolds rather than delimits. By capturing the nuances of the changing light and unfolding with passage its variable form, it is designed to enrich the experience of passers-by, who are invited to drift above and along Bernstorffsgade,”

quote from architects web site

 

“With one foot planted in the past and one in the future, this project engages the history of Copenhagen’s extraordinary Tivoli Garden and adds to its storied legacy. The garden … was envisioned as a place for amusement, culture, and recreation, and the Hjørnet project resonates with the garden’s dualities: traditional and experimental, bucolic and urban, contemplative and entertaining.

Where it faces the city, the building is animated and welcoming. On the other side, it echoes the spirit of hygge and social harmony …”

citation from the American Institute of Architects

 

were the defences of the historic city really the inspiration for the design of the food hall?

“The key architectural idea for Tivoli Hjørnet was derived from the fortification walls and moat that historically enfolded the city and today remain imprinted on the garden's layout. Just as these walls formed the boundary of the city, so is the building a new edge for the garden. It is an inhabited zone that both engages and entertains.”

again, quoted from the on-line site of Pei Cobb Freed & Partners

Night Fever

A major new exhibition has opened at Designmuseum Danmark in Copenhagen to explore the design of nightclubs and discotheques described as "hotbeds of contemporary culture."

This is about interiors and furniture; about graphics, for posters and record covers; about the development of all the technology needed for sound systems and lighting in these venues and, of course, fashion with contemporary photographs and some outfits and with separate sections on key places through the decades since the early 1960s including Studio 54 in New York; the Hacienda in Manchester and Ministry of Sound in London along with clubs and discotheques in Italy and Berlin.

There are videos - including a long clip from Saturday Night Fever with John Travolta that was released in 1977 - and even a dance floor with music (through headphones) with play lists from early pop disco through house to techno.

The exhibition has been designed and curated by Vitra Design Museum and ADAM - Brussels Design Museum.

NIGHT FEVER. Designing Club Culture 1960-today
continues at Designmuseum Danmark until 27 September 2020

 

 
 

an earlier scheme for a new hotel in the Tivoli gardens

Towards the end of 2006, the British firm of architects Foster + Partners won an international competition to design a hotel for Tivoli.

That design, like the more recent design by BIG, was to have a tall circular tower and was described by the architects as:

“driven by a careful urban strategy concerned with the preservation of Copenhagen's low skyline, the scheme comprises an elegant cluster of interconnecting cylinders that combine to form a generous podium corresponding to the heights of the surrounding rooflines. Elegantly rising from the podium, a slender sculptural tower acts as a marker for the scheme and relates in scale to the City Hall tower opposite, adding to the language of spires in Copenhagen. The landscaped roofs of the lower buildings extend the greenery of Tivoli and reinforce the buildings sustainable profile. In addition to allowing for rainwater collection, the buildings are oriented to maximise natural light and views while reducing unwanted solar gain in the summer, but capturing the suns rays in the cooler winter months.”

A photograph of a model of the proposed hotel shows just how high the tower would have been - tall enough to throw a shadow across the square in front of the city hall in the later part of the day and, visually, it would have competed with and from angles it would even have blocked views of the tower of the city hall.

If built as designed, the hotel would have had a frontage to HC Andersens Boulevard and that would have meant the demolition of Slottet -  or Tivoli Castle - the building designed by Vilhelm Klein that was completed in 1893. that would have been an unfortunate loss as not only is it a good building in itself and part of the extensive and important new building works across the west side of the city in the late 19th century but it was the first home of what was then called the Kunstindustrimuseet before it was moved to Bredgade. The museum is now known as Designmuseum Danmark.

the building designed by Vilhelm Klein that was completed in 1893 and was the first home of the Kunstindustrimusset before it was moved to Bredgade in the 1920s

update .... the opera house gardens

Recently there have been articles in the press about the plans for a new underground car park on the island immediately to the south of the opera house.

The main concern now seems to be about the disruption from heavy lorries removing soil from the site and then traffic for the construction work and this would be at the same time as the work that has barely started on a major redevelopment of the nearby Papiroen/Paper Island site.

One suggestion has been that material from the excavation could be removed by barge but there is no obvious place to take this waste at this time.

The problem that is perhaps as much of a concern that should, perhaps, be more widely discussed is the form of the new planting for the new park once the underground car park has been constructed.

Natural, woodland-type planting, with informal groupings of trees is suggested in the drawings and the photograph taken in the botanic gardens in Copenhagen shows just how attractive the careful arrangement of specimen tress can be but this is a difficult site in that it is primarily urban and maritime. Would a ‘natural’ arrangement of large trees undermine the character of a site that is at the centre of the city and still very much at the heart of the harbour or does that not matter?

post on the Opera House park 6 September 2019

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

 
 

yet another new hotel

The turn of the year - particularly this January as we move into a new decade - is a time to check back on what has happened over the last year and think about what might happen next year.

In Copenhagen there are several major building projects where work is ongoing and several projects still at the planning stage but many of the big projects in the centre of the city could have massive consequences for the city and for the people who live here.

This historic building, dating from the late 19th century, is close to Trinity Church and work has just started on converting it into a large hotel with some shop units.

A few years ago there were articles in newspapers stating that Copenhagen lacked good hotels but that is hardly the case now.

And surely, all these hotels are changing the character of the city and the nature of work here. Yes, hotels can make use of large old buildings that might otherwise not have an obvious new use and yes there are jobs but how many of these are long-term and well-paid jobs?

The huge strength of the city is that so many people actually live in the centre. Too many historic cities empty of ordinary life at the end of the working day and Airbnb and swish hotels and everything that go with them make a city a great destination to visit but maybe not such an easy place to live.

 
 

with so many new hotels opening is this stacking up problems for the city in the future?

Pressure from the number of tourists coming to Copenhagen is not as bad as it is in Amsterdam or Barcelona or Venice - or at least not yet - but parts of the historic centre do feel crowded with visitors and with the tourist season now extending through most of the year that can make the experience disappointing for visitors and frustrating and unpleasant for people who live in the city.

There are obvious concerns about Airbnb - particularly when there are problems with parties and noise at night but also because there is a general feeling that letting apartments short term removes those properties from the stock of good homes that would otherwise be rented long-term to local people.

A sudden flood of visitors that come into the city when a cruise ship docks can cause specific problems in part because most are bused into the city, causing traffic problems and in part because the ships are possibly polluting the air with their engines powering the ships while they are in the port.

But, curiously, there have been less concerns voiced about the number of new hotels that are being built or the number of large historic buildings in the city that are being converted into hotels.

The figures are amazing. In the summer of 2018 there were around 21,000 hotel bedrooms in the city but this figure will increase with the opening of 8,500 extra rooms by 2022.

In a city like New York or London, that number of new hotel rooms would seem almost inconsequential but Copenhagen has a population of just over a million people but that is over the wider area of the city and its suburbs. There are around 600,000 living in the inner city and, of course, most of the sights that visitors want to see are in that inner area. The irony is that more people live right in the centre of the historic city that in most capitals but for how much longer? More hotels and more tourists mean, presumably, that more and more commercial properties become coffee shops or gift shops catering to the tourists and drive out the shops that people who live in the city centre want and need.

Copenhagen airport is now seen as the gateway to the region so does that mean tourists visiting Scandinavia tend to add nights in Copenhagen at the start or end of their trip?

Certainly, occupancy rates for hotel rooms here now run at about 80% which is high when compared to hotels in other European cities … so you can see exactly why the construction of hotels is a go-to solution for developers and investors. Their simple conclusion would seem to be to feed the demand to reap the profit.

But how much will a rapid increase in the number of hotel rooms change the city and could it destroy or, at the very least, damage what visitors come to Copenhagen to see?

When a parcel of land changes ownership or when a large building is vacated will the first suggestion be for a hotel rather than anything else?

How much revenue is generated for the city by hotels - rather, that is, than revenue for the profit line of international investors? Jobs are created but how secure and how well-paid are those jobs? Do those jobs go to local people or migrant workers and where do hotel workers live?

Is there a tipping point between vibrant growth and the crowded exploitation of over-stretched facilities?

Tourism was seasonal but that has changed and, in any case, the aim now is about trying to attract major conferences and that would fill gaps between the end of the summer and the start of the Christmas Season and any quiet period, if there is such a thing now, between Christmas and Easter.

There has been an application from the owners of Tivoli to build a big hotel within the gardens … a tower designed by the Bjarke Ingels Group that would be 70 metres high with 18 floors of rooms. It might be round and it might have balconies covered with hanging plants but that does not disguise or hide a building of that height in that position just metres away from the city hall.

There are already something like 2,000 hotel bedrooms in the streets immediately around the Tivoli gardens so should that in itself suggest that some sort of limit or control would be sensible?

The Nobis Hotel on Niels Brocks Gade, to the south of Tivoli - just the other side of the Glyptotek, in what was the buildings of the Royal Danish Academy of Music - opened in September 2017 with 75 new rooms. At the south-west corner of Tivoli, in what was the headquarters of the Post Office, work is now moving fast to convert the buildings for the new Villa Hotel on Tietgensgade set to open in April 2020 with 390 rooms and just 700 metres away, down the railway tracks, is the building site of the Cabinn Hotel Dybbølsbro with 1,220 rooms that will make it the largest hotel and, from it's current appearance, contender for a prize as one of the ugliest hotels in Denmark.

When it opened in the 1960s, the height of the SAS Royal Hotel at the north-west corner of Tivoli, now with 261 rooms, must have shocked and upset some people in the city but the mega hotel seems to be the norm and they make the SAS seem small in comparison …. the new Comwell in Nordhavn designed by Arkitema will have 493 rooms and will open in January 2021.

Surely such a rapid expansion in the number of hotels should be discussed by citizens now rather than in four or five years time when they feel swamped by the number of tourists in their city. By then it could be too late or too difficult to control the problem.

 

the Nobis Hotel near the Glyptotek opened in September 2017

just 400 metres from the Nobis, the new Villa Hotel on Tietgensgade will open in April 2020 with 390 rooms

just 700 metres down the rail tracks from the Villa Hotel is the Cabinn Hotel Dybbølsbro and, with 1,220 rooms, once it opens, it will be the largest hotel and possibly the ugliest hotel in Denmark

it’s across the road from the Tivoli Hotel with 679 rooms: along the street from the Copenhagen Marriott with 401 rooms and within sight of the tower of the Dan Hotel with 192 rooms

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