The past week I've pretty much been taking it easy, I needed a bit of a break after two hectic weekends of travel. However, over the weekend I did go to two museums, The Danish National Museum and the NY Carlsberg Glyptothek. The Danish National Museum is a large natural history museum which has exhibits on Danish history from pre-history through the middle ages, the Reformation and to the modern day. It also has the obligatory exhibitions on different "People's of the World" and of course Greek and Egyptian artifacts. I've discovered that I'm not a huge fan of natural history museums (I prefer art museums) but I really enjoyed the exhibitions on modern Denmark (1800s to present). Also, in the "People's of the World" exhibit there were a couple of rooms dedicated to Greenland (which is part of Denmark) that i thought were interesting, especially since I don't think you could find that info in another country. I think the Danish pre-history portion is the most popular and it has recently been redone by a famous Danish architecture firm, so I would definately recommend it.
The Glypothek was established by Carl Jacobsen, the founder of Carlsberg Beer and it contains mostly sculptures (Egyptian, Greek, Roman and more modern French and Danish), as well as some impressionist paintings and some ancient Mediterannean artifacts. The building is also really neat and is heavily influence by Greek architecture. It also has a large "winter garden" in the center that is kind of like a large greenhouse inside the musuem and has large palm trees and ferns etc. It was really beautiful and lush, which was, of course, very different from the outside.
Now, a bit about my classes:
I'm enjoying all of my classes so far and I think I am really getting a good sense of Danish culture and society through them. In Danish Politics and Society we went on a field study tour to the Danish Human Rights Institute where several people talked to us about what they did. We learned a bit about immigration and asylum, including the asylum centers and also a bit about Greenland, especially how their crime and punishment. Several interesting things: Denmark is really strict about giving immigrants asylum, you can only get asylum if you, specifically are being targeted, therefore, very few people actually get asylum in Denmark. Greenland, which is part of Denmark but has some degree of autonomy basically doesn't have prisons. If someone commits a crime their philosophy is to reeducate that perpetrator while keeping him/her part of society (if someone does something really bad, like murder, they get sent to Denmark to serve their sentence). While it does seem strange to keep the criminals in the society, this practice apparently arose out of the small Greenland villages that needed everyone participating in society in order to survive. Needless to say, this stragtegy is very different than in America.
Some other interesting things about Danes I've learned: historically, Danish people have not tended towards revolutions, they got rid of an absolute monarchy, established the current constitution and resolved the conflicts between labor unions and the companies without any revolution. Also, as opposed to many countries where the labor unions and companies are engaged in a struggle against each other for the upper hand, a main goal for both the labor unions and the companies in Denmark is to increase production in order to increase profit and therefore pay. Finally, way back in 1899, the labor unions and the companies made negotiations that gave the labor unions the right to exist and established a precedent for negotiations before strikes. Therefore, my teacher said strikes weren't very common in Denmark, and if they were, they didn't last for long. However, shortly after he said that, the bus drivers went on strike (causing my bus line and many other to be canceled, so I have to walk to school), so I'm not really sure how common strikes are.
The large bulk of the schoolwork i do is for my architectural studio class. Right now, we have been working on a project for a couple of weeks that will be due the middle of March. Our project is urban infill and we have to design a gallery space to display four pieces of art/music pieces. The four pieces are a jukebox designed to play famous music, speeches and soundclips, a famous piano designed by Poul Henningsen, a famous danish designer, the Golden Horns of Gallehus, goldern horns from the viking age that were discovered in the 17th century and which are an important part of Danish history and finally a muscial symphony by danish composer Per Nogaard. Our project is confined to the footprint of an existing building (5 m x 9 m) and two stories. One of the main things we are supposed to consider is light. This is a major concern in Nordic architecture, which makes sense since it is so far north and there is almost no direct light in the winter and the sun never comes very high in the sky. Although the project sounds simple, the space is really small and everything can get complicated the more you think about it. But i feel like I'm learning a lot and I really like my studio professor, she is very knowledgeable and gives you lots of feedback and sources to look at.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Berlin!
Last weekend I made a weekend trip to Berlin with Lauren, a friend from Bryn Mawr who is also interested in architecture. We took a night bus from Copenhagen to Berlin (about a 7 hr drive including a ferry ride) on Friday night and then a bus back from Berlin Monday morning. We stayed at a hostel that was right next to Museum Island and most of the main historical sites.
First, here's a brief list of what we did:
Saturday:
1. Walked from our hostel to Unter den Linden (the main street with lots of historical sites) to the Reichstag. The line to go up to the top of the dome was an hour long so we left.
2. We walked around the Friedrich Strasse U-bahn stop and got hot chocolate and pastries at a cafe and planned the rest of the day.
3. Walked down to Potsdamer Platz, on the way we saw the Holocaust Memorial
4. Walked from Potsdamer Platz to Checkpoint Charlie.
5. Walked from Checkpoint Charlie to the Jewish Museum and went in.
6. Walked up to Gendarmarkt.
7. Walked over to NikolaiVertil and Alexander Platz on the way back to the hostel.
8. Dinner at a cute little cafe on the Gendarmarkt.
9. Back to the hostel, shower and bed at 10.
Sunday:
1. Walked from the hostel to the Reichstag (we left at 7:30 so that we could arrive at 8 and avoid the long lines). Went up the Reichstag dome which was very cool and we got a great view of the city.
2. Breakfast at Cafe Einstein, a pretty nice cafe on the Unter den Linden.
3. Walked over to Museum Island to look at the Altes Musuem, the Berliner Dom and the Pergamon (we didn't go in any due to time restraints).
4. Went to a neat flea market by Museum Island where I bought a pair of leather gloves that were much warmer than the gloves I had earlier.
5. Took the U-Bahn over to Charlottenberg Schloss and went inside and walked around the gardens. It was starting to snow so we didn't walk around too long.
6. Walked down to Kurferstendamm (the main shopping street in West Berlin) which was a pretty long walk and we stopped at a Döner Kebap place for lunch on the way which is a kind of Turkish sandwich (they have something almost the same in Copenhagen, called Schwarma).
7. Walked up the Kurferstendamm to the Kaiser Wilhelm Gedächtniskirche, a partly bombed out church in West Berlin.
8. Then we walked over to the Bauhaus Museum of Art and Design (designed by Walter Gropius) which we were too late to go in but looked at the outside and then over to the Neue Nationalgaleri (designed by Mies van der Rohe) which was temporarily closed.
9. Walked over to an area around the Nollendorfplatz. On the way we stopped at a neat Turkish restaurant to get some food for the bus ride back to Copenhagen.
10. Dinner at a good Indian restaurant and a bit of a rest after a long day.
11. Took the U-Bahn back to Unter den Linden and the Reichstag and went up to the top of the dome again at night. It was neat to see everything lit up and the Brandenberg Gate was really pretty all lit up.
As you can see from these lists, we had very busy days and were walking almost the entire time. I calculated and on Saturday we were probably walking for 9-10 hrs and on Sunday for around 11 hrs. Needless to say, we were very tired each night but we pretty much saw everything we wanted to which was good.
Second, here's things I noticed/thought about Berlin:
1.We spent all of Saturday and the first part of Sunday in East Berlin since that is where most of the historical and tourist attractions are and I could really feel the Soviet influence on that part of the city. There were no trees on the side of the streets, there were many more buildings that were basically concrete blocks and the area just had a harsher, less warm feeling than West Berlin. Also, there were still several empty area that I assumed had never been rebuilt from WWII or had been destroyed during the cold war. Also, even though we walked around East Berlin quite a bit, we never saw any major shopping area but maybe we just weren't in the right places. We spent most of Sunday in West Berlin and really felt the different character of the city. The atmosphere seemed a bit warmer and there were many more trees on the streets, more cobblestone on the streets and sidewalks and older buildings.
2. The most interesting thing about Berlin was thinking that only 20 years ago, it was split into two cities separated by a wall. It must have been very strange to live in Berlin back when it was divided and the division is still apparent today.
3. One thing that was especially interesting/funny was the use of the old Soviet walk/don't walk signals in East Berlin and the fact that the symbols have been turned into tons of different souvernier products. It's kind of ironic that a symbol of communism has been adopted by the very capitalistic tourist industry, which was very successful, especially for me (I bought a bag with the symbols on it).
4. I ate pretty well in Berlin since it wasn't too expensive. Notable meals include dinner at a small cafe on the Gendarmarkt. I had a Currywurst (bratwurst with ketchup and curry) which was REALLY good, potato salad (the first time I've ever had it...it was okay), a beer and an apple cake. Also, breakfast on Sunday at Cafe Einstein. I had hot chocoloate, the really rich European kind and scrambled eggs and bread. Lunch ...Döner Kebap, which was very good and finally dinner again at an Indian restuarant recommended to me by a friend who studied abroad in Berlin last semester.
Berlin and Copenhagen:
1. Berlin is a huge city, especially in comparison with Copenhagen. We could ride the U-Bahn for 20 minutes easily and still be within the city limits whereas in Copenhagen, that would take you well into the suburbs.
2. Berlin is CHEAP! Maybe its just because I'm living in Copenhagen now which is a very expensive city but I was really suprised by how affordable things were in Berlin. Restaurants weren't very expensive and one night I got a pretty good dinner, beer and dessert for only 11 euros and most restaurants seemed to have dinner entrees from between 8-12 euros. In Copenhagen, its really hard to go out to dinner for less than 100 DKK ($17) and most places are more around 120 DKK ($20). It was also nice to be in a country in which the currency was roughly on the same scale at the US. I still find myself converting Danish currency for some things because the scale is so different from the US (roughly 6 DKK per 1 USD).
3. Germans are much less fashionable than the Danish. I also saw a lot of dyed hair, mostly females dying their hair red or pink...not many people dye their hair in Denmark.
4. There are a lot more modern buildings in Berlin than Copenhagen, which makes since considering it was heavily bombed during WWII and Copenhagen hasn't been burnt or bombed since 1807. I really like a lot of the new buildings in Berlin and I liked how they built modern buildings that were just a modern take on the older archtecture. It also helped that a lot of the newer building's were built out of stone, which is a much warmer material than concrete.
5. The modern German buildings were a lot different from those that I have seen in Denmark and Copenhagen. I'm not really sure exactly what is different, but the German buildings seem a bit harsher and not as soft. But it was interesting that we could both definatley tell the difference.
All in all I really enjoyed going to Berlin and even though I was only there for a short time I think I got a pretty good sense of the city, although I definatly want to go back sometime and explore the city at a more leisurely pace.
First, here's a brief list of what we did:
Saturday:
1. Walked from our hostel to Unter den Linden (the main street with lots of historical sites) to the Reichstag. The line to go up to the top of the dome was an hour long so we left.
2. We walked around the Friedrich Strasse U-bahn stop and got hot chocolate and pastries at a cafe and planned the rest of the day.
3. Walked down to Potsdamer Platz, on the way we saw the Holocaust Memorial
4. Walked from Potsdamer Platz to Checkpoint Charlie.
5. Walked from Checkpoint Charlie to the Jewish Museum and went in.
6. Walked up to Gendarmarkt.
7. Walked over to NikolaiVertil and Alexander Platz on the way back to the hostel.
8. Dinner at a cute little cafe on the Gendarmarkt.
9. Back to the hostel, shower and bed at 10.
Sunday:
1. Walked from the hostel to the Reichstag (we left at 7:30 so that we could arrive at 8 and avoid the long lines). Went up the Reichstag dome which was very cool and we got a great view of the city.
2. Breakfast at Cafe Einstein, a pretty nice cafe on the Unter den Linden.
3. Walked over to Museum Island to look at the Altes Musuem, the Berliner Dom and the Pergamon (we didn't go in any due to time restraints).
4. Went to a neat flea market by Museum Island where I bought a pair of leather gloves that were much warmer than the gloves I had earlier.
5. Took the U-Bahn over to Charlottenberg Schloss and went inside and walked around the gardens. It was starting to snow so we didn't walk around too long.
6. Walked down to Kurferstendamm (the main shopping street in West Berlin) which was a pretty long walk and we stopped at a Döner Kebap place for lunch on the way which is a kind of Turkish sandwich (they have something almost the same in Copenhagen, called Schwarma).
7. Walked up the Kurferstendamm to the Kaiser Wilhelm Gedächtniskirche, a partly bombed out church in West Berlin.
8. Then we walked over to the Bauhaus Museum of Art and Design (designed by Walter Gropius) which we were too late to go in but looked at the outside and then over to the Neue Nationalgaleri (designed by Mies van der Rohe) which was temporarily closed.
9. Walked over to an area around the Nollendorfplatz. On the way we stopped at a neat Turkish restaurant to get some food for the bus ride back to Copenhagen.
10. Dinner at a good Indian restaurant and a bit of a rest after a long day.
11. Took the U-Bahn back to Unter den Linden and the Reichstag and went up to the top of the dome again at night. It was neat to see everything lit up and the Brandenberg Gate was really pretty all lit up.
As you can see from these lists, we had very busy days and were walking almost the entire time. I calculated and on Saturday we were probably walking for 9-10 hrs and on Sunday for around 11 hrs. Needless to say, we were very tired each night but we pretty much saw everything we wanted to which was good.
Second, here's things I noticed/thought about Berlin:
1.We spent all of Saturday and the first part of Sunday in East Berlin since that is where most of the historical and tourist attractions are and I could really feel the Soviet influence on that part of the city. There were no trees on the side of the streets, there were many more buildings that were basically concrete blocks and the area just had a harsher, less warm feeling than West Berlin. Also, there were still several empty area that I assumed had never been rebuilt from WWII or had been destroyed during the cold war. Also, even though we walked around East Berlin quite a bit, we never saw any major shopping area but maybe we just weren't in the right places. We spent most of Sunday in West Berlin and really felt the different character of the city. The atmosphere seemed a bit warmer and there were many more trees on the streets, more cobblestone on the streets and sidewalks and older buildings.
2. The most interesting thing about Berlin was thinking that only 20 years ago, it was split into two cities separated by a wall. It must have been very strange to live in Berlin back when it was divided and the division is still apparent today.
3. One thing that was especially interesting/funny was the use of the old Soviet walk/don't walk signals in East Berlin and the fact that the symbols have been turned into tons of different souvernier products. It's kind of ironic that a symbol of communism has been adopted by the very capitalistic tourist industry, which was very successful, especially for me (I bought a bag with the symbols on it).
4. I ate pretty well in Berlin since it wasn't too expensive. Notable meals include dinner at a small cafe on the Gendarmarkt. I had a Currywurst (bratwurst with ketchup and curry) which was REALLY good, potato salad (the first time I've ever had it...it was okay), a beer and an apple cake. Also, breakfast on Sunday at Cafe Einstein. I had hot chocoloate, the really rich European kind and scrambled eggs and bread. Lunch ...Döner Kebap, which was very good and finally dinner again at an Indian restuarant recommended to me by a friend who studied abroad in Berlin last semester.
Berlin and Copenhagen:
1. Berlin is a huge city, especially in comparison with Copenhagen. We could ride the U-Bahn for 20 minutes easily and still be within the city limits whereas in Copenhagen, that would take you well into the suburbs.
2. Berlin is CHEAP! Maybe its just because I'm living in Copenhagen now which is a very expensive city but I was really suprised by how affordable things were in Berlin. Restaurants weren't very expensive and one night I got a pretty good dinner, beer and dessert for only 11 euros and most restaurants seemed to have dinner entrees from between 8-12 euros. In Copenhagen, its really hard to go out to dinner for less than 100 DKK ($17) and most places are more around 120 DKK ($20). It was also nice to be in a country in which the currency was roughly on the same scale at the US. I still find myself converting Danish currency for some things because the scale is so different from the US (roughly 6 DKK per 1 USD).
3. Germans are much less fashionable than the Danish. I also saw a lot of dyed hair, mostly females dying their hair red or pink...not many people dye their hair in Denmark.
4. There are a lot more modern buildings in Berlin than Copenhagen, which makes since considering it was heavily bombed during WWII and Copenhagen hasn't been burnt or bombed since 1807. I really like a lot of the new buildings in Berlin and I liked how they built modern buildings that were just a modern take on the older archtecture. It also helped that a lot of the newer building's were built out of stone, which is a much warmer material than concrete.
5. The modern German buildings were a lot different from those that I have seen in Denmark and Copenhagen. I'm not really sure exactly what is different, but the German buildings seem a bit harsher and not as soft. But it was interesting that we could both definatley tell the difference.
All in all I really enjoyed going to Berlin and even though I was only there for a short time I think I got a pretty good sense of the city, although I definatly want to go back sometime and explore the city at a more leisurely pace.
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Travel Plans and Western Denmark
For the past week or so I've mostly been preoccupied with making travel plans for my spring travel break (3 weeks long with a DIS organized trip the first week) and a couple of weekend trips. Making these plans has taken a lot more energy and has been a lot more stressful that I originally thought and I've realized that I really need to prioritize where I want to go because I don't have time to do everything. I decided to travel with a good friend from home who is studying in Barcelona for the second week and a half of the break and we spent several hours talking on skype and figuring out what we wanted to do and making plane tickets. The DIS lead trip that I am going on goes through Germany and the Netherlands and ends in Utrecht. So from Utrecht I will take a train to Amsterdam, spend a day and a half in Amsterdam, then take a train to Brussels where I will stay for a day and then fly to Barcelona. I'll stay in Barcelona for several days with my friend before we both fly to London for several days, then we'll fly to Zurich and see some of the Swiss countryside. Finally, we'll take a night train from Zurich to Budapest, spend a day and a half in Budapest and then go on to our final destination in Prague. So the break will definately be full and will involve lots of traveling but I'm really excited to see everything. However, it is a little unfortunate that we managed to pick every country that is not on the Euro!
This next weekend (the 13th thru the 16th) I am going to Berlin with a friend. Since we decided kind of late to go, plane tickets were expensive so we're going to take a night bus there and an early morning bus back (there are no night buses from Berlin to Copenhagen which is kind of annoying).
I am planning on taking two other weekend trips, one to Stockholm and one to Vienna. Planes are by far the easiest and cheapest way to travel and to make reservations but there aren't any really cheap flights out of Copenhagen. Probably the most difficult thing about making travel arrangements is finding information about trains online and it seems to be impossible to book any train tickets online, and to get a reservation you have to go to a central train station.
I spent most of the early part of the week working on travel arrangements and I found it kind of addicitive and I just wanted to keep trying different travel sites and different date combinations. However, fortunately i was forced to take a break because I had a short DIS study tour from Thursday Feb. 5 to Saturday Feb.7.
The tour consisted of half of the architecture students (around 40 students,the other half went on a different bus) and we went to three cities on the Jutland Peninsula in Western Denmark. For those of you unfamiliar with the geography of Denmark, Copenhagen is located on the eastern most part of the island of Sealand. Directly west of Sealand is another island, Funen and west of that is the Jutland Peninsula, which connects to northern Germany.
On Thursday, we first stopped at a recently completed church, Hellig Kors Kirke in Jylling, about 45 minutes west of Denmark. It had snowed the night before so it was really pretty to see all of the unspoilt snow and I think we got a different perspective on the church because of it. This church was one of the coolest buildings that we saw on the entire trip and it had a really interesting shape and a lot of attention was paid to natural light and the building's realtionship with the landscape, which seems to be a very important part in Danish and nordic architecture. Unfortunately, we only got to stay at the church for 15 minutes because we had to make sure that we caught the ferry to Aarhus, the second largest city in Denmark, with a population of around 250,000.
The ferry to Aarhus was pretty cool. We drove into the ferry on the bus and then left the bus and walked up to the sitting area where they also had a restaurant and a little store where you could buy food. The trip on the ferry wasn't that interesting because it was so foggy that you couldn't see anything except the water. Also, the Danish coast isn't that interesting to look at from far away because everything is so flat.
In Aarhus, we saw the Aarhus Radhus (the City Hall), designed by Arne Jacobsen in 1938 who seems to be the most famous Danish architect. The building was very clearly influenced by the Bauhaus but what was amazing was that they managed to build it during WWII and the German occupation of Denmark. The city hall also had a tower (which I thought was kind of ugly and didn't really fit the rest of the building) but we got a great view of Aarhus. I also saw the ARoS art musuem, which was just a neat modern art museum with a staircase that was similar to the Guggenheim. Also, there was a statue of a giant little boy in a crouching position that was 15' high. I also walked around Aarhus a little bit and it wasn't that different from Copenhagen, just smaller and a little more industrial seeming. Later Thursday night we drove 1.5 hrs up to Aalborg, on the northern end of Jutland.
In Aalborg the notable buildings we saw was the recently completed Utzon Center and the Nordjyllands KunstMusuem, a modern art museum designed by the famous Finnish architect Alvar Aalto. The Utzon Center was built to honor Jørn Utzon, the architect who designed the Sydney Opera House and who grew up in Aalborg. The Center used Utzon's inspiration of ships and sails for the design and included information on Utzon's work. It also had a really cool light display that is really hard to describe but was very neat. The Aalto musuem was also pretty cool and again there was a lot of attention paid to capturing natural light. Friday night we drove two hours to Kolding, a smaller town in southern Jutland.
Friday night I walked around downtown Kolding with a couple of people and it was a much smaller town than either Aarhus or Aalborg and was very cute, although there was not much going on. We did find an English bar (recommended to us by a friend on the other architecture tour, which had stayed in Kolding the previous night) and when we went in, we were by far the youngest people there. We had also been told to try the strawberry beer, which we did and found that it was really good. It tasted basically like a liquidy strawberry smoothie with a faint beer taste. The pub did get to be pretty crowded and there was an interesting mix of older people, younger people and then all of the students from DIS. Saturday we saw another modern art museum, a library, a traditional Danish church and a restored castle which was also really neat.
Both Thursday and Friday nights we stayed in hostels. Although I didn't have any hostel experience, they seemed to be pretty good and clean. They were both DanHostels, which I think must be some kind of organization kind of like Best Western. Also, I think a lot of Danish families stay in hostels when they travel so the hostels have to be a bit nicer.
All in all the trip was pretty good and it was nice to see a part of Denmark that I wouldn't otherwise have seen. Also, since the trip was an architectural study tour we were told to keep sketchbooks where we were supposed to sketch the buildings and to make notes on their important features. I have never done this before so it was a bit intimidating because there were other people who obviously had done this a lot, but i think i got better and more comfortable with sketching as the trip went on.
This next weekend (the 13th thru the 16th) I am going to Berlin with a friend. Since we decided kind of late to go, plane tickets were expensive so we're going to take a night bus there and an early morning bus back (there are no night buses from Berlin to Copenhagen which is kind of annoying).
I am planning on taking two other weekend trips, one to Stockholm and one to Vienna. Planes are by far the easiest and cheapest way to travel and to make reservations but there aren't any really cheap flights out of Copenhagen. Probably the most difficult thing about making travel arrangements is finding information about trains online and it seems to be impossible to book any train tickets online, and to get a reservation you have to go to a central train station.
I spent most of the early part of the week working on travel arrangements and I found it kind of addicitive and I just wanted to keep trying different travel sites and different date combinations. However, fortunately i was forced to take a break because I had a short DIS study tour from Thursday Feb. 5 to Saturday Feb.7.
The tour consisted of half of the architecture students (around 40 students,the other half went on a different bus) and we went to three cities on the Jutland Peninsula in Western Denmark. For those of you unfamiliar with the geography of Denmark, Copenhagen is located on the eastern most part of the island of Sealand. Directly west of Sealand is another island, Funen and west of that is the Jutland Peninsula, which connects to northern Germany.
On Thursday, we first stopped at a recently completed church, Hellig Kors Kirke in Jylling, about 45 minutes west of Denmark. It had snowed the night before so it was really pretty to see all of the unspoilt snow and I think we got a different perspective on the church because of it. This church was one of the coolest buildings that we saw on the entire trip and it had a really interesting shape and a lot of attention was paid to natural light and the building's realtionship with the landscape, which seems to be a very important part in Danish and nordic architecture. Unfortunately, we only got to stay at the church for 15 minutes because we had to make sure that we caught the ferry to Aarhus, the second largest city in Denmark, with a population of around 250,000.
The ferry to Aarhus was pretty cool. We drove into the ferry on the bus and then left the bus and walked up to the sitting area where they also had a restaurant and a little store where you could buy food. The trip on the ferry wasn't that interesting because it was so foggy that you couldn't see anything except the water. Also, the Danish coast isn't that interesting to look at from far away because everything is so flat.
In Aarhus, we saw the Aarhus Radhus (the City Hall), designed by Arne Jacobsen in 1938 who seems to be the most famous Danish architect. The building was very clearly influenced by the Bauhaus but what was amazing was that they managed to build it during WWII and the German occupation of Denmark. The city hall also had a tower (which I thought was kind of ugly and didn't really fit the rest of the building) but we got a great view of Aarhus. I also saw the ARoS art musuem, which was just a neat modern art museum with a staircase that was similar to the Guggenheim. Also, there was a statue of a giant little boy in a crouching position that was 15' high. I also walked around Aarhus a little bit and it wasn't that different from Copenhagen, just smaller and a little more industrial seeming. Later Thursday night we drove 1.5 hrs up to Aalborg, on the northern end of Jutland.
In Aalborg the notable buildings we saw was the recently completed Utzon Center and the Nordjyllands KunstMusuem, a modern art museum designed by the famous Finnish architect Alvar Aalto. The Utzon Center was built to honor Jørn Utzon, the architect who designed the Sydney Opera House and who grew up in Aalborg. The Center used Utzon's inspiration of ships and sails for the design and included information on Utzon's work. It also had a really cool light display that is really hard to describe but was very neat. The Aalto musuem was also pretty cool and again there was a lot of attention paid to capturing natural light. Friday night we drove two hours to Kolding, a smaller town in southern Jutland.
Friday night I walked around downtown Kolding with a couple of people and it was a much smaller town than either Aarhus or Aalborg and was very cute, although there was not much going on. We did find an English bar (recommended to us by a friend on the other architecture tour, which had stayed in Kolding the previous night) and when we went in, we were by far the youngest people there. We had also been told to try the strawberry beer, which we did and found that it was really good. It tasted basically like a liquidy strawberry smoothie with a faint beer taste. The pub did get to be pretty crowded and there was an interesting mix of older people, younger people and then all of the students from DIS. Saturday we saw another modern art museum, a library, a traditional Danish church and a restored castle which was also really neat.
Both Thursday and Friday nights we stayed in hostels. Although I didn't have any hostel experience, they seemed to be pretty good and clean. They were both DanHostels, which I think must be some kind of organization kind of like Best Western. Also, I think a lot of Danish families stay in hostels when they travel so the hostels have to be a bit nicer.
All in all the trip was pretty good and it was nice to see a part of Denmark that I wouldn't otherwise have seen. Also, since the trip was an architectural study tour we were told to keep sketchbooks where we were supposed to sketch the buildings and to make notes on their important features. I have never done this before so it was a bit intimidating because there were other people who obviously had done this a lot, but i think i got better and more comfortable with sketching as the trip went on.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Observations on Danish Culture/Tourist activities
I am continuing to enjoy living in Copenhagen and now that I've been here for two weeks, I'm starting to get more into a routine and figure things out a bit more. Now that I am have been in Denmark for longer and am learning more about Danes and Danish culture from my classes and talking with people, I have started to notice more difference between Denmark and America. So I'll briefly talk about what I find most interesting:
1. Danish history is almost exactly the opposite of American history in terms of expansion and history. Denmark has the oldest monarchy in Europe, dating back to the 900s. Also, during the middle ages, Denmark was much larger as the monarchy controlled Norway, Sweden and Schleswig-Holstein in Northern Germany. During the 1500s and 1600s, Denmark was the large power in northern europe and had the second largest navy after Britian. However, starting in the mid to late 1600s, Denmark started losing all of its wars and with each loss, lost a bit of territory. For example, Denmark lost control of Norway after the Napoleonic Wars in which Denmark sided with Napoleon, which turned out to be a huge mistake. All of the tour guides seem to emphasize the point that Denmark used to be a huge power and was reduced through allying with the wrong people and losing wars. But this is very different than America which started as small and kept expanding instead of shrinking. I think these different histories and the losses of Denmark contribute a lot to how each country sees itself. When Denmark lost all of its land, there was a sense that in order to make up for the lost territories, efforts should be made to improve Denmark and the Danes with education, land reforms, social welfare and draining the land.
Also, I think Danes are a lot less likely than American to see themselves as more important than anyone else. For example, the recently completed Opera House was paid for by private funds (very unusual in Denmark) and apparently the guy who paid most of the money wanted to have a say in the design. this was very controversial since most Danes don't build buildings to show their power or to celebrate themselves as rich Americans do. Also, most buildings are built with public funds instead of private funds, making the Opera House controversial.
I think the history of Denmark and people not thinking they are more important than other people also contributes to people not really shoving on the bus and waiting for the green light to cross a street even when there is no traffic.
2. I think i mentioned this in an earlier post, but still find it amazing that such small countries can have such a unique and deep culture and possess all of the major cultural institutions such as museums, opera and play houses that other larger countries have. Copenhagen and Denmark have such a large collections of museums and especially castles for such a small country. Of course, a lot of this infrastructure is older than anything in America and most of the castles were built during the time when Denmark was a power and during its absolute monarchy.
Last night with my roommates I watched the Danish national competition to choose a pop singer to compete in a European song contest held every year in which each country sends one singer and then a winner is chosen. The competiton was pretty funny to watch and the songs were pretty bad pop music. I think it was geared more for kids but the music was very influenced by America and most songs were partly or totally in English. My roommates told me that this was the case because in the European competiton, English is the only language everyone knows and so by performing a song in English, a singer has the best chance to win. They also mentioned that it was hard for Western European singers to win because there were more Eastern European countries and those countries have a differnent taste in music. They described their perferences as more 80s and more gospel. They also said Eastern Europeans like glitter a lot.
3. 3 out of 4 of my classes focus on different aspects of Denmark: language and culture, design, and politics and society so I have been learning a lot about Denmark. I have found my politics and society class really interesting and the professor is a former member of Parliament for the Social Democrats which is pretty cool. We have been learning about the different political parties (there are currently around 8) and I read pieces each party wrote about itself and what policies it supports. One thing that is really interesting is that all of the parties, both left and right assume things as correct that are being debated now in America. For example, all parties stated something along the lines that it was obvious that elderly people should be provided for by the government and that they should have a choice of facility or treatment given. There was a common thread of the notion that a society should be judged by how it treats its poorest members, which is really neat and progressive idea. All promoted the idea that only a society that provided health care, education and job opportunities and reeducation opportunities could be considered just. By this measurement, American would be a very bad and unjust society! While there were some more conservative parties that wanted tax reduction, everyone took for granted the high level of social welfare provided by the government. One line that struck me what the statement that "obviously no money should be exchanged between a patient and physican." They must find the American system very strange!
The biggest difference between the parties seemed to be their stance on immigration and their emphasis on Danish values. The more conservative groups are pretty anti-immigration and want to have greater measure to protect the Danish culture and values. The more liberal parties seem to favor immigration as long as the immigrants have jobs and are productive members of society. I am looking forward to looking more into the immigration problem in my class because it is very different than in America. I can understand more the hesistation towards immigrants because Denmark is a ethnically homogenous state that had its own culture and it is not made up of immigrants while America is a country of immigrants. Also, the level of social welfare provided by the state adds other problems because immigrants are supported but haven't been paying into the system their entire lives. I haven't learned much about this yet but I have heard that Denmark didn't have very good integration policies which has caused a split between immigrants and Danes.
4. I have seen a lot of families with small children or mothers with small children or babies in prams around Copenhagen. Although Denmark does not have a birthrate high enough to keep the population from shrinking, it is larger than many other European countries in large part because there is really good parental leave and fathers are expected to take off time along with the mothers. Also, men and women work pretty much the same hours each week. Everywhere seems pretty kid and family friendly also. Finally, the prams here are pretty fancy contraptions and I see people taking them everywhere and there are often prams on the bus when I take it. These prams have pretty large wheels and the mothers are able to wheel it up on the bus pretty easily.
5. I've gone in a couple of neat looking Danish stores while walking around, most notable Tiger, which I have written about earlier and another home goods store. I have found that these types of stores have a seemingly random assortment of things. For example, the home goods store had the normal stuff one would expect in a home store but then I turned around and there were hair clips! Also, Tiger has a wide range of things, but everything still seems to be a bit random. This got me to thinking about the difference with America where we have stores such as Target and Walmart that have everything but sometime don't seem to be random. I was thinking this might have sometime to do with America's pioneering history where small towns would always have a general store that had everything whereas in Europe stores were always more specialized and smaller.
6. Learning more about Danish culture has also given me different perspectives on American culture. While there are many appealing aspects of Danish culture, America definately has the upper hand in 3 categories: bathrooms, grocery stores and nutrition labels. The bathroom in my apartment is fine, but many people I know who stay with host families say that when they shower, the water just runs over the entire bathroom floor and then they have to squeege the water into the drain afterwards which sound really annoying and kind of gross. The grocery stores are a lot smaller than in American and the cheapest one, Netto kind of just throws things into bins or has really strange organziation. Also, there are just not as many choices as in America since each store is smaller and they don't seem to have energy bars here and tofu is really expensive. Finally, nutrition labels are not standard here as they are in America and they do not have as much information so it can be hard to judge the healthfulness of food.
7. One food item I have really started to like here is the Danish sliced bread. It is much denser and smaller than American bread. I think a lot of it has rye and what looks like nuts or large grains so it keeps you full for longer. Also, it has a sour taste (kind of like sourdough bread) which I really like and goes really well with peanut butter.
Notable tourist things I've done:
1. I went to the oldest bakery in Copenhagen, Skt.Peders bakery founded in 1652 and located 2 blocks from school. It was really good and pretty cheap which made it even better.
2. I went to the Statens Museum for Kunst, the state art musuem. It was really interesting because the original old building built in the mid 1800s was expanded in 1998 with a really modern addition. The juxtaposition between the new and old buildings was really interesting and enhanced each building. Also interesting was the fact that all of the modern art was in the old building while all of the old art was in the new building. I think the new part of the museum was the best part as the architecture was really good and the architect created a lot of interesting rooms and spaces. Furthermore, the entry was free since the museum was owned by the state and so was paid for by the taxpayers.
3. I walked around Norrebrø, a section of town near where I live and one that has seen a lot of immigration so it has a lot more ethnic restuarants and grocery stores. There were probably 2-3 schwarma (middle eastern sandwiches very similar to gyros) places every block, several Indian places, some arabic grocery stores and some apparel stores selling Islamic clothing which was kind of interesting to see.
4. Today I visited Fredericksborg Slot (castle) through DIS. This is kind of the Danish equivalent of Versailles and its gardens were based on those in Versailles. Unfortunately I didn't get to see them but I'll go back in the spring when it is warm and see the gardens. We had a guided tour of the castle and the guide liked to point out lots of gossip about the kings and queens and little tidbits. In a landscape painting there was a small dog and man and the dog was painted with 5 legs! It was very strange. Also, there is 400 year old graffiti in the chapel. Apparently there was a priest who liked to give 6 hr long services and so the nobles would get bored and would do graffiti on the banister!
1. Danish history is almost exactly the opposite of American history in terms of expansion and history. Denmark has the oldest monarchy in Europe, dating back to the 900s. Also, during the middle ages, Denmark was much larger as the monarchy controlled Norway, Sweden and Schleswig-Holstein in Northern Germany. During the 1500s and 1600s, Denmark was the large power in northern europe and had the second largest navy after Britian. However, starting in the mid to late 1600s, Denmark started losing all of its wars and with each loss, lost a bit of territory. For example, Denmark lost control of Norway after the Napoleonic Wars in which Denmark sided with Napoleon, which turned out to be a huge mistake. All of the tour guides seem to emphasize the point that Denmark used to be a huge power and was reduced through allying with the wrong people and losing wars. But this is very different than America which started as small and kept expanding instead of shrinking. I think these different histories and the losses of Denmark contribute a lot to how each country sees itself. When Denmark lost all of its land, there was a sense that in order to make up for the lost territories, efforts should be made to improve Denmark and the Danes with education, land reforms, social welfare and draining the land.
Also, I think Danes are a lot less likely than American to see themselves as more important than anyone else. For example, the recently completed Opera House was paid for by private funds (very unusual in Denmark) and apparently the guy who paid most of the money wanted to have a say in the design. this was very controversial since most Danes don't build buildings to show their power or to celebrate themselves as rich Americans do. Also, most buildings are built with public funds instead of private funds, making the Opera House controversial.
I think the history of Denmark and people not thinking they are more important than other people also contributes to people not really shoving on the bus and waiting for the green light to cross a street even when there is no traffic.
2. I think i mentioned this in an earlier post, but still find it amazing that such small countries can have such a unique and deep culture and possess all of the major cultural institutions such as museums, opera and play houses that other larger countries have. Copenhagen and Denmark have such a large collections of museums and especially castles for such a small country. Of course, a lot of this infrastructure is older than anything in America and most of the castles were built during the time when Denmark was a power and during its absolute monarchy.
Last night with my roommates I watched the Danish national competition to choose a pop singer to compete in a European song contest held every year in which each country sends one singer and then a winner is chosen. The competiton was pretty funny to watch and the songs were pretty bad pop music. I think it was geared more for kids but the music was very influenced by America and most songs were partly or totally in English. My roommates told me that this was the case because in the European competiton, English is the only language everyone knows and so by performing a song in English, a singer has the best chance to win. They also mentioned that it was hard for Western European singers to win because there were more Eastern European countries and those countries have a differnent taste in music. They described their perferences as more 80s and more gospel. They also said Eastern Europeans like glitter a lot.
3. 3 out of 4 of my classes focus on different aspects of Denmark: language and culture, design, and politics and society so I have been learning a lot about Denmark. I have found my politics and society class really interesting and the professor is a former member of Parliament for the Social Democrats which is pretty cool. We have been learning about the different political parties (there are currently around 8) and I read pieces each party wrote about itself and what policies it supports. One thing that is really interesting is that all of the parties, both left and right assume things as correct that are being debated now in America. For example, all parties stated something along the lines that it was obvious that elderly people should be provided for by the government and that they should have a choice of facility or treatment given. There was a common thread of the notion that a society should be judged by how it treats its poorest members, which is really neat and progressive idea. All promoted the idea that only a society that provided health care, education and job opportunities and reeducation opportunities could be considered just. By this measurement, American would be a very bad and unjust society! While there were some more conservative parties that wanted tax reduction, everyone took for granted the high level of social welfare provided by the government. One line that struck me what the statement that "obviously no money should be exchanged between a patient and physican." They must find the American system very strange!
The biggest difference between the parties seemed to be their stance on immigration and their emphasis on Danish values. The more conservative groups are pretty anti-immigration and want to have greater measure to protect the Danish culture and values. The more liberal parties seem to favor immigration as long as the immigrants have jobs and are productive members of society. I am looking forward to looking more into the immigration problem in my class because it is very different than in America. I can understand more the hesistation towards immigrants because Denmark is a ethnically homogenous state that had its own culture and it is not made up of immigrants while America is a country of immigrants. Also, the level of social welfare provided by the state adds other problems because immigrants are supported but haven't been paying into the system their entire lives. I haven't learned much about this yet but I have heard that Denmark didn't have very good integration policies which has caused a split between immigrants and Danes.
4. I have seen a lot of families with small children or mothers with small children or babies in prams around Copenhagen. Although Denmark does not have a birthrate high enough to keep the population from shrinking, it is larger than many other European countries in large part because there is really good parental leave and fathers are expected to take off time along with the mothers. Also, men and women work pretty much the same hours each week. Everywhere seems pretty kid and family friendly also. Finally, the prams here are pretty fancy contraptions and I see people taking them everywhere and there are often prams on the bus when I take it. These prams have pretty large wheels and the mothers are able to wheel it up on the bus pretty easily.
5. I've gone in a couple of neat looking Danish stores while walking around, most notable Tiger, which I have written about earlier and another home goods store. I have found that these types of stores have a seemingly random assortment of things. For example, the home goods store had the normal stuff one would expect in a home store but then I turned around and there were hair clips! Also, Tiger has a wide range of things, but everything still seems to be a bit random. This got me to thinking about the difference with America where we have stores such as Target and Walmart that have everything but sometime don't seem to be random. I was thinking this might have sometime to do with America's pioneering history where small towns would always have a general store that had everything whereas in Europe stores were always more specialized and smaller.
6. Learning more about Danish culture has also given me different perspectives on American culture. While there are many appealing aspects of Danish culture, America definately has the upper hand in 3 categories: bathrooms, grocery stores and nutrition labels. The bathroom in my apartment is fine, but many people I know who stay with host families say that when they shower, the water just runs over the entire bathroom floor and then they have to squeege the water into the drain afterwards which sound really annoying and kind of gross. The grocery stores are a lot smaller than in American and the cheapest one, Netto kind of just throws things into bins or has really strange organziation. Also, there are just not as many choices as in America since each store is smaller and they don't seem to have energy bars here and tofu is really expensive. Finally, nutrition labels are not standard here as they are in America and they do not have as much information so it can be hard to judge the healthfulness of food.
7. One food item I have really started to like here is the Danish sliced bread. It is much denser and smaller than American bread. I think a lot of it has rye and what looks like nuts or large grains so it keeps you full for longer. Also, it has a sour taste (kind of like sourdough bread) which I really like and goes really well with peanut butter.
Notable tourist things I've done:
1. I went to the oldest bakery in Copenhagen, Skt.Peders bakery founded in 1652 and located 2 blocks from school. It was really good and pretty cheap which made it even better.
2. I went to the Statens Museum for Kunst, the state art musuem. It was really interesting because the original old building built in the mid 1800s was expanded in 1998 with a really modern addition. The juxtaposition between the new and old buildings was really interesting and enhanced each building. Also interesting was the fact that all of the modern art was in the old building while all of the old art was in the new building. I think the new part of the museum was the best part as the architecture was really good and the architect created a lot of interesting rooms and spaces. Furthermore, the entry was free since the museum was owned by the state and so was paid for by the taxpayers.
3. I walked around Norrebrø, a section of town near where I live and one that has seen a lot of immigration so it has a lot more ethnic restuarants and grocery stores. There were probably 2-3 schwarma (middle eastern sandwiches very similar to gyros) places every block, several Indian places, some arabic grocery stores and some apparel stores selling Islamic clothing which was kind of interesting to see.
4. Today I visited Fredericksborg Slot (castle) through DIS. This is kind of the Danish equivalent of Versailles and its gardens were based on those in Versailles. Unfortunately I didn't get to see them but I'll go back in the spring when it is warm and see the gardens. We had a guided tour of the castle and the guide liked to point out lots of gossip about the kings and queens and little tidbits. In a landscape painting there was a small dog and man and the dog was painted with 5 legs! It was very strange. Also, there is 400 year old graffiti in the chapel. Apparently there was a priest who liked to give 6 hr long services and so the nobles would get bored and would do graffiti on the banister!
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