Loosely basing bike rides, runs and a boat ride on “The Harbour Round Route” – it seemed like there would be no end of architecture to admire. Scandinavia is well know for it’s design prowess but somehow Copenhagen has managed to take it to utopian levels. Below are some places and patterns that I noticed moving around the city.
In almost every neighborhood that I passed through there was a enclosed bridge passing between buildings. Like I mentioned in a couple of earlier posts from this same trip, I have to believe that the Danish deal with a lot of crap weather. So why not create passages? The Danes do it above ground, and below ground mostly in Chicago and Montreal where the winters are equally brutal, humans have found devised solutions to protect from the environment.
In Amsterdam, boathouses are the norm, but I wasn’t expecting to see any in Copenhagen. A delightful surprise was this boathouse (approx location) and because so rare it had me at full stop – I was fortunate to see it from land and also from water. A work in progress, I wonder if its location would be permanent in this spot or transitory. Certainly, for however long, quite a view looking out from the floor to ceiling glass windows to…
…this behemoth of a site called Operaparkøen (?). Also under construction, the sheer scale of the effort really helps to give context to why the urban planning is so successful in Copenhagen. Certainly the philosophy and culture, but also because they start from the ground up. Infrastructure is such a key part to rebuilding and when given the opportunity to have a do-over, the Danes haven’t wasted their chance.
I love the consistency of shape as a theme but varying the scale of the buildings in the area. I expect clever playgrounds, a small market perhaps and certainly thoughtfulness to the needs in all seasons. (Side note: The UIA World Congress of Architecture 2023 was happening the later part of the time in Copenhagen and various pieces of art and architecture were placed around the city- like the burnt, disintegrated in the photo above.)
Another example of a ground up complex is this area in Christianshavn. Sticking to 90 degree shapes, there’s a lot of layers of planes in the facades. Across most of these building, window surfaces are maximized for all those grey days and long nights. The mullions in these buildings are very delicate in scale.
The theme for the above set is that they are all buildings seen from the water. Almost as if the water were the ground, the air the space in the gallery and the buildings the hung works of art. A slow ride through the canals is really like taking a ride through a gallery of built architecture- just one after another; better viewed from the water than anywhere else.
I’ll end this post with photos from foot, on an early morning run (on the way to Kastellet). Once away from the harbour, running past noma and through Christiana, one gets a wider range of flavors across Copenhagen cultures- underground, hippy, historical, maritime. I love modern and contemporary architecture for sure, but when we can see the diversity in the spaces we live, we can come then to understand the diversity in ourselves more clearly.
Website: Visit Copenhagen Bike Tour ; Cycling in Copenhagen “The Harbour Round Route”
— Full Gallery —
ofallthespaces 