Københavns museum / Copenhagen's Museum - the building

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Københavns Museum / The Museum of Copenhagen reopened on the 7 February in the restored buildings of the former Overformmynderiets in Stormgade just south of the city hall.

Established in 1901, the museum has an important, extensive and diverse collection that covers the history of the city and its citizens and includes important artefacts from the past …. with items recovered in archaeological digs around the city; maps; paintings; prints; documents and historic photographs.

Through the first half of the 20th century, the museum was in the attic of the city hall itself but in 1956 the collection was moved to 18th-century buildings in Vesterbrogade that had been the home of the Royal Shooting Society. The museum there closed in October 2015 although the archaeological responsibilities of the museum staff continued - they have, for instance, recorded archaeological finds uncovered during the excavation works for the new metro - and, of course, they have continued to curate the collection and archive while preparing for the completion of the new museum.

The new site includes extensive administration offices in an adjoining building and the museum has extensive new education facilities in the basement of the main building.

Completed in 1894, the building on Stormgade was designed by the architect H J Holm for the Overformynderiets - the trustee or guardianship office that, among other things, oversaw the affairs and money of minors …. children who were orphaned and inherited money before legally coming of age. In England the comparable organisation was probably the Court of Wards.

The building is at the corner of Stormgade and Vester Voldgade although the streets do not cross at 90 degrees and the slight angle may, in itself, have inspired the unusual arrangement of the building. The plot is relatively square and there could simply have been frontages to both streets with a courtyard behind but instead there are ranges running back from each street along the plot boundaries and that create an open courtyard at the street corner itself with a gateway set across the angle and in the inner angle, where the two ranges join to form an L shape, the corner is also angled across for the entrance doorway so the courtyard has a strong diagonal cross axis from the gateway to the entrance.

Inside, immediately inside the door, there is a tight but dramatic lobby just up from the courtyard level but then with an ornate flight of steps up to the main level and a stair hall with the main staircase that runs on back in that angle between the two ranges on that same diagonal axis.

Original decoration of the staircase and main rooms on either side was elaborate and this painted plasterwork and the painted ceilings have all been restored in the work to adapt the building as the new home of the museum. It makes the building itself a stunning part of the museums display with an important role in telling part of the history of the city.

The period of rapid growth of Copenhagen in the last decades of the 19th century and through into the early part of the 20th century was certainly one of the great periods for Danish architecture and design. After the city, for several reasons, decided to dismantle the banks and water-filled ditches that had surrounded and protected but constrained the growth of the city, there was an massive and impressive period of building construction with much of that being civic or public works. As large new suburbs of Vesterbro, Nørrebro and Østerbro were built outside the line of the old walls and gates, the circuit of the defences was replaced by a series of parks and major public buildings including, among others, a new National Art Gallery; a Botanic Gardens; a new College of Engineering; a new building for the Carlsberg collection of art and sculpture - The Glyptotek - and, of course, a new City Hall and all built over a relatively short period of twenty or so years.

The architects and designers of these buildings and the interiors they created looked back to the Renaissance and to France and, more important, back to the great period of Danish architecture around 1600 for inspiration but the ornate decorative work on the outside and in the interior of the buildings, is perhaps no longer as well appreciated as it might be.  So the restoration of these rooms for the museum will, hopefully, lead to a greater appreciation of the period and they also show that modern lighting, uncompromisingly modern displays and absolutely contemporary furniture can fit well within such ornate interiors and that gives these earlier interiors an ongoing relevance.

The architects for the recent work were Leth & Gori and Rørbæk og Møller. On their web site Leth & Gori have photographs of the building in the early stages of the work that were taken by the museum to record where later subdivisions of spaces and blocking in doorways and so on were being removed and they show just what had to be done to uncover the original arrangement of the building. On the Rørbæk og Møller site there are images of the restored rooms but before museum displays were installed.

Design work for the exhibition displays and the panorama was by JAC studios with lighting design by fortheloveoflight.

Københavns Museum / Museum of Copenhagen
Leth & Gori
Rørbæk og Møller

 

the old Museum of Copenhagen

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

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

In the 18th century, in their new building, outside the west gate of the city, there were gardens and shooting ranges that ran back from the house as far as the beach. However, in the 19th century, with the development along what is now Istedgade, a high brick wall had to be built in 1887 across the end of the ranges to protect pedestrians walking across on the new road along the beach.

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

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

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

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

the gardens of the Royal Shooting Gallery

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

 

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

 

the colours of Thorvaldsens Museum

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The sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770-1844) studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Art and then,  in 1797, travelled to Rome where he established a successful studio.

When he returned home to Copenhagen in 1838, he was was welcomed as a hero.

He donated his collection to the nation, on the condition that a specific and dedicated building should be constructed to house his sculptures and his studies, and a site adjoining the royal palace, the Royal Coach House, was granted by the king. A new building was commissioned that was designed by Michael Gottlieb Bindesbøll (1800-1856).

Completed by 1848, it was the first public art museum in Denmark.

 

Frescoes around the exterior depict the triumphal arrival of Thorvaldsen in the city with his sculptures carried in triumph from the ship and watched by local people.

The painter was Jørgen Sonnes (1801-1890) but his colours were lime based but over a cement mortar and changed over time so had to be repaired in the 1860s and then recreated by the renowned Danish painter and ceramic designer Axel Salto in 1951.

The colour scheme is a combination of rich, deep-ochre tones with the background in a blue/grey base with figures in outline and fabric of costumes picked out in a limited range of colours with solid ochre, iron red and stone which gives the frieze a strong unity.

Colours of the interior of the building are richer and darker, based in part on studies of classical Pompeian art, with strong solid wall colours as a foil to the marble statues and plaster casts.

Documents survive to show that, from the start, the architect considered the role and the control of natural light in the galleries as crucial … in part, it is said, to copy the form of controlled lighting in Thorvaldsen's studio in Rome. Light was to fall from above with the brightest light on the heads of the statues with a more suffused light across the floor. On the upper floor is what was called "the sunshine corridor" where natural light was reflected to illuminate the works. Etched glass was used in the large windows on the ground-floor that look into the courtyard and this modifies the natural light in these inward-looking spaces. 

The colour scheme of the large courtyard is different from the exterior and has strong, deep, slate green and a dull blue that are used to emphasise architectural features. This is not just a museum but was conceived as a mausoleum and the grave of Thorvaldsen is at the centre of the courtyard so plants etched in the window glass and palms in the design of the frescoes are an allusion to the Garden of Paradise.

When completed, the whole composition must have seemed astounding to citizens, at a time when the city had been dominated for half a century by subtle and subdued classical taste, with most new buildings painted in tones of cream, grey and stone. Here, at Thorvaldsens Museum, was a return to the strong colours of 17th-century Danish buildings and interiors and the building marks a key point in the development of Danish historicism with a new interest in the idea of a national style based on historical precedence. 

Thorvaldsens Museum

 

Frihedsmuseet / Museum of Danish Resistance

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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

Enigma

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The impressive post building at Øster Allé - on the south-east corner of Fælledparken and close to the football stadium - was designed by Thorvald Jørgensen and was completed in 1922. 

It has been converted into a museum of post and telecommunications and replaces the postal museum that was in the central post office in Møinichens Palæ on Købmagergade. 

There are post office counters just inside the main entrance although most of the ground floor is now a large and pleasant cafe - Enigma Kantina - with long tables where you are encouraged to talk to other people.

They also sell gifts and smaller design items as well as souvenirs related to postal services and there is a sunny courtyard to the side - presumably the yard where postal vans loaded and unloaded.

The square in front of the building has been almost completely taken over by construction works for one of the new metro mtations so it will be interesting to watch how this area changes and develops over the next few years once the extension to the metro is finished and the station opens in 2018.

Enigma, Øster Allé 1

 

museums and art galleries … the best of architecture and design

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Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen

ARoS, Aarhus

 

 

For architects and designers, to work for museums and art galleries can be the most significant, fulfilling and long-lasting commissions of their careers. Sometimes the most difficult and demanding but in many cases the most important commissions.

Certainly new buildings for new museums or galleries, particularly for national collections, as well as major extensions to existing buildings that may in themselves be famous or even a commission to remodel and refit what may be well-loved existing buildings is usually attended by high expectations and extensive publicity.

Visitor figures to museums and galleries are staggering … in 2014 over 9 million people visited the Louvre and nearly 7 million visited the British Museum and in Denmark in 2014 national statistics show that there were 14.5 million visits to museums … nearly 650,000 people visited Louisiana which is amazing when you consider the relatively small size of the gallery - certainly small when compared with galleries of modern art in London or Paris - and the fact that it is well outside the city … although, thinking about it, of course, the setting by the sea makes a significant contribution to the attraction. 

Louisiana is actually a good example of how important architecture and design can be … the gallery evolved through the second half of the 20th century in almost the most complicated way possible to create one of the most elusive and most complex and most stimulating architectural experiences of any gallery … it is the Alice Through the Looking Glass gallery and all the more amazing for that.

 

 

Louisiana

 

But that is not to say it is the best. Just unique and amazing. The new maritime museum, M/S Søfart by Bjarke Ingels, ARoS in Aarhus by Schmidt Hammer Lassen, and the new museum at Moesgaard by Henning Larsen are all incredible.

With school visits, visits by students and academics, visits by tourists and regular visits by local people, it is probably through museums and galleries that most people have their strongest experience of modern architecture and current design of the very highest quality.

There are complex reasons for this and it’s a bit chicken or egg …. are substantial amounts of money spent because of the high profile … cutting corners does not reflect well on city or a benefactor … or does the money spent and the quality of the architecture generate the high profile?

At a simple and practical level, heavy use, with these large numbers of visitors in itself means that work has to be of a high quality simply to survive.

And of course, although few people talk about it in these terms, there is usually an element of bravado or show … no city and certainly no architect wants their work for a new museum written off as boring or dull or mean let alone dismissed as badly designed.

The architecture of museums and galleries varies from traditional formal gallery spaces, where the most important thing is that the artefact or painting or sculpture should be seen in splendid and appropriate isolation, to the museum that is essentially about an experience where there might be, surprisingly, few primary objects but a lot of sounds, images and information … a lot of experience. There are certain trends that emerge in museum plans and object display through the decades but then often the starting point for many of these commissions is that the work has to be distinct if not out and out unique. The opening clause for the contract to design a Guggenheim gallery must be that under no circumstances must it look remotely like any gallery that has been built anywhere.

 

 

M/S Søfart ... the new maritime museum by Bjarke Ingels

 

In order to survive, museums and galleries have to generate income over and above the ticket price and any grants or sponsorship so the spaces and facilities may also be used for concerts, conferences, festivals and receptions so again buildings and interiors have to be designed to make these additional functions feasible, successful and attractive so popular.

Architecture and the design of these museums and galleries is also fascinating for the back-of-house or service side. These are usually very complicated buildings that have to provide high levels of security, carefully-controlled lighting, workshops and equipment for coping with very large, very small, very heavy, very delicate or very awkwardly-shaped objects … so for instance how did the British Museum get into the gallery a low loader with a Viking long ship for the opening of its first exhibition in its most recent extension.

When visiting a museum or gallery, it can be worth turning away from the collection or exhibition, the more normal reason for a visit, to look at the space, to look at the way the items are displayed and lit, to look at how graphics are used or kept to a minimum, how the book shop is stocked and with what and even to look critically at the restaurant or cafe, the toilets and the tickets and publicity material. In the best museums all those aspects of your visit will have been very very carefully considered and often be the work of some of the very best architects and designers.

Because art galleries and museums are significant, both in the general history of contemporary architecture and in the development of civic style and private sponsorship of the arts and because their architecture and their use of good design in recent years has been of such a high quality then over the coming summer there will be a series of posts here to profile Danish museums and galleries to look not at their collections or exhibitions but to focus on their buildings and their use of design in general. 

 

ARKEN / the Ark

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In 1988 Søren Robert Lund - a young architecture student then in his mid 20s - won a competition to design a major new gallery for modern art in Ishøj that was to be built in a coastal park on the shore of the bay, about 15 kilometres from Copenhagen to the south west of the city. A final design was agreed in 1992 and the gallery opened in 1996.

Set between lagoons, and among marinas and commercial boat yards, the building is long and relatively low and, in style, essentially industrial or, at least, not grand and obviously civic. There are some elements of art deco style from architecture of the 1930s in the large areas of plain light-coloured rendered walls and with long horizontal runs of windows on the north side and in the form of metal handrails to staircases and balconies. 

Clearly, in its plan but also obvious in the structure, the building appears to be jagged with the plan cut sharply and divided by a long high wall set at an angle and forming the spine of the building. This sharpness - with the use of angled walls - is particularly apparent when approaching the building from the west, where the original entrance was set back into the building between high walls that formed a deep open courtyard that was an open-air display space. 

On the south side of that spine wall - the side towards the sea - there is a long curved wall that forms a bow-shaped space, running through the building, at most 10 metres wide but over 100 metres long, with a high mono-pitch roof … a circulation and exhibition space that can take substantial works of art. It forms the main link that you keep returning to as you work your way around the galleries so it really is the spine of the building.

 

To the north - on the landward side of that spine wall - is a series of high square or rectangular exhibition areas that are linked together and are generally top lit. These are relatively conventional, modern, exhibition galleries but there are marked changes of floor level between the rooms with wide flights of steps to provide interesting and flexible spaces that can be used on their own for separate small exhibitions or used together for larger shows. 

To the south of the bow-shaped space are a further large exhibition area, again down a wide flight of steps at the east end; a large lecture theatre with raked seating towards the centre; a cinema behind the entrance and shop and the gallery restaurant which is at a high level and reached by rather complex industrial or ship-style staircases.   

There are real elements of drama in the plan, with a long dark corridor sloping down from the restaurant staircase and running back down to the central bow-shaped space - so suggesting that the plan is jagged or fragmented is not in fact a criticism … simply a way to try and describe the character of the building and its spaces. 

The restaurant with long curved walls is a complex keel-shaped space that feels and looks as if it is the hull of a boat propped up, as boats are propped up for maintenance, or even, from a distance, as if it is hung from the south side of the building. Full height windows looking towards the sea have dark, hefty, closely-spaced vertical ribs that seen on an angle form shutters or vertical louvres that give the window wall a strong rhythm. This is not just structural but also dramatically filters the light and creates shadow and strips of bright light across the space that changes as the sun moves round and the strong verticals divide up the views out to the sand dunes. 

 

Presumably the space is also a slightly tongue-in-cheek reference to all those museums that put their cafes into a conservatory … the idea generally being to provide visitors with a break from all those dark galleries with their reverential low-level conservation lighting.

This combination of strong dark ribs and high, narrow strips of clear glazing appears to be close to the design of the original glazed wall of the entrance to the west before the entrance hall and book shop were expanded outwards. 

These days, most galleries have to have a large shop area for the income it bring in to supplement grants and money from entrance charges but, in the extended space, although the larger sheets of glass, with a thin metal glazing framework, brings in more light and opens up views to the lagoon to the west, it somehow weakens and undermines the strength of the architecture because it is much less dramatic inside and outside. By intruding so far out into the entrance courtyard, the shop area also compromises the drama of that courtyard space. The line of the original entrance front can be seen towards the back of the present shop area where there is a dramatic drop in the ceiling level.

 

Alterations and addition to the entrance were part of a major phase of work in 2008 and 2009 by the architects C F Møller when further galleries across the north side of the building were added and the education facilities of the the gallery were extended and improved.

 

the original entrance

Museumsbygningen

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Museumsbygningen dates from the early 20th century and was built as a private art gallery for Johan Hansen in the gardens of his villa just north of the historic centre of Copenhagen.

The location, on the north-east side of Garnisons Kirkegård, is interesting. The land between the sea and the end of Sortedams Sø, the northernmost of the line of lakes around the west and north side of the city, had been open land just outside the east gate of the city. In the late 17th century a military cemetery was set out on the east side of the road north from the east gate, and was a pair to the naval cemetery, Holmens Kirkegård, on the west side of the road.

 

Just beyond the cemeteries, from the corner of the lake, a road ran east straight down to the sea shore on the line of what is now Classensgade. In the late 18th century Major General Johan Frederik Classen, a wealthy armament manufacturer, owned much of the land and had a house and garden here. From that road a road or lane cut back down at an angle towards the ramparts on the north side of the Kastel on the line of what is now Kastelsvej and it was here, on a triangle of land between Kastelsvej and the east side of Garnisons Kirkegård, that Johan Hansen had his house and garden.

Johan Frederik Christian Hansen (1861-1943) was a member of the city council, a Consul General and a government minister for trade but his wealth came from a shipping company established by his father.

In 1915 he purchased a house that had been built in 1891, designed by Martin Nyrop (1849-1921) the architect of the City Hall among many other important buildings in the city. Hansen had an extensive collection of art and it was to house that collection that he had built an art gallery as a free-standing building in his garden designed by the architects Einar Madvig and Poul Methling and addition that doubled the size of the gallery was completed by 1920.

An inventory of Hansen's collection of Danish Art was published in 1917, 1921, 1927 and 1931. However, between 1932 and 1934 the collection was sold by auction in 13 lots with the catalogue of over 2,500 paintings produced by Winkel and Magnussen.

The house was sold and demolished in 1936 and there is now a modern apartment building on the site but the gallery survived to be used at first as a store by the National Gallery and then, somehow appropriately, by an auction house. Since 2013 it has been a private commercial gallery run by Banja Rathnov and has a number of exhibitions through the year that include art, ceramics and photography.

The entrance is now from Kastelvej and there are two lines of galleries most top lit but those towards the former gardens also with tall windows so natural light through the galleries is good. There are six almost-square spaces in line from the present entrance, in what appears to be a first phase of construction. and then parallel, on the garden side in a red brick addition, three small square rooms at the centre flanked by larger galleries on each side.

 

Frederik's Hospital / Designmuseum Danmark … the 18th-century building

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Frederik’s Hospital was built in the 1750s, during the reign of Frederik V, from designs by the court architect Nicolai Eigtved and, after his death in 1753, completed by Lauritz de Thurah.

There were four main ranges set around a large enclosed courtyard, generally of a single storey but with two-storey pavilions at the centre of the fronts to Bredgade (then called Norges Gade) and Amaliegade on the axis of Amalienborg. Those central pavilions on the street fronts had high, hipped roofs and pediments with ornate carved reliefs over the central doorways.

Both fronts were set back from the street with forecourts, iron railings and gateways onto the street with ornate stone piers. On either side of the forecourts, on both street fronts, were tall service blocks of two full stories above high basements and with high roofs with dormers. There were also yards with service buildings down each side that were screened off and divided up by high walls and gateways creating an extensive complex.

 

detail of a map of 1761 from the collection of Københavns Stadsarkiv

The design museum was established in 1890 by Industriforeningen i København and the Ny Carlsberg Museumslegat and, in 1894, openedon what is now H C Andersens Boulevard in a new building that was designed by the architect Vilhelm Klein

From the start, it was seen that there had to be a connection between the museum and industry and business and the aim was to collect examples of the applied or decorative arts as a study collection for teaching to improve the quality of contemporary design and production.

Frederik's Hospital on Bredgade closed in 1910, with no clear new use. and there was a rumour it might be purchased by speculators. In 1919 Councillor of State Emil Glückstadt stepped in and bought the buildings and gave them as a gift to establish a new home for the design museum.

Emil Hannover (1864-1923) was the museum director and a competition was held for “the Future Home of the Museum of Decorative Arts.”

There was no outright winner although the committee preferred a scheme proposed by Ivar Bentsen, Thorkild Henningsen and Kaare Klint.

Henningsen withdrew from the project - mainly because of an ongoing personal dispute with Emil Hannover - and the contract was signed by Bentsen although, in the end, most of the design work was completed by Klint as the project architect. He decided on the major arrangement of the internal spaces and designed the main features such as four new staircases - based on appropriate 18th-century models - and he determined the form of the display cases and designed, library fittings, door cases and doors and even handles and hinges.

However, the museum also commissioned work from other major designers of the period …..

G N Brandt produced the scheme for the courtyard - Grønnegården - with paved alleys and the planting with lime trees; Poul Henningsen based his designs for lamps for the new museum on a lighting system developed for the World Exhibition in Paris in 1925 and Mogens Koch and Ole Wanscher designed the display cases following a system of basic cube units devised by Klint. The cases were made by the master cabinet makers N C Jensen-Kjær and Rudolf Rasmussen, Otto Meyer and Jacob Petersen.

 
 

view of one of the galleries

drawings by Kaare Klint for door fittings

On the death of Hannover in 1923, Klint took over responsibility for organising the display of the collection.

He was clear that he did not want the museum collection shown in any form of room setting and his drawings for the main galleries show major items lined up formally along the spine walls opposite the widows to the courtyard. He saw the furniture as important works of art that were to have comparable validity to paintings and sculpture and were to be displayed in a similar reverential way. He also designed shelving and storage systems for housing smaller items, drawings, photographs and other teaching collections such as the samples of different timbers.

Klint established a studio in the attic of the museum and, using the collection, taught in the museum and, from 1932, had accommodation in the attic where he lived until his death in 1954.

Statens Museum for Kunst

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The original art gallery was designed by Vilhelm Dahlerup and Georg Møller.
Building work started in 1889 and was completed in 1896.

Following a competition, an addition to the gallery, on the side towards the park, Østre Anlaeg, was designed by C F Møllers Tegnestue and was completed in 1998.
The restaurant is by the designer Peter Lassen with the artist Bjørn Nørgaard.

A major remodelling of the forecourt has just been completed with the work designed by the Dutch partnership Karres and Brands, from Hilversum, and they worked with the Danish architects Polyform.