Last Weeks in Copenhagen

One of my favorite things I did in my last couple of weeks in Copenhagen was make a trip up to the Louisiana Museum (named after the founder’s wife, not the state). The Louisiana Museum is located in Humelbaek, at the northern end of Zealand, the island that Copenhagen is on and is about a 30-minute train ride from Copenhagen and then a 10-minute walk from the station. The Louisiana Museum is very well known art museum in Denmark, it specializes in modern art and most of the museum is given over to special exhibits, and only a small portion of their permanent collection is shown in the museum, apparently they have a really good permanent collection and they are able to get a lot of special exhibitions because they lend out the art that they own. The Louisiana Museum is also really special because of its location and the way the building interacts with the outside. The museum was built in 1958 and is a really good example of Danish modernism and the practice of creating a building that “brings the outside in” and has very simple, straight, clean lines. Furthermore, although the Louisiana Museum is a very simple modernist building, there is a lot of wood and brick used on the inside, which gives that building a warmer feeling. This use of wood and natural materials is very typical of Danish architecture as opposed to the Germans who tend towards a more industrial look. The site of the building overlooks the Øresund (the stretch of water that separates Denmark and Sweden) and the building blends in really well to its surroundings. Besides being located overlooking the water, the building is surrounded by beautifully landscaped gardens with lots of great trees. I went when it had finally started to get warm and spring-like so the site was really beautiful with all of the blossoming trees, bright green grass and a sunny sky. While the building does blend in to the landscape from the outside, from the inside its huge floor-to-ceiling windows are give great, uninterrupted views of the outside. While this was one of my favorite museums to go to, I wasn’t a huge fan of most of the art that was displayed, for one part, the main special exhibit was on art by Max Ernst, and I found his stuff a little too strange for me. Also, one wing was closed due to installation of another special exhibit. However, I did enjoy most of the museum’s permanent collections and wish they had more of it on display.

Another couple of things:

I live about 10 minutes away from the US embassy and so on my way back from Østerport station, I decided to walk through some gardens and past the US embassy. As I was walking past the embassy I took several pictures and then promptly a guard came out from the building and told me that I wasn’t allowed to take pictures and then he asked to watch me delete all of the pictures I took. So I deleted the several pictures I took of the embassy while remarking that there was no sign or anything telling you not to take pictures to which the guard responded that yeah there weren’t and that there was no way I should know not to take pictures. I thought the whole thing was kind of strange. While I understand that they may not want people taking pictures of the embassy for security purposes, there really was no way that they could prevent people from taking pictures from across the street, from the building across the street, or even from the car or a bus and it just seemed kind of silly. But so that was my experience with the American Embassy in Denmark.

Another afternoon, I decided to walk around a big cemetery in the middle of Nørrebro, which several famous Danes are buried such as Hans Christian Anderson and Søren Kierkegaard. The cemetery was really beautiful and was really more like an enormous garden with headstones in it.

On one of the last days in Copenhagen, I took a trip out to some new development in Amager Island (which is part of Copenhagen but on a different island than the main city). I went with another one of my architecture friends and we visited a couple of really new and cool buildings. One of the first buildings we visited was a round Kolligeum (a Danish student residence) that was shaped like a donut with rooms around the outside and large open circle in the middle. The entire building was clad in bronze and on the inside, the rooms were arranged so that any resident can see what is going on in the entire building, which could be kind of annoying for lack of privacy but is good for fostering a sense of community (and for knowing where the good parties are). The building was pretty new but very nice and located right next to a Metro stop for easy access into the center of Copenhagen. A couple of Metro stops later, we came to another area where a large Danish architecture firm (BIG) has built several new and interesting/strange buildings. Both are apartment buildings, one where the balconies come out in sharp triangles and the other built to resemble a mountain. Finally, we decided to take the Metro one more stop, to the last stop on the line and once we were there, we found that we had literally reached the edge of Copenhagen. There were a few buildings being built and beyond them were just green fields and trees. Even the road that had been running out into Amager and paralleling the Metro line look a sharp 90 degree turn at this point, as if it had reached an edge and could go no further in that direction.

Besides doing any last minute sight seeing during my last couple of weeks in Copenhagen, I had to deal with finals, final papers and a final architecture project. It was really hard to feel like doing any work, especially studying for finals, but fortunately I didn’t really have that much to do besides my architecture project. The assignment for the final architecture project was to build a pavilion that would be put up during the COP15 conference that is going to be held in Copenhagen this December. The COP15 conference is a climate change conference whose goal is to renew the Kyoto Protocol (which expires in 2012) and to countries such as the US and China to sign and agree to its conditions about lowering CO2 emissions. Our main criterion for the pavilion was that it could be no bigger than 3 m3 (we found this to be flexible) and had to be made out of wood. This project was also done in groups of 3 (my studio of 9 people mixed with another studio and out groups were made out of people from both studios, and we got two teacher’s feedback which was great). Our professors wanted us to work in groups because architecture is done in groups and because only by working together are humans going to be able to solve global warming. My group ended up working pretty well together and our final pavilion ended up being 8 3D benches that would sit out in a nearby square and act as both a place for people to sit, to meet each other and to gather while providing protection from the strong wind in Copenhagen. For each day of the conference, the chairs would be arranged in a different way to encourage people to interact in different ways and to be symbolic. Also, since the COP15 is being held during Christmas time in Copenhagen (which is a really big deal apparently), we were going to have a guy serving hot drinks and mold wine in the square to add incentive for people to come and sit down.

During my last week I also spent a lot of my time trying to find gifts for people back home and I discovered that Copenhagen and Denmark in general are not great places to get souvenirs. For one thing, everything is really expensive (Souvenir store t-shirts were twice as expensive as in Italy), and for another, the things that Denmark is really good at and that you want to remember are not good for souvenirs and are hard to transport back home. For example, I would have loved to been able to buy everyone and myself examples of Danish Design, which is mostly furniture and house wares, but besides being expensive (I found a cool, and cheaper colander for over $50), it is just too big to bring home with you. Also, for some reason, the souvenir stores did not have many good designs for T-shirts.

My Parents Arrive:

My parents came to Copenhagen for a few days before we went to Italy, so I had a very busy last couple of days in Copenhagen between showing my parents around and packing up 4 months worth of stuff. However, I really enjoyed showing my parents around Copenhagen and they really enjoyed the fact that I knew where to go and what things they should and shouldn’t see while they were in town. My parents stayed in a hotel right by Radhauspladsen (City hall square), which is right in the middle of things, and right on my bus line so it was really convenient to get there and it was close to everything. Also, I never really went out to eat much in Copenhagen since everything was so expensive, so it was nice to be able to go out to with my parents. It was also fun to take my parents to the pølser stands (hot dog/sausage stands) and to the schwarma restaurants since we don’t really have them in the US. Just a couple of things that we did: we went on a canal tour of Copenhagen which was fun because I got a different view of the city and it was funny to hear the tour guide talking about stuff that I already knew. We also went to Tivoli (a really old amusement park right in the middle of the city) one night, and although we didn’t go on any of the rides, it was fun just to walk around with all of the lights. My parents were really only in Copenhagen for 2.5 days before we went to Italy, but we managed to squeeze a lot in.

While my parents were visiting, I was also busy packing all of my stuff up and it turned out to be harder than I thought – I had lots of extra room but no extra weight since all of my packs were almost 50 lbs. Fortunately, my parents had packed light so I was able to put my extra heavy stuff in their carry-ons.

We left Copenhagen early Monday morning with an indirect flight to Milan via Dusseldorf (and an 8 hr layover).