Parken, the Danish National Stadium, is to be modernised

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Parken - the stadium from Øster Allé

Parken, the national stadium, in Østerbro, has a prominent location on the east side of Fælledparken, and is on the site of an earlier stadium - Idrætsparken.

Designed by Gert Andersson, work on the new stadium started in 1990 and it opened in 1992 with a capacity of 38,000.

Record attendance is actually 60,000 people but that was not for a football match but for the Michael Jackson concert in 1997 and the roof was not added for the comfort of players or spectators but for a Eurovision Song Contest.

In the new work under the architects CF Møller, capacity in the stadium will be increased, with the stands rebuilt, and new office buildings will be constructed at three of the four corners.

Kulturministriet - the Danish Ministry of Culture - is in the centre of Copenhagen - in an old merchant’s house on Nybrogade - at the west end of Gammel Strand

With the return of the government to Borgen for the Autumn session, there have been rumours that Kulturministriet - the Ministry of Culture - could be reorganised.

Joy Mogensen, the current Minister of Culture, has a double portfolio for she is also Minister of Ecclesiastical Affairs but, in addition, has ministerial responsibility for sport in Denmark.

I know many describe football as an art and fans worship their star players and follow their chosen sport with religious devotion and, maybe - in our post-Coronavirus world - getting crowds back, is the priority now, for managers of football stadiums and managers of theatres, but can religion, culture and sport really be seen as completely easy bedfellows under a single minister?

This spotlights … or maybe floodlights …. a problem that all small or relatively small countries have and that is how you cover everything with a relatively small number of people.

In Denmark, there are around 25 ministerial departments and the ruling party here - currently the Social Democratic Party - has 48 members of parliament out of a total of 179 who are elected to Folketinget - the Danish parliament - so in theory over half of the MPs could be ministers.

In comparison, the Tory Prime Minister in Britain appoints ministers from its 364 members of parliament - out of a total of 650 seats in the Lower House - and they can also bring in as ministers any of the 245 Conservative peers, out of a total of 1,422, in the House of Lords. In theory, that is a much larger gene pool but I would not dare to comment on which ministers from which parliaments in which country can be seen to be better at running things in their respective countries at the moment.

 

Orientkaj

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The large building to the east of the new metro station at Orientkaj - on the north side of the dock - is the new Copenhagen International School designed by CF Møller and completed in 2017. The scheme for swimming and water sport facilities is also by CF Møller.

When the first stage of new metro line M4 out to Nordhavn opens then the trains will leave the circle line at Østerport and head out towards the harbour and, after a new station at Nordhavn, will climb up onto elevated track and a new station at Orientkaj.

Here, as the trains pull into the station, to the right, looking east towards the sound, there will be a view down one of the largest docks in this part of the harbour with a line of large brick and concrete warehouses along Orientkaj itself … most dating from the second half of the last century and most bonded warehouses. These face across the dock to the new Copenhagen International School designed by CF Møller and completed in 2017.

CF Møller have designed a scheme for the dock itself with a series of islands and boarded walkways in front of the school for swimming areas, an area for water sports, - including kayak polo - and changing rooms and a sauna with facilities to be used by the school but also by the local community.

The impressive scale of the dock will be broken and the area takes another step away from its immediate past with nearly all evidence for the container port - the very reason the dock is here - lost but, and again it is a big but, it is schemes like this that will bring at least some nature back down to the quay side and will make the water a strong part of life in this area rather than simply a dramatic backdrop.

 

Bygningspræmiering / Building Awards 2018

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On the 7th April 1902 the city council of Copenhagen voted to make awards annually for "beautiful artistic designs for construction projects on the city's land."  

There had been some discussion with the Association of Academic Architects about creating an award that recognised the best designs for new buildings in the city but from the start the awards were also to provide guidelines or a model and an incentive for owners and clients when they commissioned work. 

It is important to understand that the council appreciated fully the importance of historic buildings in the city so the awards were, in part, to encourage the design of new buildings of an appropriate quality to stand alongside the historic buildings but they also went further to include awards for major projects for the restoration of existing buildings and to recognise improvements to the townscape or urban scape that provided the best and most appropriate setting for those buildings.

Nor did the awards just focus on major or prestigious buildings but over 115 years they have also recognised the best private houses, new apartment buildings and commercial buildings, factories and schools in Copenhagen. 

For 2018, eight buildings have been recognised with an award but, for the first time, these will all go forward for the selection of an overall winner by a public vote.

That winner will be announced at a ceremony at the City Hall on 3 May. 

 

 

 

Axel Towers, Axeltorv 2
Lundgaard & Tranberg Arkitekter A/S

Five circular towers, tightly grouped and interlinked, with shops and a cafe at the lower level, a new public space at an upper level between the towers, offices and a restaurant at the top overlooking the city. The nomination for an award appears to be in part for the quality of the exterior and for the new or rather the replanning of the public space running back from the street across the west side of the new buildings.

 


Carlsbergfondets Forskersboligerne / Carlsberg Foundation Graduate Housing, Bohrsgade 7-13
Praksis Arkitekter ApS

Apartments on an important and sensitive site overlooking the JC Jacobsen Gardens. The award appears to be for the quality of the design, attempting to set a standard for the redevelopment of this area, previously the site of the Carlsberg brewery. There is an interesting loggia across the street frontage that takes its form from covered links between and across the front of original brewery buildings and the form of the brickwork, with panels of bricks set diagonally to create a zigzag dog-tooth pattern, shows a clever and sympathetic and appropriate respect for the facade of the adjoining brick building on the garden side by Eske Kristensen that dates from the 1960s and was itself an award-winning design.

 

 


Konstabelskolen, Luftmarinegade 1
Vandkunsten

New youth housing in buildings on Margreteholm that date from 1939 - an early and important concrete post and beam construction that has been derelict for some years.

 

 
 

Mærsk Tårnet / Mærsk Tower, Blegdamsvej 3B
C F Møller Architects
Landscape SLA

Prominent new building for medical research - for the university Panum Institute and the Novo Nordisk Foundation Centre on the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences site. The award, in part, seems to recognise the technical aspects of the building, particularly energy saving for such a large structure; in part recognises the complex planning for such a complicated high-tech role and in part is for the landscape around the building that takes into account controls for surface water - as cloud bursts become more common, and potentially much more destructive with climate change - but also has interesting planting and a dramatic use of elevated public walkways to encourage people to enter the site or cut through.

L1260671.jpg

 

Dehns Palæ / Dehn’s Palace, Bredgade 54
Wohlert Arkitekter A/S

An 18th-century palace - designed by JG Rosenberg and close to the royal palace and the Marble Church - has been restored for Danmarks Apotekerforening / Denmarks Pharmaceutical Association following an extensive fire in 2010. The award recognises that because the building is so important, restoration work was completed using original materials with original working techniques.

 

Åbenrå 16
Entasis A/S

Apartment building constructed on a plot in the historic centre of the city close to the King's Garden that has been vacant since 1970 when a number of old houses were demolished ahead of a major scheme to rebuild the street that was then abandoned.

 


The Silo, Lüdersvej 15
COBE

Prestigious apartments and a roof-top restaurant in the conversion of a concrete silo for grain that was the largest industrial building in the North Harbour. The challenge was to give the building a relevant and financially viable function to justify its survival; respect the scale of the building, with what are exceptional heights between the floors, and to retain qualities and the drama of the raw concrete of the original building but bring the spaces up to current standards of insulation. 

the two silos in May 2015

 

Frihavns Tårnet, Helsinkigade 18-20
Praksis Arkitekter ApS

Housing in the conversion of a former DLG silo close to the Silo. The industrial building was given a distinctive framework of balconies on three sides and the award recognises the quality of the apartments - “the decor and the choice of materials” but also appreciates that the design has created “liveable” homes particularly in terms their orientation to the natural light.

 
 

note:

There is a page on the web site of Københavns Kommune - under Housing, Construction and Urban Life - on the Building Awards that has information about each of the nominated buildings with photographs, including some interiors, and a short video for an assessment of each of the projects by the City Architect Tina Saaby (in Danish).