a cigar shop for Hirschsprung by Kaare Klint

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At the start of his career, Kaare Klint designed other interiors for commercial properties in the centre of the city but, like the shop for the optician F A Thiele designed at the end of his career, these have not survived.

In the exhibition of photographs Then & Now there was a view taken in 1968 towards the west end of Strøget - the walking street - looking west across Gammel Torv and on the far side of the square, on the north or right side of the next section of the street, was a cigar shop owned in the early 20th century by Hirschsprung.

It was not far from the court house - lower down the public space on the west side of Nytorv, the lower part of the square - and not far from City Hall so this must have been a prime location to serve all those lawyers and politicians.

 

The interior of the shop had mahogany counters and floors in black and white marble but with green linoleum on the floor behind the counter and there was what sounds like a strong and distinct colour scheme with the walls painted russet. Designed by Kaare Klint working with the architect Povl Baumann, it was completed in 1916 or 1917, and was given a city design award in 1918.

Klint designed furniture for the shop - with a version of the chair he designed for Dansk Kunsthandel - and ashtrays and sconces in bronze but he also designed the lettering for the signs on the black and grey facades on this prominent corner site.

Unfortunately, the contrast with the store here now could not be greater.

Surely the interior and exterior, as the work of one of the most important Danish designers of the early 20th century, could and should have been protected so that it survived. That's not a plea for anything and everything old to be kept but surely new uses can be found for historic shop interiors of a high quality without compromising financial returns. Commercial chains clearly do not want to or cannot afford to keep these interiors but the city cannot afford to lose them.

note:

Diagonally across the square from the cigar shop is the Stelling building by Arne Jacobsen from the 1930s and there the shop interior has just been refitted and again with no reference to the important original design and for the same shop chain.

 

Fang din by 2018 / Catch your City 2018

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Today - 8th June - an exhibition of photographs of Copenhagen opened on the square in front of the new Danish Architecture Centre.

This is the annual show of photographs of the city that were taken for an open competition that this year had 2,600 entries. 

Run in coordination with Copenhagen Photo Festival, the theme for this year was ‘my home in the city’ so it complements the first major exhibition from DAC in their new building about housing in Denmark under the title ‘Welcome Home.’

 

winning entries can be seen on the DAC site for Fang din by

the exhibition is on Bryghuspladsen in Copenhagen through until 31 August 2018

 

Then & Now

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Then & Now.jpeg
 

 

As part of the Copenhagen Photo Festival, there is a pop-up exhibition in a shop in Købmagergade. It must be between tenants but this is an appropriate location for the show as there are several photographs of this main city-centre shopping street in the exhibition.

The idea is simple but interesting: a series of street views, taken in Copenhagen by Jens Nielsen in 1968, are shown alongside photographs of exactly the same views taken by Isabel and Peter Aagaard fifty years later.

All the photographs - both those taken in 1968 and the recent photographs - are in black and white and shows that colour in photographs can be a distraction. Of course, through the 20th century, black-and-white photography was the stock choice for photo journalism and was used by photographers wanting to examine aspects of society … frequently recording aspects of day-to-day life that reflected wealth or lack of wealth in a society.

Most of the photographs shown were taken within the central historic core of the city and it is actually heartening to see just how little has changed over fifty years. A few of the buildings have had inappropriate frontages added for new shop windows or for corporate logos and signage but many many more have been improved because cheap and crude shop fronts dating from the mid 20th century have been removed and more appropriate shop fronts and signs put up. It shows a broad and growing respect for the quality of the architectural details of the old buildings although some would argue that this is creeping gentrification or conservation pandering to the middle classes and the tourists who want pretty pretty rather than anything that is rationally commercial.

Of course that period around 1968 was one of significant political protests and contention across Europe but that is not reflected in the earlier views here. 

It is the small and odd details recorded in the photos that is interesting.

Some streets were already being pedestrianised but most had narrow pavements with people restricted to walking along hard against the shop fronts and there was relatively heavy traffic that was dealing with narrow streets and cars parked on either side. There are even photographs that show tram tracks surviving in some of the streets. 

Just how close did the city get to planners sweeping all this away for bright new shopping malls and multi-storey car parks? 

In fact only one pair of photographs - taken looking along Landenmærket and looking towards the Round Tower - show that a complete block of historic, timber-framed buildings here was demolished sometime after 1968.

This is an important exhibition that shows how much more prosperous Copenhagen is now, fifty years on, and how pleasant the main streets are without vehicles but also without the major city-centre redevelopment that afflicted so many historic towns and cities. Developers would argue that conservation stifles prosperity (by which they mean generally profit) and inhibits or restricts giving people the modern services and facilities they ‘want’ but looking at these photographs, that would be a difficult argument to win in Copenhagen.

the exhibition is at Købmagergade 7 and is open every day until 14th June

an addition to the Red Cross Headquarters in Copenhagen by COBE 

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November 2016 - the main structure of the addition in concrete was in place and you could see how the new entrance would work but this was before the brickwork across the terrace had been laid so it was difficult to gain an overall impression

 

A trip out to Trianglen - to see the new Biomega shop - was the chance to have a look at the new entrance building for the Red Cross Headquarters not far away on Blegdamsvej.

Designed by the Copenhagen architectural practice COBE, models of the building were shown in the exhibition Our Urban Living Room at the Danish Architecture Centre at the end of 2016 and I had seen the work in progress several times through 2017 but this was the first time I had been to that part of the city since the work was completed.

A three-storey office building here dates from the 1950s and is on an unusual plot - very wide but quite shallow with the main road across the front but with the building set back from the pavement with open public space at the front and with the back of the building hard against the boundary of Fælledparken which is the largest and perhaps the most important public open space in the city … so there was no possibility to extend the building back.

The solution was to build a new range out across the front that fans out from the original entrance and with its highest point against the building but sloping or rather stepping down to the pavement. In a way it is like one quarter of a pyramid if it was cut down the corner angles.

This new structure leaves triangular courtyards or green areas to each side to let light into the original office windows on the existing frontage but also reconfigures these as more enclosed and private spaces with the new building shielding them from the street and the noise of passing traffic.

Rooms under the slope, with a large new foyer in the west part, are lit by full height windows at the back that look into these green areas and look towards the existing range. 

Perhaps a better way of thinking about this is not as a new addition across the front but as a scheme that retains all the original open and public space across the front but tips part of it up at an angle and slips new rooms and new facilities underneath. This idea is, of course, close to what COBE did at Israels Plads where there are triangles of steps across two angles of the square which provide elevated areas where people sit to enjoy the sun or sit to eat a snack from the nearby food halls or just sit to watch other people but here, at the Red Cross building, on a larger scale. It is hoped that at Blegdamsvej this stepped slope will become an equally popular public space.

The brick steps are broken by the entrance to the building that creates what is, in effect, a small entrance court … a device used by COBE at, for instance Forfatterhuset, to form an interim public space where people arriving and leaving can stand and talk … not actually on the public pavement but directly off it … so it's the idea of a transitional space from public to private and from outside to inside. Also, it clearly signals to someone new to the building where they should enter … so this is COBE’s modern version of a portico but more about circulation and drawing the visitor in rather than being more overtly about status.

COBE

May 2018

 

Lille Langebro …. news

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A newsletter has just come through from the BLOX website to say that there has been an accident in Hamburg where a crane failed as it was lifting the sections of the new bridge onto a barge for them to be transported to Copenhagen.

Two of the four massive sections of the bridge have been damaged beyond repair and will have to be remade. No one was hurt in the accident but these sections took a whole year to fabricate so there will be a long delay to the completion and opening of the bridge that will form a bike and pedestrian link between Christianshavn and the quay alongside the newly opened BLOX building.

Dronning Louises Bro

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If anyone doesn’t know Copenhagen well, then one way to help people orientate themselves is to say that the historic core of the city is relatively compact with the harbour forming an arc across the east and south side and a series of lakes forming an arc across the west side. 

At the centre of the harbour is Knippelsbro - the bridge over to Christianshavn and from there on to Amager - and across the lakes - at about the middle of the arc - is Dronning Louises Bro or the Queen Louise’s Bridge … a wide stone bridge with wide pavements and with ornate lamps along the parapets. The road - Nørrebrogade - comes in to the city from the north - as the name suggests -  with some very grand French-looking apartments on the city side of the bridge and then after a few blocks you come to the station at Nørreport on the site of the old north gate.

The bridge parapet on your right - if you are heading out of town - faces sort of south or slightly round to the west and after a long day it has absorbed the heat of the sun and, after a long day, people heading home out of the city have got into the habit of picking up a beer or two or a bottle of wine and with a few friends they sit on the parapet or on the pavement chatting as the sun goes down. There are a few benches but a lot of people are happy to sit on the pavement with their backs against the parapet. 

Particularly on a Friday evening but on a Saturday lunchtime or Sunday afternoon I’m used to seeing a fair few people sitting or standing in groups chatting.

But coming back into the city a week or so back this struck me as a bit surreal even for Dronning Louises Bro … OK neat and colour co-ordinated surreal but still a bit surreal.

the IRMA hen

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Irma Chicken.jpeg
 

 

the famous roof-top neon sign of the egg-laying hen was installed in 1936 to advertise the supermarket IRMA .... the Schepler family opened their first store selling eggs, milk and butter in 1886 at Ravnsborggade 13 a block back from the lake ... but the sign was dismantled around a year ago for the roof to be rebuilt and for building work on a new or remodelled attic apartment

the sign is back and its return will be celebrated by a special festival on Saturday 26th May starting at 4pm with, appropriately, an egg and spoon race around the lake

Bygningspræmiering … annual building awards in Copenhagen

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Despite the actual name, the Building Awards are not just awarded to buildings so the list of winners includes a wide range of urban projects that make a big difference to how we see and how we enjoy the streetscape of the city.

 

 

This public telephone box - now in the collection of Designmuseum Danmark - was called ‘The Question Mark’ for obvious reason. It was designed by Klavs Heleweg-Larsens for Kjøbenhavns Telefon Aktieselskab and they were first installed in the city in 1981 and received an award in 1986. The last of these phone boxes was removed in 2017 although there is a proposal to bring some back after they have been revamped to provide tourist information.

 

 

The mural on a gable end in Halmtorvet was painted by Peter Abelin in 1991 and received an award in 1992. Over the years, several other murals around the city have been similarly recognised.

 

 

 

The marble pavement for Amagertorv was designed by the Office of the City Architect and received an award in 1994. This complicated geometric pattern, covering such a large and irregularly-shaped area, was designed using CAD, then new in drawing offices. The success of the scheme meant that adjoining public spaces were in turn redesigned with new paving in stone extending through Højbro Plads, Ved Stranden and Gammel Strand.

 

In Copenhagen, you can find yourself walking all over an award-winning design without even realising.

 

Bygningspræmiering / Building Awards 2018

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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).

upcoming work on the forecourt and entrance to Designmuseum Danmark

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Work will start in May on some major changes at the design museum with plans for the alterations by COBE … the Copenhagen architecture and planning studio. 

The museum is in an important 18th-century building that was a hospital. A cobbled forecourt with iron gates and imposing stone gate piers along the street is flanked by detached pavilions that were part of the original construction - the pavilion to the right being the hospital pharmacy - but these are not currently used by the design museum for the public.

The main building faces you as you enter the courtyard and the entrance is in the centre of the front, emphasised by a pediment. Through the door there is an outer hall flanked by staircases and with access to cloakrooms on either side and then there is an inner hall, directly opposite the entrance, with the ticket desk and information, in a relatively small square space overlooking a large internal green courtyard beyond. The museum shop is at the left-hand angle of the building currently in three rooms but also with storage space. 

The ticket desk and the museum shop will be moved into the forecourt level of that right-hand pavilion so visitors will have to do a hard turn to the right as they come in through the gateway from the street into the forecourt … not difficult but then not obvious … and then, after passing through the shop and a new cafe, they will have to leave the pavilion and cut back to the centre of the main front, crossing the back of the forecourt, to enter the museum by the present door. 

One obvious advantage will be that people will be able to visit the shop without having to buy a ticket and it will free up important space in the building for exhibitions and the display of more objects from the permanent collection.

This being Copenhagen, better provision has to be made for bikes for the number of visitors who arrive on two wheels so there will be a new set of bike racks between the pharmacy pavilion and the main front of the building, tucked away behind the new cafe ... most visitors seem to leave their bikes in the forecourt. 

photograph and drawing from COBE

 

Certainly, the forecourt comes alive during major events at the museum - like the night of culture in October when there were braziers and displays out here - so, in effect, to move the museum out to welcome the visitor in, COBE have proposed that there will be several purpose-built display cabinets outside and the cobbles of the forecourt will be relaid - presumably to smooth out the fairly uneven surface there now - and there will be tables and chairs here for the new cafe. 

The stone steps up to the main entrance will be removed and replaced with a long ramp for access … to replace a ‘temporary’  metal ramp there now that sits over the stone steps.

I admire the work by COBE enormously but here do have some reservations. The building has a symmetry that is a strong part of its character and a certain severity, because it was a hospital, that again is important as a deliberate and original contrast with the exuberance and decoration of many of the 18th-century palaces and grand houses in the adjoining streets.

Kaare Klint, when he oversaw the conversion of the building, to make the hospital into a museum, carefully and deliberately respected that symmetry. It was almost an obsession … the pair of staircases in the front range and the pair of staircases on the opposite side of the building might be taken to be original but were designed by Klint. Also Klint was meticulous about his choice of colours and finish … everything in the building is of a high quality and everything is properly made but it is always restrained and always stays on the right side so can never be described as mechanical … Klint pursued quality and craftsmanship but not perfection for its own sake and that gives even the plasterwork - or the cobbles - a warmth and a texture that is nowhere mechanical or cold.

That is why, perhaps, the the cobbles or setts of the forecourt should not be too regular and do the placement of large outside display cases and new trees in the forecourt possibly distract from the design of the front?

the existing stone steps up to the entrance of the design museum and the even grander stone steps at Amalienborg to show how these worked in terms of architectural rules and conventions in the 18th century and the bull-nosed moulding and the decorative tooling on the stonework are essential and typical features of 18th-century work

 

on the opposite side of the museum, Klint created an entrance for deliveries into the main courtyard and this was treated like carriage arches in the city with steps omitted and the cobbles running right up to the door

 

Sunday of the recent Easter weekend. It shows just how busy the museum is and actually this is not a sign of an over-slow ticket system ... the museum was overwhelmed and for a short time had to slow down access to let new visitors in only as people left. While I was there no one in the queue complained and no one coming into the forecourt turned away on seeing the queue so that's quite some endorsement of the reputation, success and popularity of the museum 

Obviously the ramp up to the door is understandable but again there is a subtle point to be made about the original architecture. The carefully-designed and well-made stone steps up to the doorway have two functions … first to give that sense of entering - so a deliberate and important transition from outside to inside - but also the dark line of the stone has a visual role … perhaps rather subtle but it is a use of correct architectural grammar absolutely appropriate to this classical building … the horizontal line of the darker stone of the steps is almost like a punctuation mark or an underlining of the door. Take that away and it weakens the composition of the facade.

Look around the streets here and you can see how carefully architects and masons designed and made entrance steps. This does does not and cannot trump the right that visitors have for direct and easy access to the museum so one solution would be to pull the stonework of the steps forward, to create a level apron or landing in front of the door - there are good classical precedents for such a design - and then take the ramps in cobbles or stone down each side. That might even work better with the new approach line from the left-hand door of the pharmacy building where people will move from the ticket desk area to the museum itself.

Kengo Kuma to design the new aquatic centre in Copenhagen 

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10 April 2018

It has just been announced that the Japanese studio of Kengo Kuma will design the new aquatic centre on Christiansholm … the island at the centre of the harbour in Copenhagen that is generally known as Papirøen / Paper Island because the Danish press stored newsprint in the warehouses here. The most recent use has been for popular food halls, a gallery for modern art, various design studios and quite a lot of covered car parking.

The key feature of the new building will be high brick pyramids - to follow the overall scheme for the island from COBE - but the swimming pool at the main level is to have glass on all sides for panoramic views and there will be a terraced walkway and shallow pools stepping down and forward towards the harbour.

the south harbour

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looking north up the harbour towards the historic centre of the city from Cykelslangen - the cycle and pedestrian bridge near Fisketorvet

 

Obviously the harbour is a major asset for the city … after all Copenhagen was established here and prospered because of the harbour for both merchant trade and for a naval port.

The south part of the harbour below Langebro - the major bridges over the harbour at the south end of the old city - was busy wharves and commercial basins through into the 1950s and 1960s but, in terms of the history of the city, was relatively new as the land on either side had not been reclaimed from the sea until the late 19th century. 

Before that, this part of the harbour was a wide bay between Frederiksberg on the north shore and the Island of Amager on the opposite side. 

Vesterbro and the bay in 1860

These extensive port facilities were linked to a rapid growth in the population from 1850 or 1860 onwards so new meat and fish markets were built here to handle the large quantities of food coming into the city and then later there were wharves for the coal and diesel brought in for the power station.

Actually the harbour is still amazingly wide … some 330 metres wide just before Fisketorvet.

There was extensive new development in the late 20th century - mostly for offices but also a hotel on the city or west side - on Kalvebod Bygge below Langebro - and on the east or Amager side - along Islands Brygge - there is a line of large older apartment buildings, set back behind the commercial wharves, that was workers housing dating from around 1900 - but, since the late 20th century, land and some of the large redundant industrial buildings further south, including massive silos, have been converted to apartments and there are new apartment buildings on south under construction and nearing completion. 

Generally the architecture is inoffensive but generally flat roofed and large and depending on cladding rather than architectural form for any effect. It’s not that any outrageous or highly novel buildings are needed … people usually get tired of anything Post Modern fairly quickly or, come to that, get tired of anything trying too hard … but a little more colour and certainly more architectural features that create light and shade to have an effect across the blocks might have helped and more use of interesting sight lines through to buildings behind would reduce the impression of a string of boxes. Not much of this is bad architecture - just slightly boring architecture and easy architecture that barely does justice to the amazing setting. Future generations of architects and builders will probably look at this as a wasted opportunity.

looking across the harbour to to the buildings along Kalvebod Brygge from Islands Brygge

the harbour ferry - a video by Magasinet KBH

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Back in February the online magazine site Magasinet KBH posted a video that shows the journey of the ferry from the south end of the harbour at Teglholmen to the landing stage at Nordre Tolbod.

The camera was set up on the front of a ferry so you see the whole harbour at ferry speed including turning in and docking at each of the landing stages and then backing out before heading on north. The film takes about 44 minutes because the ferry takes about 44 minutes and this really is the antidote to the swipe right and move on approach to much on the Web. This is slow web at its best and 44 minutes is not download but run time.

I took the ferry down to the south end of the harbour to take the photographs for posts here so it seemed like a good time to include this with a link to their site.

 

note:

Magasinet KBH is an online magazine with articles on buildings and planning in Copenhagen with general architecture and environmental news and interesting opinion pieces. There is also a regular news letter that you can sign up to receive automatically. It is in Danish but translating the tab in Safari or Chrome works well. 

Magasinet KBH

development of the south harbour in Copenhagen

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  1. new apartments to the north east of the Aalborg university buildings

  2. looking south west from the Aalborg university buildings down Teglværksløbet with Sluseholmen on the right and the Bella Hotel on Amager in the distance

  3. the bridge between the two buildings of Aalborg University campus

  4. Teglholmen from the university buildings 

  5. new apartments at Teglholmsgade

  6. apartment buildings to the east of Fisketorvet from the south

Sluseholmen at the south end of the harbour - a development of apartment buildings facing onto the wider expanses of Teglværksløbet or Sluseløbet or built along a number of canals - now looks well established but the area of Teglholmen - the large area to the north - is still very much a building site but the new buildings are going up fast. There are now schools and shops here and a well-used bus service to the city centre and the area is at the end of the line of the harbour ferry. North again is the area around HC Ørstedsværket - the power station - but there work seems still to be as much about levelling and clearing the old buildings as it is about construction. Then north again, moving inwards towards the city there are now well-established offices and apartment buildings and Fisketorvet - a large shopping centre that is old enough to now be facing imminent rebuilding and upgrading that is necessary because of the rapid development of this area.

The whole area is defined by the harbour on one side but on the other side is Vasbygade - a busy road that is far from attractive - until recently a major dock road with fairly typical industrial buildings from the post war period but it is also a main road into the city centre from the motorway.

To the north is a tangle of railway lines heading into the central station but also with marshalling yards and the interesting engineering works for the railway at Otto Busses Vej. Until recently, maybe a decade ago, this would all have been seen by polite Copenhagen as marginal land but now it is desirable and extremely valuable land for redevelopment and all less than 4 kilometres from city hall and with Fisketorvet only just a kilometre from the central train station.

There has been some criticism in the press for the new housing that is seen by some as socially divisive … taking prime sites along the water for expensive apartments and muscling in in front of the older working-class housing of Vesterbro and the housing around Mozartsvej.

Nearly all this land has been claimed from the sea in various phases since the middle of the 19th century and until recently was wharves and industrial buildings. One way to appreciate just how much land has been claimed is when you realise that the original railway line into the city from the west was on the line of what is now Sønder Boulevard and for a short distance ran along the foreshore but the street is now back almost a kilometre from the harbour.

Sydhavnen Skolen by JJW Arkitekter

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Almost every area of the city has a major new school and most by a major Danish architect or architectural partnership. The new school in the new development of the south harbour is by JJW Arkitekter.

It’s a large and dramatic building on an irregularly shaped plot with some parts towards the street supported on high columns so suspended over the pavement to provide public areas underneath opening off the pavement to provide some cover where children and parents can meet and talk or play when they come into the school or when they leave in the afternoon … an important part of the social life of any school here in Denmark. 

The school is in the centre of the new area, right on to the pavement, clearly visible from adjoining streets and nearby buildings and, looking out, the views are of the new neighbourhood. That’s not a limitation or a criticism but praise for how the school is designed to fit physically and obviously into the community. The building can be used by community so, for instance, dental care for the area is based in the building.

On the side away from the street, there are dramatic terraces, raised play areas, some at roof level, and broad walks and steps down to an inlet of the harbour, and as at Kids City in Christianshavn by COBE, smaller children are generally at the lower and more enclosed areas and more vigorous activities are higher up the building.

And again, as at Kids City, the arrangement of spaces deliberately reflects the organisation of the wider community so the description by the architect talks about the the lower level being like a town square.

Inside it is no less dramatic than outside - if anything more dramatic - with sections opening up through two or three floors with upper levels and narrower staircases cantilevered out or supported on thin columns or with wide flights of steps doubling as lecture rooms or forming places to meet.

Curiously this is what I like most and like least about the building. It’s a complicated, dramatic and fascinating building inside and out and children here presumably develop agility and stamina quite quickly and a head for heights. This is certainly the antidote to the one classroom-fits-all style of schools from the late 19th and early 20th century or the all-on-a-level schools of the post-war period. There are self-contained classrooms but they entered from wide wide and long open spaces with a variety of areas where different types of teaching or different activities can take place with smaller or larger numbers. The architects talk about the school having “an extremely high functional, spatial and tectonic quality” but architecture has and should have a clear vocabulary and in that sense should be readable … you should be able to see where to go and to some extent identify functions from the style and form of the architecture. That’s not to suggest it should not be fun but maybe just slightly more rational and slightly more solid. Perhaps, more of the architecture should be the background providing the venue for life here and not be the subject.

Having said that, photographs of the interior show masses of natural light - despite this being such a large and deep building - and strong confident use of colour and really good details like deep window seats or areas on the terraces that are more intimate. Encouraging and reinforcing friendship bonds seems to be an important part of the Danish education ethos. Certainly, with school buildings like this, you can see exactly why Danish children grow up appreciating good design and grow up to see good design as a strong part of their day-to-day lives.

Sydhavnen Skolen by JJW Arkitekter

 

for comparison see Kids City in Christianshavn by COBE

 

catching the sun

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20 March 2018

This photo was taken today when walking back along the quayside at Islands Brygge on the east side of the harbour.

There had actually been snow in the morning and it had been cold enough to settle but at lunch time the cloud lifted and by mid afternoon the sun was out … low but surprisingly warm and people came out to make the most of it. 

It’s been a grey and dull Spring where February and March in Copenhagen can be clear with blue skies … cold but bright. So far this year there have not be many opportunities to sit outside and people who live in Copenhagen do sit outside … they take ownership of the streets at every opportunity and the city and the planners know that and wherever possible provide seating … so here it's a long curved bench with a high back to keep off the wind and trap the sun.

This is far from being a new use for street space ... using public space for leisure or exercise or just for sitting to watch the World go by is basically the way people here have worked out to live in a tightly-packed urban space so there are paintings in the National Gallery from the 18th century that show the citizens of Copenhagen promenading on the ramparts or sauntering across the squares. 

This area along the south part of the harbour - in front of a line of large apartment buildings from about 1900 - was busy commercial wharfs through the 1950s and 1960s but as the port facilities were moved out then the area was made into a very popular harbour-side park. Close to here is the harbour swimming area that is used all through the year - with a temporary sauna there in the winter - and the wide areas of grass on either side of this sitting area are used for sport, outdoor exhibitions and events. 

 

the outdoor library at Islands Brygge

Islands Brygge in the Autumn

Frost 2018 ... nature's version

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It has been raw cold in Copenhagen - almost too cold to snow - but then the temperatures went up slightly and then the snow came and settled.

For fairly obvious reasons, although the web site is headed Copenhagen News, there is little here, day-to-day about the weather but with the snow a very beautiful grey light and a muffled quiet has settled over the city and it really is stunningly beautiful.

CPH Light Festival - around Islands Brygge

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Orb Family by Pipaluk Supernova and Thomas Jørgensen

Emil Holms Kanal

2 February - 2 March

 

Reflections by Silla Herbst

Emil Holms Kanal

from 2 February and then permanent

 

Balloon Forest by Delphine Piault and Frédéric Dilé

Kulturhuset, Islands Brygge 18

2 - 28 February

 

Eternal Sundown by Mads Vegas

Kalvebod Brygge 5

2 February - 2 March