Bispeengbuen - a new plan

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Yesterday, an article in the Danish newspaper Politken reported that planners and politicians in Copenhagen might have come to a decision on the fate of Bispeengbuen - the section of elevated motorway that runs down the border between Frederiksberg and the Nørrebro district of Copenhagen.

One of several major schemes to improve the road system in the city in the late 1960s and 1970s, Bispeengbuen was planned to reduce delays for traffic coming into the city from suburbs to the north west.

At the south end of the elevated section, at Borups Plads, traffic, heading into the city, drops back down to street level and continues first down Ågade and then on down Åboulevard to the lakes and, if it is through traffic, then on, past the city hall, and down HC Andersens Boulevard to Langebro and across the harbour to Amager.

Between the elevated section and the lakes, the road follows the line of a river that, from the late 16th century, had flowed through low-lying meadows - the Bispeeng or Bishop's Meadow - and brought fresh water in to the lakes. In 1897, the river was dropped down into a covered culvert and it still flows underground below the present traffic.

From the start, the elevated section was controversial as it cuts past and close to apartment buildings on either side - close to windows at second-floor level - and the area underneath is gloomy and generally oppressive. Traffic is fast moving and generates a fair bit of noise and it forms a distinct barrier between the districts on either side.

There has been an ambitious plan to drop the road and its traffic down into a tunnel with the river brought back up to the surface as the main feature of a new linear park. The full and very ambitious plan - for ambitious read expensive - was to extend the tunnel on to take all through traffic underground, to Amager on the south side of the harbour.

There has been talk of a less expensive plan to demolish the elevated section, to bring all traffic back down to street level, which would be cheaper but would not reduce the traffic and would leave the heavy traffic on HC Andersens Boulevard as a barrier between the city centre and the densely-populated inner suburb of Vesterbro.

This latest scheme, a slightly curious compromise, is to demolish half the elevated section. That's not half the length but one side of the elevated section. There are three lanes and a hard shoulder in each direction and the north-bound and city bound sides are on independent structures. With one side removed, traffic in both directions would be on the remaining side but presumably speed limits would be reduced - so, possibly, reducing traffic noise - and the demolished side would be replaced by green areas although it would still be under the shadow of the surviving lanes.

It was suggested in the article that this is considered to have the least impact on the environment for the greatest gain ... the impact of both demolition and new construction are now assessed for any construction project.

There is already a relatively short and narrow section of park on the west side of the highway, just south of Borups Plads, and that is surprisingly quiet - despite alongside the road.

On both sides of the road, housing is densely laid out with very little public green space so it would seem that both the city of Copenhagen and the city of Frederiksberg are keen to proceed. Presumably they feel half the park is better than none although I'm not sure you could argue that half an elevated highway is anywhere near as good as no elevated motorway.

The situation is further complicated because the highway is owned and controlled by the state - as it is part of the national road system - so they would have to approve any work and police in the city may also be in a position to veto plans if they feel that it will have too much of an impact on the movement of traffic through the area.

update - Bispeengbuen - 14 January 2020
update - a road tunnel below Åboulevard - 15 January 2020

note:
Given the brouhaha over each new proposal to demolish the elevated section of the motorway, it is only 700 metres overall from the railway bridge to Borups Plads and it takes the traffic over just two major intersections - at Nordre Fasanvej and Borups Allé -  where otherwise there would be cross roads with traffic lights. I'm not implying that the impact of the road is negligible - it has a huge impact on the area - but, back in the 1960s, planners clearly had no idea how many problems and how much expense they were pushing forward half a century with a scheme that, to them, must have seemed rational.

My assumption has been that the motorway was constructed, under pressure from the car and road lobby, as part of a tarmac version of the Finger Plan of the 1940s.

The famous Finger Plan was an attempt to provide control over the expansion of the city, and was based on what were then the relatively-new suburban railway lines that run out from the centre. New housing was to be built close to railway stations and with areas of green between the developments along each railway line .... hence the resemblance to a hand with the city centre as the palm and the railway lines as outstretched fingers.

Then, through the 1950s and 1960s, the number of private cars in Copenhagen increased dramatically and deliveries of goods by road also increased as commercial traffic by rail declined.

I don't know who the traffic planners were in Copenhagen in the 1950s and 1960s but, looking back, they barely appreciated old building or existing communities, and, presumably, looked to LA and, possibly, to the Romania of Nicolae Ceaușescu for inspiration. Their ultimate aim, in their professional lives, seems have been to design a perfect motorway intersection where traffic flowed without any delays.

They wanted to build a motorway down the lakes and when that was thwarted they proposed a massive motorway system that was to be one block back from the outer shore of the lakes - sweeping away the inner districts of Østerbro and Nørrebro - and with new apartment buildings along the edge of the lake - between their new motorway and the lake - that would have formed a series of semi-circular amphitheatres looking across the lakes to the old city. The whole of the inner half of Vesterbro, including the meat market area, and the area of the railway station would have become an enormous interchange of motorways where the only purpose was to keep traffic moving.

We have to be grateful that few of those road schemes were realised but there is also a clear lesson that, however amazing and visionary a major plan for new infrastructure may appear, it can, in solving an immediate problem, create huge problems for future generations to sort out.

approaching the elevated motorway from the south
the motorway from Ågade on the east side
the motorway crossing Borups Allé

the river close to the lakes at Åboulevard but now in a culvert below the road

Bispeengbuen under construction showing how it cut a swathe through the existing neighbourhood - city archive 50675

the earlier proposal to bury the road in a tunnel and bring the river back up to the surface as the main feature of a new linear park

small area of park on the west side of the road

umbrellas on Nyhavn

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Tourists are back in Nyhavn and all the umbrellas are back outside the restaurants with all but a couple of the restaurants open.

These large, canvas, umbrellas are now an almost-permanent feature of the quay .... some restaurants had them taken down through the lockdown but many, trying to be more hopeful, simply kept them furled so they were like a long line of pale, skinny sentinels waiting for better times.

Each umbrella is 4 metres square and is set into a permanent housing in the cobbles. They are mostly in blocks of three or four together with fixed gutters between them to take rainwater out to the outer side. There is a narrow space between the umbrellas and the fronts of the buildings so they form fairly self-contained dining spaces with their own electric power for lighting and many have heating and a free-standing bar for serving booze. Many were able to stay open - at least in some form for lunch or drinks or for take away food - when there were tight pandemic restrictions that stopped dining inside.

The restaurants rely on these outdoor spaces for several different reasons. They certainly draw in people passing; they attract customers who might still be reluctant to sit inside a crowded restaurant with the threat of Coronavirus still lingering, and these buildings along Nyhavn are relatively narrow and most have quite small rooms inside that cannot be altered easily to take more tables because these are important and protected historic buildings.

Nyhavn is, without doubt, one of the biggest tourist attractions in the old city but, along with the houses of Gammel Strand and the rows of merchant houses in Christianshavn, this is a major and very significant area, in terms of the history of the city. There are 35 houses between Store Strandstræde and the theatre and all, with courtyards and warehouses and the remains of workshops behind, date back to the late 17th century when Nyhavn was constructed.

The real problem is that the houses are now seen by many as simply facades - little more than a backdrop for selfie photographs - but they are so so much more important than that. For a start, you see glimpses inside of amazing staircases and plastered ceilings and who know’s what survives behind modern alterations?

The book on Historiske Huse i det gamle København has a list of the houses here with brief and good summaries of ownership and their basic history but that was published by the National Museum in 1972 and, as far as I know, there is no catalogue that assess the interiors or looks at the way the rooms in these buildings were arranged or at how that reflects how people have lived here over a period of over 350 years.

For instance, Hans Christian Andersen lived in a house just a few doors down from where I am now. Looking at letters about his furniture and his search for somewhere to live, it looks as if he just had a couple of rooms and there is no indication that he had a kitchen or ever cooked. We are all obsessed with living an independent and self-contained life, so how different was it in the 19th century? Did Hans Christian Andersen always eat out in the bars that must have been along here even then - it was a harbour with an itinerant population who had to eat - or did he have food sent in or a landlady who provide food that was cooked in a kitchen at the back or down in the basement? Do those different ways of living provide ideas for how we might change the way we live in a densely packed city now?

I know that many will argue that economic considerations now have to come first - to stimulate an economic recovery - but there is surely a long-term duty to protect these buildings that are a distinct and significant part of the built heritage of the city. There is a real danger of over exploiting the area so that it no longer becomes a pleasant place for anyone to visit.

During the pandemic it was obvious that more Danes and more citizens were coming to Nyhavn to eat because there were not as many tourists.

There has been a suggestion that restaurants should be allowed to expand onto boats moored here and fitted out for dining and drinking but that would attract even more tourists - and it does tend to be tourists rather than local people who eat here - and more customers has to mean more food deliveries, more waste and, to the detriment of the historic buildings, more kitchens and more food storage. If you have not been back into kitchens and food preparation areas in a busy restaurant then it is difficult to appreciate just how much venting and drainage and so on intrudes into the fabric and there is little space now for storage of packaging and food waste let alone chillers for storage. Will ever larger restaurants mean that they take over more of the residential accommodation so fewer and fewer people live here?

The umbrellas do form a cheap way of expanding the space of these businesses but that is part of a problem that now has to be discussed at a planning and at a political level.

These are profitable businesses and they will be anxious to return to and to increase the number of customers they had before the pandemic but is it time for planners and politicians to understand when enough is enough and find new areas that might be given the Nyhavn treatment to spread the pressure?

 

the umbrellas of Nyhavn are clearly visible on Google Earth
when they are all out, there are 66 umbrellas along the quay ….. that’s a lot of large umbrellas and well over 1,000 square metres of canvas

with the umbrellas furled and with fewer tourists, it is easier to appreciate the importance of the historic buildings

 
 

will the pandemic have a long-term impact on planning and architecture in Denmark?

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Some disasters, by their nature, end with extensive new building works so, for example, the earthquakes in Lisbon, in Portugal, in 1755 and the earthquake and subsequent fires in San Francisco in 1906 caused so much damage that it meant that both cities were extensively rebuilt.

In Copenhagen, a devastating fire in 1728, that spread across much of the city, and then another major fire in 1795 and the firebombing of the city by the British navy in 1807 explain why there are so few medieval buildings in the city.

The cholera epidemic of 1853 in Copenhagen, when around 5,000 people in the city died through that summer, had a less-obvious impact on individual buildings but had a crucial role in changing planning in the city and began the process of creating the modern city we know.

a testing centres for Covid-19 in a temporary tent on Ofelia Plads in Copenhagen … there were similar centres in huge tents on Frue Plads and on Fælledparken

 

Through the early years of the 19th century, the population of Copenhagen had grown rapidly but that expansion was constrained and contained within defensive walls and the city was closed every night with locked gates .... a very real and complete lockdown. Many leading figures in the city had become concerned about both the overcrowding and the poor quality of the water supply and there was no system for dealing with human waste.

But it was the cholera epidemic that was the trigger that changed everything because within a couple of years of those catastrophic deaths, the walls and gates had been demolished; there was a new water works; a large new hospital had been completed on land outside the old walls and, for the first time, housing was allowed outside the city gates and that formed the first movements for building decent housing for ordinary people.

Then came rapid developments in technology and with the arrival of town gas for lighting and electricity and with new trams for transport and finally, by the end of the century, telephones and large new suburbs, Copenhagen became what we would now recognise as a modern city.

built immediately after the outbreak of cholera in Copenhagen in 1853 …..

a new water works opened in 1857

a large new hospital in the 1860s

the first phase of building the Brumleby housing, designed by Michael Gottlieb Bindesbøll for working families, was finished by 1857
the houses were outside the old city defences, so that densely-packed and poorly-built housing in the centre of the city could be cleared.

 

Now, although we have been caught up with a pandemic for nearly two years, and that has had a dramatic impact on our lives, there is little sign so far that it will have any long-term impact on architecture or design.

Centres for mass inoculation have been in existing buildings that have been adapted temporarily to these new uses - I had my first two jabs at the Bella Center in what is normally an area for conferences and exhibitions - and recently centres for jabs and for tests have been set up in huge tents that were set up on public spaces and in the main park.

On, down the line, we may see some more but subtle changes.

Perspex screens on cash desks in shops were quickly put in place but then were replaced with stronger and better screens and these have not been removed yet and the design of entrance doorways from the street and lobbies and circulation areas in public spaces may well be enlarged permanently if people now feel that really they never actually enjoyed being crammed into tightly restricted spaces just to get into and out of a building.

Will more doors open automatically if we continue to feel slightly uneasy about using handles?

We are yet to see how many people continue to work from home, at least for part of the time, so office buildings and huge headquarter offices may change.

There has been a distinct trend recently for new apartments in the city to be smaller - much smaller - with rumours that official building standards might be changed - but surely that now has to be reconsidered. For the first time, in maybe twenty years, more people have left the city than have moved here as they have realised that they could not function well if they were trapped in a small apartment with partners or small children so have reassessed their opinions on living in the suburbs and have moved out, if they could, to houses with gardens.

Maybe the incentive for developers to cram in more and more housing units to maximise profit may now seem misplaced ... at least in terms of people feeling healthy and happy in their homes rather than feeling hemmed in with a small and crowded living space.

My own feeling is that traditional, relatively-large, Copenhagen apartments with dual aspects - so with good cross circulation of air - and with courtyards where people could at least get some fresh air have come into their own during the pandemic. I would like to see a study completed on rates of infection with coronavirus in tower blocks .... buildings with a single entry lobby and one or two lifts used by everyone over twelve or more floors and have that compared with rates of infection in a standard Copenhagen arrangement with apartments on just four or five floors and an entry and a back staircase with apartments on either side so with only eight or ten households sharing public space.

Tuberculosis was not as widespread as Coronavirus through the current pandemic but was a serious and debilitating disease that struck down many families. Friluftsskolen, on the east side of Amager, was designed by Kaj Gottlob and completed in 1938.
It had wards and classrooms with windows that faced south and that could be opened back to circulate the maximum amount of fresh air

 

In 1952 there was a major outbreak of polio in the city when, between July and September, 2,700 patients were treated at the Blegdamshospitalet where other patients had to be moved to other hospitals.
Nearly 900 patients were paralysed and as many as 70 patients at a time required artificial respiration. Following the outbreak, a new hospital - the Polioinstitutet - was built in Hellerup at Tuborgvej 5 and opened in 1955

balcony blight has spread to Jægersborggade *

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With Coronavirus lockdown restrictions, it has been many months since I have been up to Jægersborggade but Saturday was sunny, and I needed some exercise, so I walked up to the lakes and then on along Nørrebrogade and through Assistens Kirkegård.

As soon as I got into Jægersborggade, opposite the north gate of the cemetery, I could see that construction work had started to add balconies to the front of several of the west-facing buildings.

This whole business of retrofitting older apartment buildings with new balconies has become a serious problem in the city.

Copenhagen has a phenomenal number of good apartment blocks that date from the 19th and the early 20th century ... apartments that were built on new squares and new streets as the city expanded rapidly with large new districts built over the fields and gardens beyond the old city gates.

Most of these apartments still form an important part of the housing stock in Copenhagen and most, even if the original arrangement of rooms was restricted or not completely appropriate for the way we live now, they can be easily adapted .... so heating and bathrooms and so on can all be upgraded. Even replacement doors and windows that comply with modern building standards for sound and heat insulation can be found in an appropriate style and colour that either replicate or compliment the original fittings.

But few of these buildings had balconies.

Of course, I can see why people want a balcony and particularly a balcony that faces the sun or looks across an attractive street or square. A balcony can bring extra light into a room; can be a space to grow herbs or plants; and, if large enough, can be a place to sit and sunbathe or even provide space outside to have a table and chairs for a meal.

Balconies are fine when they form part of the original design and are part of the original construction on apartment buildings from the 1930s or on modern buildings but inserted on the street frontage, they inevitably slam through the original architectural features of the facade, compromise any architectural style the building may have; add what are often little more than stark metal boxes across the front and usually throw shadow across the windows of the apartment below.

With many of these older apartment buildings, the street frontage and a main staircase, are the only parts with any architectural coherence. In most, the back of the building is far less distinguished or, worse, a muddle of toilets and back or kitchen staircases but rooms on the back of the apartment can look down into gardens or attractive courtyards  so balconies added to the rear of building are rarely an issue.

* blight covers green leaves on a plant or tree with ugly and disfiguring areas

shopping in Jægersborggade - December 2018
Jægersborggade - May 2021
retrofitting balconies is a problem - January 2020 

 
 

new balconies from a walk down through Østerbro and on to Dronning Louises Bro

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By coincidence, just two days before walking over to Jægersborggade, I had been up to Østerbro and walked back through Østerbro and through the streets on the outer side of the lakes.

Most of the apartment buildings on these streets date from the 1880s and 1890s or from the first decade of the 20th century and, again, it was possibly a year or more since I had been to this part of the city.

Yet again, I was amazed and depressed by seeing just how many of these good buildings had been altered with the addition of new balconies on the street fronts.

The city planning system really has to control this.

Even if permission is still given for new balconies to be added to the garden or courtyard side of a building, the presumption has to be that new balconies cannot be added to a street front unless there are exceptional reasons or an exceptional design and certainly not when it means cutting through original architectural features.

Can anyone in the city planning department defend the decision to give permision for the addition of any of these balconies or convince me that they contribute in any way to the street scape?

 

select any image to open as a slideshow

 

Blegdamsvej - new public space - new sculptures

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Museums and art galleries in Copenhagen have had to close through this stage of the Coronavirus pandemic but it is still possible to see good art with a huge number of sculptures on streets and in squares and parks around the city.

Blegdamsvej is a main road that runs parallel to the lakes on the outer side. Here there are major hospitals and medical research institutes and two of the most recent buildings - the Panum Institute in the Mærsk Tower designed by CF Møller and the new north wing of the Rigshopitalet by the Danish architects 3XN - now have newly-installed statues on public areas of paving at the front. These are major works but could hardly be more different.

If you are a visitor, and do not know the city well, than it might be easiest to start from Trianglen metro station and from there it is 500 metres to the work by Kirsten Ortwed and then from there a further 550 metres to the Panum Institute, on the far side of the main road with Fredens Park, for the installation by Alicia Kwade.

Or, cross over the lakes, over Fredensbro, at the centre of Sørtedams Sø, and, at Blegdamsvej, the work by Alicia Kwade is to the west and the work by Kirsten Ortwed is to the east.

PARS PRO TOTO
Alicja Kwade

Panum Faculty ofHealth and Medical Sciences,
Mærsk Tårnet / Maersk Tower,
Blegdamsvej 3b, 2200 København

Alicia Kwade is a Polish artist who is now based in Copenhagen.
Her work was shown at Charlottenborg in 2018 under the title Out of Ousia
and Pars Pro Toto was shown at Louisiana
There is an interview with the artist on the Louisiana Chanel

The new forecourt is itself interesting as the surface is not level but has a great hollow with the grid of the paving creating an interesting visual effect - like the drawings you sometime see of a head or a body as a wire-frame profile - and here the artist uses that hollow to imply that the huge marble sphere has rolled here across the square only to be stopped by the posts there to stop cars driving in.

REFLEXTION
Kirsten Ortwed

Rigshospitalet,
Nordfløjen / North Wing
Blegdamsvej 80, 2100 København

Kirsten Ortwed is a Danish artist who is now based in Cologne.
Another of her works for a public space can be seen at Havnegade in Copenhagen - near the Nyhavn end of the kissing bridge.

Here the new building has been set back from the road but that area has been paved and kept open to the public with no barrier or fence so the life-size figure stands in our space and not on a plinth and the public has gained space to move up to the building and to even cut the corner to enter Fælledparken beyond. Too often, new buildings that break an existing street line undermines or destroys the visual continuity of the street and the sense of urban containment and enclosure but here the new space and the sculpture together enhance and add to interest and the value of the streetscape.

Monuments in Copenhagen.jpeg

Monumenter in København / Monuments in Copenhagen

The Kommune - the city council in Copenhagen - has an excellent online site with a catalogue of statues and decorative sculpture on the streets and in the squares and parks of the city.

There is a search option to enter the name of the artist or the subject of the sculpture but the easiest way to enter the data base is through the clear map that is dynamic so you can zoom and drag, if you are searching later, and can remember the area but not the street name.

The map is tiled and, again, this is dynamic so numbers on the map in orange circles refer to the number of statues in that area and these split up and redistribute to the right location as you zoom in and if you click on a number that is greater than one - so for instance the corner of the city hall towards the Vartov has six - so then they open out and each one has a slide that pops up so you can then go to the right one for information and images for the right statue.

The site is in Danish or in English and there are some good comments rather than simply basic facts so, The Lur Blowers by Siegfried Wagner and Anton Rosen, close to the city hall, was designed with a single figure for the top of the column until someone pointed out that Lurs are played in pairs …. now come on who didn't know that … so two lur players now stand on the top of the column. It means that it's a bit crowded up there and local wits began to describe them as the two bags of flour.

 
 

Coronavirus and lockdown … is this the time to rethink tourism in Copenhagen?

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In Copenhagen in 2004 there were 136 hotels and they provided 4.9 million nights for hotel guests and in that year 250 cruise liners called at the port bringing to the city an annual total of more than 350,000 passengers. Back then, there was no such thing as Airbnb - that only got going in 2009.

And by 2009 the total for overnight stays in hotels in Copenhagen had risen to 20 million and by 2019 risen again to 29 million and that number of hotel overnight stays could DOUBLE by 2030.

In 2019 there were 940,000 passengers "welcomed" to the Port of Copenhagen but the increase in the number of passengers on ships docking here is rising and fast. A new fourth terminal at Oceankaj, out at Nordhavn, will provide facilities for even larger ships - ships with more than 5,000 passengers - so, despite the drastic impact of the Coronavirus pandemic and despite the incredibly negative press with newspaper articles and news programmes on TV about passengers trapped in infected ships all over the World, it is still hoped that the number of cruise-ship passengers doing a stopover in Copenhagen will increase and at a significant rate.

Exact figures for the number of tourists staying in Airbnb is difficult to find on line although one site came up with a map showing 26,016 properties in the city that were listed at the end of last month.

That number surprised even me.

Just 4,712 of those listings are for a room in someone's home - of course the original idea behind Airbnb - and 21,766 are for renting the whole home - houses or apartments.

It seems to be impossible to work out exactly how many tourists are staying in Airbnb properties at any one time and Airbnb is no longer the only player in the business. It is also clear that owners and certainly Airbnb themselves have absolutely no idea how many people will actually occupy a place … just the number of beds advertised.

Some of these properties are owned by someone travelling or working away for a fixed time and letting a property to someone to take care of it and bring in a modest income and that is fine but exactly how many of those properties registered with Airbnb are owned commercially simply to exploit what, for now, looks like good returns from short-term rental income? How many long weekends brings in the equivalent of 12 months rent?

The reality is that all, apart from rooms let by an owner in their own home, are homes that should be for permanent residents of the city but are no longer available for long-term rent or to own. By a rough calculation those 21,000 properties could be homes for 30,000 people or maybe more …. about the same number of people that should be housed in Lynetteholm …. the island that will be reclaimed from the sea at considerable expense for new housing and new jobs. Seems sort of crazy.

For three years I lived in an apartment block where there were 16 Airbnb lets around the courtyard. Many people came, stayed, went without a problem. Often the only obvious nuisance was the sound of travel-case wheels being dragged over the cobbles in the early morning or in the evening as people headed out to the metro for the airport … you can tell which wheelie bags are incoming Airbnb just from the noise because they stop at regular intervals to consult a phone map or the app with details of how and where to get the key. Is there no such thing as quiet wheels for rough surfaces and what happened to the days when people packed just what they could carry on their back?

But there were also bad weekends such as the one when two separate groups, with balconies on either side of the street and just a few metres along from my bedroom window, decided it would be fun to share and exchange music by blaring it out turn by turn across the street from their separate all-night parties.

And I now live in a building with just four apartments and only one of those is listed on Airbnb and, thankfully, that is the smallest in the block and let infrequently. But next door the building has three large apartments and all three seem to be let short term and I can tell you that, although with lockdown tourists may be rare, owners are now finding new ways to bring in income and, over the last six weekends, four have had all-night parties and by all night I mean all night with one cove, drunk or stoned or both, still shouting obscenities and witticisms to anyone and everyone walking past until 6am from a balcony that is just 2 metres from my bedroom window. This last weekend was the worst with very loud parties on Friday, Saturday and Sunday and with none of them starting until midnight. And by loud I mean very with women screaming for what sounded like a competition and I'm someone who can and does sleep on any train or bus or deck of a ship … the person who, notoriously, muttered and turned over and snuggled up to the warm funnel of the ship (not a euphemism) and slept through a volcano erupting with everyone on the ship up on deck to watch and ooh and ahh at an amazing spectacle where I was there but wasn’t.

Hotels, cruise ships and Airbnb bring huge numbers of people to a relatively small and densely-packed city and that is becoming more and more of a problem.

One of the major and most positive things about Copenhagen, among many positive things, is that, unlike so many cities, people do live right in the centre. The more Airbnb in the city, the less people living here. The more tourists the fewer butchers and bakers and candlestick makers and the more burger bars and tourist tat.

Most visitors want to see and tick off the same few things and, although the city council have talked about trying to encourage visitors to go out to a wider area of the city, I'm not sure how you get that across and particularly to the cruise-ship brigade who do a quick dash in on coaches to look at the shops and buy an ice cream and to tick off that list but also to complain about just how small and disappointing the Little Mermaid looks “in real life” as if either a small statue or a cruise could ever be described as real life.

In the first stage of opening the borders from lockdown, visitors from Germany, Norway and Iceland will be able to enter Denmark but what is interesting is that they can visit the city but not stay overnight and to enter Denmark they will have to have confirmed bookings for at least 6 nights outside the capital. Apparently that will remain in force until the end of August. It’s a short-term measure but could provide important information about how much it is possible to manage tourism without killing it.

Obviously, tourists bring money in and jobs are created but is there a full and independent audit of how much visitors spend? And a tally of how much profit is exported to international investors; how many jobs are real so good, permanent jobs for local people and how many jobs are temporary and taken by workers from other countries who themselves have to be housed within the city.

I'm a newcomer and I can certainly confirm that people here are welcoming and are very proud of their city and the life-style is very good - as proved by all those life-style surveys - but, curiously, few tourists seem to appreciate that that life style is actually about family life and facilities for schools and libraries and quiet parks and street corners with communally owned picnic tables in communal courtyard gardens that tourists never see but, if the numbers increase, tourists could so easily overwhelm all that.

from the ridiculous to the sublime?
Oh OK maybe the city can be too quiet.

Like most people who live in the city, I avoid Strøget - the Walking Street that is now more like Crowded and Frustrating Amble Street than strolling street - and at the west end, with few exceptions, it is filled with shops which seem to be aimed at visitors rather than locals.

The lockdown has meant that people in the city realise just what it is like to have quiet streets and the city to themselves. The novelty will probably wear off if it turns out that restaurants and shops cannot survive from local customers alone but it is time to reconsider just how much tourism is good for Copenhagen. It's not as bad here as Barcelona or Venice or Prague but, once it becomes as bad as Barcelona or Venice or Prague, then it will be much, much more difficult to back track.

note:
In 2018 OECD published figures for tourism in Denmark in their report
OECD Tourism Trends and Policies 2018

 

update - Bispeengbuen

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Bispeengbuen is a raised section of motorway in the north part of the city that opened in August 1972.

It has three lanes of traffic in each direction but with slip roads and with high sound baffles, added in the 1990s, it is intrusive as it cuts through and divides a densely-built residential neighbourhood. The heavy traffic using the road as a fast route into or out of the city is close to apartment buildings at the level of second-floor windows and, from the start, there were strong local protests with the opening marked by demonstrations and even a bomb threat.

The road is owned by the state but one suggestion now is that it should be transferred to the city and to the municipality of Frederiksberg - the road runs between the two - and, in 2017, politicians from both Copenhagen and Frederiksberg suggested that the road and its traffic could be taken down into a tunnel and the elevated section demolished.

This would provide an opportunity to reinstate a river that had flowed through a meadow here since the late 16th century although the river itself did not run along a natural course. In the 1580s, it was diverted to bring water to low marshy ground around the west side of the city, outside and below the defensive embankments, to form a stronger outer defence and to provide a supply of fresh water for the city.

Around 1900, at the city, end the river, Ladegårdsåen, was taken down into a covered culvert and the road to the lakes became a major route into the city from the north.

From the north end, from Borups Allé, traffic coming into the city goes under the suburban railway line - just to the east of the station at Fuglebakken - and then, immediately south of the railway line, the traffic is taken up onto the raised section that continues on for about 700 metres to Borups Plads where the road returns to ground level but the tunnel would continue on further, closer to the intersection with Jagtvej to make this north part of the proposed tunnel about a kilometre in length.

If the river is reinstated with extensive planting to create a park here, the work could be part of major climate-change mitigation on this side of the city and would create a significant amenity for this residential area.

With a decision on the tunnel delayed, the area under the raised section of the road has been improved with the opening in April 2019 of Urban 13 - “a creative urban space.”

Designed by Platant, shipping containers have been adapted to create a cafe and a function room for local events and an area with steep blocks or steps for seating forms an outdoor concert venue and there is new planting in containers.

proposal from PLATANT to build a deck over the elevated motorway for housing and gardens with access by new towers against the edge of the road

Container City will be here for five years and, even then, work on the elevated roadway may be delayed so Platant have put forward an imaginative and ambitious scheme to adapt the motorway itself with an upper deck that could be constructed above the road deck to support new housing and gardens and with access by way of a number of new towers built along the road edge. It would be designed so that this could be dismantled and the materials reused if work on demolishing the road and building the tunnel does go ahead.

URBAN 13
PLATANT
Cloudburst Masterplan by Rambøll

 

view from Google Earth with the curve of the elevated section of motorway top left

a tunnel, to take the main through traffic underground, could replace the motorway and it could be continued down Åboulevard, following the line of an old river to the lakes, and the river, now in a covered culvert below the road, would then be returned to the surface

 

the line of the proposed tunnel from the suburban railway line at Fuglebakken to the lakes and from there along the line of HC Andersens Boulevard and on under the harbour to Islands Brygge to connect with a north harbour tunnel that is also being considered.

there would be a limited number of entry and exit points from the tunnel because it is not for local journeys but for through traffic

the tunnel from Fugglebakken to Islands Brygge is just over 4.5 kilometres

 

proposal for the park and the reinstated river if Bispeengbuen - the elevated motorway - is demolished and the traffic taken down into a new tunnel

 

update - a road tunnel below Åboulevard and then on below HC Andersens Boulevard

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Åboulevard in the late 19th century looking north with the river still at the centre

Bethlehem church designed by Kaare Klint was completed in 1938 but the apartment building dating from around 1900 is on the right on both the historic view and the photograph of Åboulevard now

 

A proposal for a major engineering project, to construct a traffic tunnel down the west side of the historic city centre, is now in doubt.

It would take underground much of the traffic that now drives along HC Andersens Boulevard, on the west side of the city hall, and is part of a plan to remove the elevated motorway at Bispeengbuen - bringing traffic into the city from the north - and this would make it possible to reinstate a river that flowed into the lakes that now flows through a covered culvert below Åboulevard.

From Jagtvej, at the south end of the elevated highway at Bispeengbuen, and following the line of Åboulevard to the outer side of the lake, is about 1.6 kilometres and, from the lakes, a tunnel running between Jørgens Sø and Peblinge Sø and on along the line of Gyldenløvesgade to Jarmers Plads and then down the full length of HC Andersens Boulevard and then under the harbour to Islands Brygge is another 2 kilometres so, including the proposed tunnel at Bispeengbuen, that would be between 4.5 and 5 kilometres of tunnel in total.

For comparison, in Oslo, the Festning tunnel - opened in 1990 to take traffic away from the square in front of Oslo city hall - and then an extension to the east - the Operatunnelen completed in 2010 - form, together, about 5.7 kilometres of underground motorway.

The landscape and architecture studio Tredje Natur and the engineering specialists COWI have drawn up a feasibility study for the proposed scheme for the finance directors of the city and of the municipality of Frederiksberg - the road runs between the two areas.

Reinstating the river and extensive landscaping would be an important part of storm water protection for the low-lying areas of Frederiksberg with planting, surface drains, and culverts controlling storm floods before taking it away from the area in substantial storm drains in the bottom half of the tunnels below the road decks in the upper half of the tunnel.

Tredje Natur have produced drawings for the planting that would be possible along HC Andersens Boulevard if the heavy traffic that uses the road is taken down into a new tunnel. There could be a narrow road for local traffic, an open water course and extensive planting.

Tredje Natur

 

a suggestion for new landscaping along HC Andersens Boulevard proposed by Tredje Natur

1 south end of the boulevard looking south towards Langebro with the Glyptotek to the right
2 looking north from the Glyptotek with Tivoli to the left and the city hall to the right
3 from the south-west corner of the city hall square
4 crossing the city hall square heading north
5 the north end of HC Andersens Boulevard looking to to the tower of Realdania on Jarmers Plads

the map was published in 1860 and shows the river flowing into the lakes at the south end of Peblinge Sø with the road on the south bank and just a narrow lane, Aagade, at the back of gardens on the north bank

the river was moved down into a culvert and Åboulevard - the road above the culvert - is now wide and busy with traffic to and from the centre of the city

the lakes to the top with Sankt Jørgens Sø to the left and the end of Peblinge Sø to the right

the road over the causeway comes down to Jarmers Plads and then past the west side of the city hall at about the centre of the photograph with Tivoli to the left and then HC Andersens Boulevard continues on down to Langebro as a main route to cross from the city to Amager

historic aerial view showing the bridge over the harbour at Langebro that was built in 1903 and the first part of HC Andersens Boulevard with densely-planted trees down the centre rather than bumper to bumper cars now

 

retrofitting balconies is a problem

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If you live in an apartment in Copenhagen, a balcony can be a real asset.

If the balcony is small but faces in the right direction then it’s a place to grow a few flowers or herbs or if it’s large enough for a chair or two and a table, it can even be a useful extra room - at least on sunny days.

Through the 18th and 19th centuries in Copenhagen, a balcony was usually a grand architectural statement … a feature of bigger and better houses and these balconies were usually on the street frontage and on the most important floor level, so, more often than not, on the first floor and, more often than not, the balcony was defined or marked by a display of impressive or pretentious architectural details … so under a pediment or flanked by columns and with an elaborate iron railing or a stone balustrade and was there to impress … more a place from which to make a speech to the crowd than a place to lounge in the sun.

But by the 1920s, people living in the city had discovered sun and fresh air and, generally, as apartments became smaller and as purpose-built apartment buildings tended to get larger, balconies became more common.

They meant the apartment had a private outdoor space, so people did not have to go down to the courtyard to be outside, and, if the balcony was on the front of a building, then there could be a view out over the street or, in well-located apartment buildings, the view could be over a square or over the lakes or even over the sound. 

With the use of concrete and steel in the construction of more and more new buildings, it became possible to cantilever out ever larger balconies and by the 1930s apartment buildings became common where every apartment had a balcony and with those balconies often forming the dominant feature across the facade. In some buildings, it was almost as if the balconies had been designed first and everything else made to fit behind.

Glazed doors to get out on to the balcony bring more light into the room and on, hot days, the doors can be left open to improve the circulation of air …. so what’s not to like.

But there is a growing problem with retrofitting balconies on buildings that did not have them originally.

Not too much of a problem, in terms of the look of a building, if they are on the courtyard side and even acceptable on the street frontage if secondary balconies are placed carefully and try to show at least some respect for the style and architectural articulation of the building. 

But, too often, these secondary balconies are simply metal boxes clamped across the front and, if nothing else, they increase the visual clutter of the street - diminish the streetscape - and, if not all the owners or tenants want the disruption or the expense of knocking out walls below windows for doorways and for constructing the required supports for the balconies - they can be spread randomly across an otherwise regular frontage.

Worse, when placed across the sunny side of the building, new balconies can throw deep shadows across windows below so actually they mean less light for those lower rooms and, in some cases, balconies above will take away an unimpeded view of the sky when someone is in the room below.

It’s difficult. Obviously people like and want a balcony and who is a mere planner to say they can’t have one?

But now they really do have to be reigned back and controlled.

Copenhagen has a phenomenal stock of well-built apartments that date from across the last three centuries and with modern materials for glazing and with modern and efficient heating systems and insulation we can give these older buildings an important extended life and, without doubt, buildings only survive if they can be adapted for changes in the way we want to live. But too many good buildings are being devalued by poorly thought out balconies and too often these end up simply as extra space to store kids toys or the best bike that cannot be left in the courtyard or a barbecue that once seemed like a nice idea but somehow now is rarely used.

An apartment building on the corner of Sønder Boulevard and Sommerstedgade (left) and an apartment building on Broagergade are two examples where it could be argued that balconies add interest to otherwise stark or plain facades but both show clearly the problem with balconies throwing deep shadows across windows below

Skydebanegade (below left) and Nordre Fasanvej in Frederiksberg are examples where courtyards have been cleared of buildings and new balconies added to rooms at the back of the apartments that look down to the courtyard.

Overgaden Oven Vandet - expensive balconies added to an apartment building from the late 19th century
pairs of window were lowered for access to a long balcony but this meant the removal of aprons or panels below the windows and distinct features like key stones above windows were partly covered so changing the careful articulation of the original design

Tavsensgade housing scheme on the west side of Assistens Kirkegaard was designed by Povl Baumann and completed in 1920

the architecture of the brick blocks is severe but this is a major and influential group of buildings of considerable historic importance.

balconies have been added in a random pattern across the street frontages

Tåsingegade … a scheme to upgrade these apartments in Nørrebro has more justification …
balconies were added across the front of all the apartments to look down on new climate-change improvements on the square and this gives people a stronger sense of community and a stronger sense of ownership and participation in the improvements to their street

 
 

Rejsbygade - an apartment close to Enghave Parken - and a building on Sønder Boulevard have new balconies on what were blank gable walls … both seem to be associated with small areas of garden where adjoining buildings have been demolished

L1066646.JPG
 

Ørkenfortet / Desert Fort, Christianshavn

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Work is moving forward fast on Ørkenfortet, the Desert Fort - the large office building that is at the centre of the harbour at the Christianshavn end of Knipplesbro - the central bridge that crosses the harbour between the centre of the city and Christianshavn.

The interior at all levels has been gutted and all original windows and all external cladding have been removed. Work has started on cutting down new internal courtyards or light wells within the concrete structure of the block and on removing hefty concrete retaining walls along both the street frontage towards Torvegade and at the level of the quay on the end of the building towards the harbour that formed a base for the building.

Ørkenfortet was designed by Palle Suenson (1904-1987) and was completed in 1962 as offices for Burmeister & Wain who were a well-established and major engineering and ship-building company in the city.

They had been established under that name in 1865 and, by the middle of the last century, their main ship yards were at Reshaleøen - at the north end of the harbour - where the main dry dock survives along with the some of the huge sheds and buildings of the yards but the engine works were here at the south end of Christianshavn, immediately south of this office building.

These extensive engineering yards on Christianshavn shut in 1993. Although some of the earlier buildings - including former drawing offices and the works' gates - survive, most of the buildings along the quay towards the harbour were demolished and wharves and docks were filled in for the site to be redeveloped with large new apartment buildings and extensive office buildings that were designed by the architects Henning Larsen.

Several of these office buildings along the harbour were occupied by the Danish headquarters of Nordea Bank including the office building by Suenson but in 2017, the bank moved their offices to a new site, close to the metro station at DR Byen, and the main office building from the 1960s became available for redevelopment.

This is all fairly straightforward history - the recent history of the site and of the building - but what I don't understand is the planning decisions then made for this key site at the very centre of the harbour.

Of course, I can see the logic and the reasons for planning decisions made in the 1950s. As Denmark emerged from the war, the priorities were for economic recovery. These ship-building and engineering works were not only a major employer in the city but these were highly skilled and, presumably, relatively well-paid jobs. The company was well established and, if nothing else, emerging from the widespread destruction of the war, there was an obvious market for new engines and new ships to replace what had been lost. Perhaps, and even more significant at that stage, although the harbour was, in terms of topography, at the heart of the historic city, attitudes to the harbour then were very different.

Then , north of Knippelsbro, were the working naval docks, with all that meant, and with the only road access through Christianshavn. Through the centre of the harbour and below or south of Knippelsbro was a working port with all that meant. Polite, middle-class society in the city would have seen the harbour as a major resource but that was as a major financial resource, so a massive new office building for Burmeister & Wain would not have been seen as an eye sore … even though its within sight of the 17th-century buildings of the exchange, on the other side of the harbour, and close to the magnificent warehouses from the 18th century, of the Asiatic Quay and Gammel Dok, on the other side of the road … but it would have been seen as an astute and positive show of confidence in the industries of the city and in their future.

It has only been with the decline of the dockyard and the working port and those industries that the harbour had to look for and has certainly found a new purpose at the heart of the city but I'm not sure how this massive hotel development actually makes a positive contribution.

On the side away from the harbour, the existing building looms over Strandgade - an exceptionally important street of historic buildings with many that date back to the early 17th century - and it overshadows the stunning Christians Church by Nicolai Eigtved that was built in the 1750s.

The block of the existing building is massive - one of the largest and certainly one of the most prominent at the centre of the harbour. It's 90 metres long by 31 metres deep and about 30 metres high. It's not a bad building as such but simply a product of its period and certainly not the best building for this location.

In terms of planning, the retention of the building and its conversion to a hotel by the Hilton Group, raises lots of issues.

It will have about 400 rooms so how will Christianshavn cope with the amount of traffic a hotel of this size generates with visitors coming and going, staff arriving and leaving and delivery lorries coming and going?

And why, when it is such a large building anyway, has permission been given to add a whole extra floor on the top that will increase the visual impact of the building and ensure that it overlooks even more properties. I can see that a roof-top dining room and roof terraces are a huge bonus for the hotel but I cannot see what they contribute to the harbour or to the neighbourhood.

Consent has been given to remove the hefty concrete retaining wall along the lowest level towards the quay but this means that the hotel can colonise and make use of the quayside as an asset for the hotel although citizens gain little from this apart from some new steps up from the quay to the bridge on this side. Note there are already steps up to the bridge on the other side of Torvegade and steps on both sides of the bridge on the city side so access from the bridge to the quay is actually adequate.

Almost-certainly, the city would not have given permission for a building of this size and prominence if the site had been empty land or there had been much lower buildings here.

Surely, it would have been better for the city and for the harbour if the building from the 1960s had been demolished and replaced with buildings that were lower and more compact, and with new buildings that reinstated or created a reasonable street frontage to the road up to the bridge and a more appropriate and more respectful frontage towards Strandgade.

Planning Statement - appendix to the Local Plan

notes:

In Danmarks Kunstbilbliotek / the Danish Art Library in Copenhagen there is a drawing of the building by Palle Suenson Inv. nr. 53296 - a perspective from Knippelsbro

While tracking down information on the building I came across a web site that revealed that the building was given a nickname by locals who called it Røven or The Arse. Initially, I assumed that was because the building was thought to be butt ugly but actually it was because at lunchtime workers in the office came out onto the forecourt and sat along the parapet of the wall along Torvegade and, for people walking along the pavement below, the only thing that could be seen from the street was a line of backsides.

 

photograph from 1965 showing Knippelsbro and Torvegade with the office building designed by Palle Suenson in the foreground and the engineering works of Burmeister & Wain beyond - along the harbour as far as the canal and around the south and east side of Christians Church

 
 
 

waste collection on Nyhavn

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The photograph of rubbish piled around a street bin - posted with a quotation from Paul Mazur on Black Friday - was actually taken on the morning of Black Friday.

I had planned to post the quote because it seemed appropriate for this odd day that was contrived by marketing men in the States to make people spend. It’s the day after Thanksgiving - that public holiday when you spend time with families rather than spend money shopping - so presumably Black Friday is the bargain sale to hook you back into spending, just in case you forgot how spend having just had a day off. Is the message here that if you buy something you don't need then at least buy it at a knock-down price? Or maybe if you don't actually need it then by offering it at a sale price you might be persuaded to change your mind.

Anyway, I was heading out to take a photograph at the recycle centre on Amager - to go with the quote - but then there was this on the quay right outside my front door.

Everything had been abandoned - including a large and fairly new suitcase along with a good small metal case and various pictures in frames - so it looked as if someone is moving on from one of the apartments around here and what they were not taking with them had been dumped on the pavement sometime during the night. At least it gave me as good an image as any to represent our throw-away society.

Nyhavn, or New Harbour, was constructed in the 1670s for ships to load and unload goods. Over 400 metres long and 28 metres wide - it runs back from the main open harbour to the large public square of Kongens Nytorv

In any case, the bin system here is of interest and I had been thinking about a post for some time. It might look like an ordinary street bin but it's one of a line of bins along the quay that are the above-ground part of a sophisticated waste system from ENVAC.

When rubbish is dropped in, it doesn't go into a basket or inner bin that has to be emptied but it drops down into a buried pipe that is 500 mm in diameter and when the bin is full, triggered bt a level sensor, the waste is drawn through by vacuum to a service access point set down into the road at the end of the quay.

Nyhavn has large city blocks running back from the harbour on either side and is one of the most densely built up parts of the city with tightly-packed back buildings and small courtyards with homes and offices behind the street frontages. Not only is there little space for large modern waste bins in these yards but there is also a problem getting to the courtyards to empty any bins to take away waste. The quay, on this the north side of Nyhavn, was pedestrianised in the 1980s and although there is access for deliveries, the quay is normally thronged with tourists and there are around thirty restaurants just along this side and most of them have umbrellas and chairs and tables outside that are tightly packed together and most are there year round, so getting through to the archways, to get into and out of the courtyards, is difficult.

The only clue that the bins might not be ordinary street bins is the size - large for a street bin - and the slightly unusual port-hole style door but, presumably, very few tourists stop to wonder why.

They are 1.36 metres high and just over 70cm in diameter and are designed to take all the household waste from the apartments above the restaurants and from the apartments in the inner courtyard buildings - so some 150 apartments in total. That waste is dropped in through the small round hatch. For commercial waste - from the restaurants and bars - they have keys to open the full square opening to put in larger bags of rubbish and packaging.

Designed by Erik Brandt Dam and installed in May 2012 - when the system was upgraded - there are eight large waste bins along the quay - along the 760 metres from Kongens Nytorv to the harbour - with eight smaller bins at intermediate intervals for street litter. These smaller bins look more like traditional street bins, with narrow slots for rubbish on each side, but they also drop their contents down into the system.

The Nyhavn waste system, with sixteen bins and the service point down at the theatre end of the quay, deals with 60 tonnes of waste a week.

bins for the new ENVAC waste system in the Bella Quarter in Copenhagen

The advantage is that the waste is dealt with quickly and cleanly and few people are disturbed when the system is emptied but one drawback is that there is less incentive, with this Nyhavn set up, for people to sort their rubbish for recycling. On the quay, there is now one large standard recycle bin for glass, tucked away round a corner, close to the Theatre, down near the main harbour, but otherwise plastic, paper and cardboard, metal and batteries have to be taken to recycle points several blocks away - the nearest are on the other side of the harbour - or people will put everything through the ENVAC system to end at the incinerator.

A decade ago this system was seen as cutting-edge for waste disposal - good because waste was not going to landfill but to a district incinerator as fuel for the generation of hot water for the district heating system - but for new residential areas in Copenhagen there is now an opportunity to build in more ambitious waste collection systems.

In a new development in Ørestad - for the courtyards and pedestrian streets in the Bella Quarter - ENVAC are installing a waste system where there are not single bins but five separate bins at each waste collection point and each marked for separate and different waste to be recycled so residents can sort out waste quickly and easily - just outside their apartment. Then, as with the Nyhavn set up, it is drawn by vacuum to a service point where it is collected for processing.

This keeps the area close to homes free of smells and free of the lorries that take away the waste. According to the company web site, the system can daw rubbish through a distance up to 2 kilometres.

Another problem in Nyhavn is that restaurant staff, for understandable reasons, tired and at the end of a long work shift, drag out rubbish and force it down through the hatch so the bins do get blocked. It triggers a sort of waste indigestion with lots of weird noises coming up from underground.

Restaurants should use smaller rubbish bags but that would mean more trips between the kitchen and the bin.

Some people fail to realise that underground, just below the bin, the vertical drop has to take the waste through a right angle to go into the horizontal pipe that runs along to the service point so I have seen some ridiculously long and inflexible things being forced through the hatch and then the service team have to come out and sort out the blockage. It was only recently that I realised that they can control the pumps for the pneumatics remotely from the van … so clear a bit … suck a bit … repack a bit …. suck a bit until the blockage is cleared. In Danish the vacuum system is called affaldssug and Google translates this rather literally as ‘waste sucks’ ….. a good motto for any movement lobbying against conspicuous consumption.

ENVAC

 

a new library for Nørrebro

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At the beginning of August a new public library opened in the old tram sheds in Nørrebro.

The building is set back from Nørrebrogade with a large square at the front where trams originally turned into the sheds and the original high and narrow openings towards the road have been retained but with new doors that have stylised versions of giant book cases.

Inside, the single huge space of the shed has been retained with arched openings in the brickwork along the east side towards Bragesgade kept as a strong architectural feature and to flood the space with light. The industrial roof has been kept and is now painted black.

Fittings are in pale plywood and divide up the space and there are integral breaks in the shelving with desk spaces and benches that create quiet places to work but also form views through the space.

Across the west side of the library are smaller spaces on two levels with meeting rooms above for meetings and teaching that the community can use and, like all libraries in the city, there is a play area for children to encourage even the youngest to see the library as a fun place to visit.

Further back from the road is a second huge tram shed and that was converted some years ago to a sports hall - Nørrebrohallen - and there is now a large entrance area and large cafe between the two - between the library and the sports halls - as a place where people can meet.

Running back from the road and along the west side of the buildings is the famous city park - Superkilen - with its outdoor play and sports so this area is now a major hub for the community around. It is anticipated that visitor numbers to the library could soon exceed 1,000 a day.

 

select any image to open the set of photographs as a slide show

sport and space consultancy KEINGART have published a pdf file on line with plans of the library and cafe area

 

Copenhagen skyline

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looking north from Amager with the city skyline broken by church spires and, from this distance, much as it appeared in the 18th and 19th centuries

 

the architects suggested criticism has be unfair as just one of the towers has been completed and that the scheme for the whole development - with a cluster of tower blocks planned - should be judged against San Gimignano - the medieval town in Italy - if only one tower survived there

An application for planning consent to build a massive tower at Nordhavn, north of the centre of Copenhagen, that would be 280 metres high, has just been refused permission but, if things run their normal course, it seems almost-certain that the design will be modified slightly and then resubmitted.

Why is this a concern? Surely the development of the North Harbour is around four kilometres out from the historic centre? Surely any major redevelopment benefits from having key buildings that push the boundaries of design and attract tenants to the development?

Well no … there are many problems.

Once you allow tall buildings and particularly buildings that high, then developers, like spoilt toddlers, continually test the limits. Why not here on the edge of the historic area? Or there on that site to rejuvenate that street that seems to be on its way down? Apparently, all every scruffy street needs, is a new skyscraper.

But there is also the simple and obvious problem that big tall buildings are just that … big and tall … so they have a huge and usually a detrimental impact on a very wide area.

In the historic city, tall buildings, including the church spires, normally mark status and act as geographic markers as you navigate around the streets. They terminate a view or act as a key point on a route along a street.

The problem with most modern tower buildings is that inevitably they not only go up but they also break and disrupt the street line because the easiest way to "reduce" the impact of a tall building is to set it back from the pavement and the line of existing facades and often the cheap bung to the city is a new piazza or 'public space' but that merely compounds the problem.

The ubiquitous use of CAD means that now there is no excuse because architects, with digital mapping and real space surveys in 3D, can and should show the impact of a proposed building from every angle … however far away.

With recent developments, perhaps one of the worst offenders has been Bohr Tower on the site of the old Carlsberg Brewery. It is a brutal and stark block that is over 3 kilometres from the centre of the city but it can still be seen from the lakes and stands at the end of the view along main streets through Vesterbro.

When it was criticised, not long after it was completed, I read, somewhere, a quote from the architect who said it was unfair to criticise the building now because another eleven towers are to be built with this development and the inspiration for the design had been the towers of the hill town of San Gimignano.

Two points. First, I have been to San Gimignano and this ain't San Gimignano and, second, if you see a thug lurking on a street corner, you are not reassured when you are told that soon there will be a whole gang of them.

from the Meat Markets these lanes ran down to the harbour
where land was claimed back from the sea, there is now the chance to put up buildings like the Tivoli Hotel with its conference centre

grim or brutal or rude and insensitive?

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the Radisson Blu Hotel on Amager Boulevard manages to loom over Christianshavn. Lurking at the end of the street, this could have a bit part in a spy film about an ominous state watching every move of its citizens

walking along the canal from the back or south side of the Opera House, it is there, at the end of the view from nearly 2 kilometres away

 
 

walking down towards Højbro Plads you get your first view of Christiansborg and there is the hotel, well over a kilometre away but filling the gap. Maybe not looming but there and once you see it there then you can’t unsee it

 

There are very obvious problems with the design of the new office building at Østerport - its unrelenting horizontality, odd raspberry ice cream colour and insensitivity to the good historic buildings nearby and the important green space of the Citadel opposite for a start - but, for me, by far the ugliest building in the city is still the Radisson Blu Hotel on Amager Boulevard by Ejner Graae and Bent Severin that was completed in 1973.

It is an ugly and brutal tower that dominates it's location overlooking the trees and the water of Stadsgraven - the historic outer defences across the south side of the old city - but, worse, it is a thug of a building that can be seen from all over this part of the city. It is like a infeasibly tall and scruffy waiter at a wedding celebration and when the guests look back at their photographs they find that somehow he manages to be there, looming in the background, of most of them.

About the only time it looks anywhere near presentable - the hotel not the waiter - is when there is mist and frost hanging over the water or at night when looking down Frederiksholms Canal and the lights of the rooms form a bit of a book end to the view.

…. hardly a ringing endorsement and what really is astounding is that for a time last year there was a planning application, sort of hanging over the city, for permission to add another ten floors to the tower … permission that had been part of the original design but had somehow been omitted as the hotel went up as if even the builders ran out of energy or malice.

On the canal through Christianshavn, look down one side and perhaps the only criticism you could make is that it is too nice to the point of being bland - I wouldn’t agree but you could argue that a bit of spice improves a dish but look down the other side and there is the Radisson breaking the roof line even when you get lower on the quay and try to cut it out

 

On Frederiksholm Canal you are over a kilometre from the hotel. Look north and the tallest building - a marker on the skyline to get your sense of place and orientation - is Vor Fruhe Church in a view barely changed since the Thorvaldsens Museum opened further along the canal in the 19th century. Look south and there, dead centre, is the Radisson. Only at night does it seem to contribute something to the view but it is hardly good architecture if it is best seen in the dark.

 
 

Our Urban Living Room

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Cobe don't seem to be architects who would set out any sort of manifesto and certainly not architects to follow any proscriptive formula but the introduction by Dan Stubbergaard for the catalogue of the exhibition of their work at the Danish Architecture Centre in 2016 does introduce their concept of the "Urban Living Room" where people, in a very Danish way, take ownership of public space.

Danes occupy outdoor space - not in the sense that political protestors occupy a building - although that can happen - but occupy in the sense of moving into and making use of space outside. That can be to play or to eat or simply socialise … to sit in the sun and chat.

People in Copenhagen excuse this as their response to the long dark winters of Scandinavia so any sunny spell has to be grabbed as a chance to sit out but the air here is clear and actually there are bright days well into the late Autumn and from early in the New Year - as long as you find ways to cope with the cold - so there is no likelihood of being deprived of vitamin D and it seems more to do with wanting to be outside and more to do with a long and well-established tradition of using outside space for socialising when the city is tightly packed with buildings and, with so many apartments, homes can feel cramped.

With their work on public spaces such as Israels Plads and the public space at street level at Nørreport the Cobe approach to designing good and useable urban landscapes and with good street furniture is fairly clear but it becomes much more interesting where they are also designing the buildings and particularly with their designs for schools where children move between indoor and outdoor space much more through a normal day.

 
 

Growing Smart Cities in Denmark

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This report from Arup Smart Cities was commissioned by the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and was published in 2016. It makes important points that should be considered alongside a recent report on updating the Finger Plan and a major report on an initiative for the development of the Copenhagen region. Planning for future urban growth has to factor in new technology and the role of smart data.

Growing Smart Cities gives a brief overview of the approach to digital and smart technologies in the Danish cities of Copenhagen, Aarhus, Vejle, and Albertslund and, for context, brief assessments of developments in smart technologies in other countries.

The report identifies a growing number of companies undertaking research and developing projects but one aim of this report is to find ways for these to be scaled up and to find ways to ensure that they are carried forward.

The approach is two-fold, looking first at growing smart Cities in Denmark - so at digital technology for urban improvement and mentions several times the word liveability - but, for obvious reasons, looks at the financial and investment potential of developing these new technologies in Denmark.

There is encouragement for education to address a potential shortage of people with appropriate digital skills with a need to teach a new generation of students who will be qualified when research departments scale up projects - to take them forward - and to work with business who now have to assess long-term returns from what is often considerable investment.

The conclusion is that "Denmark has an opportunity to become a world leader in smart cities."

Obviously Copenhagen is an optimal size with 600,000 people in the city area and about 2 million in the greater metropolitan area - there are mega cities but they have specific problems - concepts developed in Copenhagen could be applied to the vast majority of large cities - but Denmark is also trying out smart data systems in smaller communities. The concern is to make systems work together between different cities and across different systems and different standards.

Generally, people in Denmark already have a proactive approach to the problems of climate change with a positive acceptance of new technical solutions that are being developed - from wind-driven energy to the control of cloud-burst flooding - and the report suggests that there could be a similar and favourable attitude to smart technology.

The report emphasises that Denmark has a strong record for citizen participation which is clearly important. There is a high use of current technology in the country - 85% use the internet every day where the EU average is 65% - and the report cites the example of wind energy - a technology where Denmark is now a world leader.

In fact, Denmark is top of the table in EU countries under five criteria: 

Connectivity / Human Capital / Use of the Internet / Integration of Digital Technology / Digital Public Services

It is also interesting that the report identifies that Denmark is strong in design, architecture and technology and education and has a well-developed health system where the benefits of new technology are clear so citizens are receptive to change.

Generally, good urban design is associated with liveability so people should be open to using smart technology if a user-centred approach is taken. There is a caveat. Danes appreciate good design so digital technology should be well received providing it is "simple, easy to use, and unobtrusive." 

The report recommends that to encourage the development of smart technology the government has to:

Develop municipal digital governance
Strengthen city collaboration
Clarify standards and regulation
Address public concerns
Communicate the opportunity

 

download full report from ARUP

 

related sites:
 Copenhagen Solutions Lab
Copenhagen Street Lab
Copenhagen Data
Space 10

Forslag til Fingerplan 2019 - Landsplandirektiv for hovedstadsområdets planlægning

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Suggestion for Finger Plan 2019 - National land directive for the planning of the metropolitan area

the new Finger Plan has a series of maps to illustrate changes to planning in the area around the historic city of Copenhagen

 

A major revision of the famous Finger Plan of 1947 was initiated in April 2016 and after a period of public consultation - when the 34 municipalities of the capital region were given time to submit comments - a first version of a new plan came into force in June 2017,

Published on 24 January 2019, this is the next stage of that report and there will now be a period for public consultation through to 21 March 2019.

The Finger Plan from 1947 was a key planning report that set the course and controlled the form and the extent of development out from the city through the second half of the 20th century and its influence has continued into this century so it has had a huge impact on the city for more than 70 years.

That plan, to control development, was based primarily on existing lines of the suburban railway that radiate out from the centre of the historic city and new development has been centred on railway stations but with a web of green open space between the fingers … protected countryside that has been crucial as space for nature and for recreation that has stopped the expansion of the city from becoming a solid urban block like London or becoming a sprawl of unregulated development.

The new plan is setting out how to allow for but control further expansion of the city and the region through to 2030 and beyond and it will focus on problems caused by climate change that makes green space and the control of surface water and flooding from the sea increasingly more important. Protection of green land is seen now to be a balancing act and new proposals will be controversial as some green areas could be lost - for instance where they are compromised by being close to major transport links - but there appears to be a commitment to add new areas of protected green space and particularly where this has a clear role in enhancing recreational use.

In 1947, the original Finger Plan, set out the principle that development should be along the suburban rail lines with large buildings, such as city halls and shopping centres, close to the railway stations but the new plan will give the municipalities more freedom to plan for larger commercial buildings with some users up to 1000 meters from the stations in the towns of Helsingør, Hillerød, Frederikssund, Roskilde, Køge and Høje-Taastrup.

Three special areas are designated in Nærum, Kvistgård and Vallensbæk, where it will be possible to plan for larger commercial buildings with many users.

Planners and politicians want to strengthen secondary retail development in the metropolitan area with enhanced areas for local retail in Hillerød, Ishøj, Lyngby and Ballerup along with development in Helsingør and a new town center in Kokkedal.

The report includes proposals for major developments on new land that will be claimed from the sea with Lynette Holmen, a new artificial or man-made island across the entrance to the harbour - where there will be housing for 35,000 but also the island will be part of major coastal defences to protect the inner city from flooding if there are storm surges in the sound. South of the city, Avedøre Holme will be a group of new islands that, primarily, will be for major industrial development. It has been suggested that these developments will bring 42,000 new jobs to the city.

Under consideration is a section of new motorway around the city with the construction of what is called Ring 5 north from Køge, to follow a route between Copenhagen and Roskilde. Presumably, this is connected to assumptions that new traffic will be generated when the road and rail tunnel between Germany and Denmark is built. That international link was given final approval by the German region in December and could be open by 2035. An outer motorway west of the centre would be important for the region because it is possible that by the middle of the century a new major engineering project could be justified so building a bridge or tunnel link between Helsingør and Helsinborg in Sweden that would create a Hamburg-Copenhagen-Stockholm axis with the German and Swedish cities just 500 miles or 800 kilometres apart and with Copenhagen and Malmö at the centre point.

The text of the new plan is set out as major bullet points simply because this is a document for the next stage of consultation but, even at this stage, it is worth reading because local citizens should see this as one way, at the very least, of understanding how their city could develop over the next decade and, of course, like the original Finger Plan, it will set the framework for life in the city and for the built environment of the city through to the middle of the century and probably for a much longer time frame. What the report does have, even in this version, is attractive and informative graphics with a series of maps that make the hard data and the stark proposals easier to see in terms of specific areas and their potential extent and their impact on the landscape.

 

 
 

Danmarks hovedstad Initiativer til styrkelse af hovestadsområdet

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Denmark's capital city Initiatives to strengthen the metropolitan area

A planning initiative for the metropolitan area of Copenhagen was launched at the end of January and is based on the findings of a committee that has been working since last May.

This includes proposals for the period through to 2030 and is presented under four main headings to cover Housing; Transport; Growth and the environment with recreation

This is an initiative by the city to bolster the capital area including plans to create homes for 200,000 more citizens. There are plans to improve transport links - so this is for the immediate period after the opening of the new inner city ring of the metro and preparing for the next stages for inner city transport including more metro lines but also improving motorway links in anticipation of the completion of a new road and rail tunnel linking Denmark and Germany.

The initiative also anticipates more work on flood risk from climate change and there are plans to bolster tourism with the potential for carefully-controlled expansion of the airport as a growing hub for a much wider region.

These proposals have been set out as 52 points across those four headings and should be read along with the revised Finger Plan for 2019 that also covers the period through to 2030.

the full report can be read on line or downloaded as a pdf file.