Copenhagen Light Festival 2024

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Copenhagen Light Festival opened tonight and continues through until the 25 February.

There are 79 light works that have been set up in streets, squares and parks across the city and seven events that include an opening concert and a family run at night with lights. The works vary enormously in form from laser displays through floodlighting to sculptures in light and many of the installations include sound.

Details of locations and, where relevant, times are set out in the online programme but, In general, lights will be switched on at 5pm.

This year, for the first time, there will be guided walks but, if you want to explore independently, there is an app for the festival that can be downloaded and that includes an interactive map with information about each installation and about the artists.

Copenhagen Light Festival - programme

 

The Wave - Ofelia Plads

Du som er i Himlene - Højbro Plads
Vivid Verve - Jorcks Passage
PiXLEarth - Knasten, Havnegade 14
Bron, Broen, Bridge - Knippelsbro

traffic lights

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Back in the new year, I was walking towards the National Bank in Copenhagen and traffic lights on the pedestrian crossing were against me.

Waiting on the pavement opposite side of Holmens Kanal, I realised that there were new, neat and slim traffic lights here with a less cluttered profile …. obvious against the plain stonework of the bank building. The lights themselves look larger but flatter - no heavy convex front as a lens - and they are bright and clear and no clumsy shades so presumably it’’s a narrow LED beam.

Tags on the traffic lights show that they are from the Austrian company Swarco. The PEEK label indicates they have the technology that gives emergency blue-light services priority.

Street furniture and road signs - particularly traffic lights - are a significant feature of any city-centre street scape and their size and exact position are determined primarily by the need for safety where traffic can be moving fast or where the arrangement of lanes and sight lines can be complicated and a visual distraction for any road user so they have to be obvious but, if they are badly placed or badly designed, they can have a huge and detrimental impact when silhouetted against important historic buildings.

This is a very busy junction with heavy traffic and, with various filter lanes, the roads are wide so lights for pedestrian crossings have to be well-placed and clear.

Over the last few months, these slim new lights have been installed at other junctions around the city …. here at the busy road intersection at Østerport railway station to the north east side of the city centre.

Swarco Alustar

Copenhagen Light Festival .... "light in the Winter darkness"

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A Dozen Sun by Maj D og HagbArt
on the board walk at Skuespilhuset / The National Theatre with the view across the harbour to the Opera House
and yes … that is a pair of legs
the installation is made from salvaged plastic and there is a low entrance so you can stand inside

 

Copenhagen Light Festival opened this evening and there are installations across the city.

There are interactive installations; buildings have art work projected on them; major monuments are lit up with strong colours; there are laser shows with light projected across Copenhagen and many of the installations have music or sound.

The city has a marked policy to keep control of street lighting and tends to use low-level lighting on steps or pavements for safe illumination where necessary so, generally, and unlike so many cities and towns, there is a little pollution from harsh or glaring lights …. basically street lighting is carefully designed and subtle …. so the month of the Light Festival introduces some real drama.

The festival continues through to the 27 February.
Maps and information can be found on posters near the installations and on the festival internet site and there is also an app ‘Copenhagen Light Festival - Within 10 Minutes’.

Copenhagen Light Festival
Festival Map 2022

click on any image to open all of them in a slide show

KØBENHAVNEON
Thomas Lewin and Stangdennis
EOS/NYX
Knippelsbro - brobuerne

INTERACTIVE TRAMPOLINES
Cong Liu, Hubert Kurkiexicz, Agata Ostroowska

PHENIX
Julien Menzel

ORAKLET
Marie Nørgaard Nielsen

NEUTRINO
Markus Anders Art & Circus Lumineszenz

TRUST NATURE
Umage x Hackstage

 

UKURANT 2021 - PERSPECTIVES

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Ukurant was founded by Kamma Rosa Schytte, Josefine Krabbe Munck, Kasper Kyster and Lærke Ryom.

Following an open invitation, and with more than 200 applicants, the works of 17 designers and artists were selected for this exhibition.

These works explore the overlaps between design and art and form and material with a strong emphasis on colour and texture.

The exhibition was design by Frederik Gustav and has been supported by the Danish design company Muuto.

photographs of all the works

Ukurant Perspectives, at Amaliegade 38

Perspectives was part of 3daysofdesign
but remains open every day through to Sunday 26 September

note:
Det Classenske Bibliotek in Frederiksstaden was built in the 1790s to house books collected by the industrialist and landowner Johan Frederik Classen.

Det Classenske Bibliotek, Amaliegade
Revalued, Elly Feldstein
Passive Coated Chair, Carsten In Der Elst
Lath Chair, Tanita Klein
Monolith, Baptiste Comte
Side Table, Alexander Kirkeby

 
 

Folded Objects - the work of Poul Christiansen at A Petersen

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An exhibition to mark the 50th anniversary of Sinusline, Model 172 - one of the most popular lamps produced by the Danish lighting company LE KLINT. It was designed by Poul Christiansen and was launched in 1971.

The exhibition includes a number of the folded paper lamps and elegant and complex geometric forms with sharp folded lines in paper that are fascinating, small-scale sculptures.

LE KLINT was established in 1943 and Poul Christiansen has been working with the company for more than fifty years.

LE KLINT
A Petersen, Kløvermarksvej 70A
15 September - 24 October 2021

 
 

the Mindcraft Project 2021

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With restrictions imposed by the pandemic, the Mindcraft Project for 2021 is presented on line.

There are ten pioneering works:

300kg Beauty Bath, by Frederik Nystrup-Larsen & Oliver Sundqvist
Suspense, by Kasper Kjeldgaard
In-tangibles, by Stine Mikkelsen
Bench 01 and Bedside Tables, by Bahraini-Danish
Ctenophora Vase, Echinoidea Bowl, Morning Dip Side Table, by 91-92
Textile Veneer, by Else-Rikke Bruun
Ebano, by Rasmus Fenmann
Architectural Glass Fantasies, by Stine Bidstrup
Chair 02, by Archival Studies
Ombre Light, by Mette Schelde

On the site there is an introduction to Mindcraft and the ‘exhibition’ and then information about each of the works with dimensions and the materials used but the key feature is a short video for each work where the designers and artists talk about the concept and the design process and about the techniques used to produce the finished work.

One characteristic that unites these amazing works is their restraint.


From 2008 through to 2013, the annual Mindcraft exhibitions were organised by Danish Crafts and from 2014 to 2018 by Danish Arts Foundation.
The first Mindcraft Project from Copenhagen Design Agency was in 2020.

The-Mindcraft-Project-2021-group-shot_dezeen_08.jpg

Copenhagen Light Festival 2021

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1 THE ICE IS MELTING
2 SGA DIAMOND

3 L’ETOILE
4 CAR PARK HOLIDAY

5 CORONA _ BLACK HOLE SUN
6 PRESSURE

 


This evening the Copenhagen Light Festival opened with forty-three installations set up around the city.

There are information panels close to each work and there is also information and suggested walking routes on the Light Festival site.

the Copenhagen Light Festival continues until 27 February
CPH LIGHT FESTIVAL

 

Understanding

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A large new sculpture has been set up on Ofelia Plads - the long wide concrete pier or mole that runs out from the north side of Skuespilhuset - The Royal Danish Playhouse.

Work No. 2630 Understanding by the British artist Martin Creed was planned to be part of the celebrations in Roskilde for the 50th anniversary of the festival in 2020 where there were to be three giant words with peace and love alongside understanding but, with the pandemic, the festival was cancelled. The plan now is that the sculpture will be moved to Roskilde if the festival can be held in 2021.

The huge letters, outlined in red neon, form a work that is 8 metres high and 15 metres wide and it rotates so at night the reflection of the lettering pans across the water of the harbour.

 

Frama Permanent Collection

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The catalogue for Frama Permanent Collection includes interesting quotations and some short comments or statements that hint at the ethos of the studio and stress the use of natural materials and the ‘simple geometries’ of the designs ‘resulting in a uniquely warm and honest aesthetic’.

Photographs show the furniture in stark and simple interiors so in a strongly defined space but not in an obvious room to blur any sense of a specific place.

The full catalogue has simple, neat, useful, outline drawings and basic information about designers and materials and dimensions but not, significantly, the date of the design. Presumably, it is called the Permanent Collection because the intention is to remove any sense of a specific time.

My impression is that, having brought together a substantial body of work, Frama will now add to or edit this collection with well-measured discernment.

There are four sections in the catalogue with:

ESSENTIALS
described as "utilitarian pieces" that includes the hall-mark, metal-framed, stools by Toke Lauridsen; the low aml stool in wood by Andreas Martin-Löf; benches; Chair 01 by Frama; a daybed; Shelf Library by Kim Richardt; box units in aluminium by Jonas Trampedach and the round and the rectangular trestle tables by Frama Studio. These are the key pieces.

SIGNATURE
pieces are marked out for their ‘extra sophisticated appearance’ and for more challenging and demanding knowledge for manufacture including the Skeleton 021 Chair designed by Elding Oscarsen Architects and the Triangolo Chair by Per Holland Bastrup

HOME GOODS
are ceramics - robust glazed stoneware by Frama Studio - and glassware for the table from 0405 Glass with some kitchen to table pieces such as cutting boards

LIGHTING
is distinct and a very interesting range of pendant lights, free standing spots and a take on the strip light and all with simple, but clever and elegant, geometric shapes in brass or copper, polished steel or aluminium and powder-coated steel or powder-coated aluminium

The Apothecary Collection and the free-standing units of Frama Studio Kitchen are dealt with separately but can all be seen on the Frama site

FRAMA - the apartment

FRAMA Permanent Collection

 
 

&Tradition at Lindencrones Palæ for 3daysofdesign

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Lindencrones Palæ was completed in 1753 for Christian Lintrup with the initial design by Nicholai Eigtved the architect who was responsible for the plan of Frederiksstaden and for many of the major buildings in this part of the city. Frederiksstaden was built outside the old east gate of the old city from the 1680s onwards. Much of the interior of Lindencrones Palæ and much of the arrangement of the plan would have been determined by the master builder Christian Conradi.

With its main façade towards Bredgade, with its relatively narrow pavement and heavy traffic and with only an end elevation to Sankt Annæ Plads, a lot of people must walk past the building without fully appreciating the size and the grand design of the Palæ. From 1850, it was the British Embassy but the British sold the building and moved out to Østerbro in 1979. In 2003, the house was purchased by Troels Holch Povlsen - founder of Best Seller - and underwent a major restoration that was completed in 2006.

The splendid main staircase is reached by a short flight of steps up from the arched passageway that runs through between Bredgade and the courtyard and that stair takes the visitor up to a suite of reception rooms that run right across the main floor level with what must have been one of the largest drawing rooms in the city.

Lindencrones Palæ is used as an important venue for 3daysofdesign and this year the main rooms were taken over by the design company &Tradition in partnership with the auction house Bruun Rasmussen the theme "Home of a Collector" showed current pieces from the company alongside classic historic designs.

Many good Danish interiors mix together antique furniture - often pieces inherited from the family - with classic designs from the mid and late 20th century along with the most modern of current designs. Here, that was shown on a grand scale. It is often easier to talk about Danish taste or the Scandinavian qualities of interiors rather than style as such because furniture of different periods are so often mixed together.

Bruun Rasmussen
&Tradition

 

the facade of Lindencrones Palæ to Bredgade

 

Slow down you move too fast ...... just kicking down the cobblestones

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Work on Gammel Strand is now almost finished.

This very long and narrow triangular space - over the canal from Christiansborg - was the location of the old fish market.  There are large old houses across the long north side - facing across towards Thorvaldsens Museum and the Christiansborg Castle Church - and the long south side is defined by the quay of the canal itself,

The space has been a building site for almost a decade with the construction of one of the new stations of the circle line of the metro here at the east end of the space. The entrance to the metro is close to the bridge over the canal to Christiansborg - Højbro or High Bridge with its ornate stone balustrade. The other key feature of the space is a magnificent tree at the west end in front of a large courtyard house that steps forward from the main line of facades, to enclose the space, although the quay continues on as the narrower Nybrogade.

The metro station opened in September and work then started on laying a new arrangement of cobbles.

Whereas before there was traffic cutting through the space with a relatively narrow pavement in front of the houses, this has now been restricted to access and bikes are encouraged to follow a long curve through the space marked by a relatively narrow strip of smoother cobbles or setts. There are no pavements, as such, but again changes in the arrangement of the cobbles and the line of shallow gullies for drainage mark in a subtle way a suggested line for people to follow. The new design allows much more space for restaurants here to move more tables and seating outside.

It is actually at night that you see the real gains from this new arrangement of the space. Lighting is kept relatively low and people seem to appreciate and respect the calm space. 

There are steps down to a lower level of walk along the canal itself where, because it faces south, people can sit in the sun so it is actually a complicated space, in terms of hw people move through or stop in and use the public space but it is all demarcated by subtle and careful differences in the hard landscaping and with street furniture and artificial lighting kept to a minimum. Copenhagen planning at its best.

looking along Gammel Strand from the east end with the canal to the left and the clock tower of the city hall in the distance

the fish market on Gammel Strand with the balustrade of Højbro and the houses of Ved Stranden beyond - painted by Paul Fischer a century ago

the city at night

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above - the view across the harbour to the Opera House. I know hygge is about candles and food and and wine and warm comfortable interiors on a cold grey Winter evening but is it a step too far to see this - a quiet comfortable and safe urban area - as hygge scaled up?

right - the tower and the spire Christians Kirke

below right - the portico of the Danske Bank building at Kongens Nytorv

below - Islands Brygge walking along the old cobbled wharf towards Bryggerbroen and looking towards Fisketorvet on the other side of the harbour

 
 

Copenhagen is amazing during the day but is also a magical place to explore at night.

Obviously there are the bright lights of Tivoli and all the neon signs around Vesterbrogade and the large square in front of the city hall and Strøget - the Walking Street - is a good place for an evening promenade all the way from the city hall to Højbro Plads and on to Kongens Nytorv - but the quieter streets and squares and the quayside of the harbour have lower and much more subtle levels of lighting and important public buildings are well lit rather than spot lit.

Bridges and steps have thin lighting on or under the handrails and, in some of the pedestrian streets and squares, lights are set into the pavement to mark pathways.

Copenhagen Light Festival

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For the Light Festival, there are 45 light installations at locations around the city and these vary in scale.

Aurora Sky picks out the facade of one of the large buildings on Rådhuspladsen - the square in front of city hall - in blue and turquoise to compete with the other neon signs of the huge square whereas at Stormbroen - at the south-west corner of the Christiansborg canal - patterns like those in the infamous lava lamps of the 1960s flow through the arches of the bridge while the normal traffic and night life of the city pass across the bridge, apparently oblivious to the light show below. The bright, sharp-green line by Båll & Brand cuts right across the city while the thin elegant fronds of Rest by Group 3 in an open courtyard alongside one of the office buildings of Nordea on Christianshavn are just waist high and change from red to blue as people approach.

photographs of a number of the installations

the festival continues through until 23 February
and details of all the light works with maps and information about related events can be found on the official festival site

Copenhagen Light Festival 2020

 

The Wave returns to Ofelia Plads

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The annual Copenhagen Light Festival opens officially on Saturday 1 February with 37 major installations that have been set up on squares and streets and across the facades of buildings around the city.

The Wave - a popular light installation by the art collective Vertigo - has returned to Ofelia Plads and was already attracting a crowd this evening.

It's a series of triangular frames that run down the pier on the north side of the national theatre to form a tunnel 80 metres long. Richly-coloured light pulsates or ripples down the length and, as people move through the tunnel, they are surrounded by a mesmerising sound track with five choral works composed by Louise Alenius and performed by singers from the Opera House.


the festival continues at outdoor venues around the city until 23 February 2020
maps and information can be found on the festival site
Copenhagen Light Festival 2020

Night Fever

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A major new exhibition has opened at Designmuseum Danmark in Copenhagen to explore the design of nightclubs and discotheques described as "hotbeds of contemporary culture."

This is about interiors and furniture; about graphics, for posters and record covers; about the development of all the technology needed for sound systems and lighting in these venues and, of course, fashion with contemporary photographs and some outfits and with separate sections on key places through the decades since the early 1960s including Studio 54 in New York; the Hacienda in Manchester and Ministry of Sound in London along with clubs and discotheques in Italy and Berlin.

There are videos - including a long clip from Saturday Night Fever with John Travolta that was released in 1977 - and even a dance floor with music (through headphones) with play lists from early pop disco through house to techno.

The exhibition has been designed and curated by Vitra Design Museum and ADAM - Brussels Design Museum.

NIGHT FEVER. Designing Club Culture 1960-today
continues at Designmuseum Danmark until 27 September 2020

 

 
 

Copenhagen Gay Pride

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This has been Copenhagen Gay Pride week with events all round the city with the highlight probably being the parade today with thousands taking part and huge crowds making it a major event.

The city has been decked out with rainbow flags and the colours of the rainbow on major buildings and for light shows.

B&W market - in search of contemporary

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This has to be one of the the biggest flea markets for mid-century furniture in Denmark.

In a huge hangar out on Refhaleøen and just across from Copenhagen Contemporary, there are traders and dealers here with a phenomenal stock of furniture and lighting and ornaments and tableware. Most is from the mid 20th century and is what my parents at the time called “contemporary design”.

There are classic pieces of furniture by the acknowledged names but there is also plenty of good furniture of the period, made by all those Danish furniture factories and sold by all those ordinary furniture shops where ordinary people bought good furniture.

It was an interesting mix of customers from students and young couples looking for a bargain to well healed older couples reminiscing ….. remembering when they or their parents “had one of those” or something “just like that”.

This is the place to see just how much the way we live has changed … how many people buy a full set of six or eight matching dining chairs now? And why are there so many chests of drawers? It’s one of the most useful pieces of storage furniture invented. Sadly too many book cases … there is a steady stream of posts and newspaper articles about people still buying books but the number of bookcases here suggest that might be wishful thinking. That, or people vertical floor stack.

Refshaleøen B&W Loppemarked

 
 

select any image to open in Lightbox

note:

the set of six three-legged chairs on an upper shelf are the Heart Chair from Fritz Hansen designed by Hans Wegner in 1952. Wegner experimented with several designs for small chairs that pushed in tightly under a table for a small apartment. Perhaps the ultimate design using three legs and a triangular seat with a round table is the design by Hans Olsen - shown here wth an Egg Chair balanced on the top. Olsen, like Wegner, studied under Kaare Klint. Note how the frame over each leg of the table and the chair back rests form a continuous line. The chair bottom left is the Sawbuck by Wegner from 1951.

 

Bauhaus #itsalldesign

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Designmuseum Danmark, Bredgade 68, Copenhagen

A major exhibition has opened at Designmuseum Danmark on the history, the staff and their teaching and the work of the Bauhaus school of architecture and design.

This reassessment was conceived by Vitra Design Museum and Bundeskunsthalle, Bonn to mark 100 years since the opening of the Bauhaus.

review to follow

the exhibition continues until 1 December 2019
Designmuseum Danmark

 

images from the Light Festival in Copenhagen

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  • the tower of Christiansborg from Frederiksholms Kanal

  • the beam of light from the tower of Nikolaj Kirke across the statue of Bishop Absalon

  • Pyramid Construction by NEXT Cph on the square in front of BLOX

  • Go Boat on the Amager side of the harbour and Eternal Sundown by Mads Vegas at Bølgen, the Wave, at Kalvebod Brygge on the city side of the harbour

  • Chromatic Fields by Jakob Kvist at Louis Poulsen - Kuglegårdsvej

the Light Festival continues at venues around the city
through to 24 February 2019
the official site has a map and details of related events

Copenhagen Light Festival

street lighting in Copenhagen

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Around the city, artificial lighting in streets and squares is designed with real care.

The new lighting for Slotsplads in front of Christiansborg is a good example where light levels are subdued and subtle … bright enough to feel secure and warm rather than having sharp white electric light so about as far as you can get from crass spotlights and appropriate for what is one of the most important public buildings in the city.

Light fittings here tend to be low rather than on high posts although traffic junctions are still lit by larger lights set higher, often suspended from wires, because they have to cover a wider area simply for safety.

But on many foot paths and cycle routes the lighting at night is from lamps set in relatively short posts - so below waist height - that throw a pool of light across the paving and where there are steps these are now often illuminated by lights under the hand rails or by small lights set onto the surface.

The annual Copenhagen Festival of Light will be from 1st February through to the 24th.
It’s a good time to visit the city if it feels as if there is still a very long wait for Spring because the festival gives people a reason for going out on a dark night.