10:00 - Today began with a short S-Tog ride out to Bagsvaerd to experience Jorn Utzon's magnificent Bagsvaerd Kirke. Built in 1974, the church is both a spiritual center and community-gathering place. First impressions are deceiving here – what appears to be an industrial shed (concrete column bays, slab infill, and aluminum roofing) reveals itself on the interior as a masterful orchestration of light, temperature, and spatial clarity heightened by phenomenological complexity. As group of school children sang along with the priest, the acoustics of the billowing concrete roof were readily apparent. And the bright sunny weather aided our reading of the building – as daylight stretched, moved, and activated the many corridors, courtyards, and the central sacred space. A truly blessed way to begin what turned out to be a very long day…
12:45 – Back on the S-Tog to Emdrup followed by a short walk up to Grundtvigs Kirke. Though only a minor hill by most standards, the raised church grounds and the soaring appearance of the church suggest a towering structure. The surrounding (and somewhat protective) blocks of low-rise housing, built in a similar style only added to the powerful presence of the church. Designed by P.V. Jensen Klint (the competition winner of 1913) and built (1927-1940) in reverence to the Danish philosopher and scholar, N.F.S. Grundtvig. The interior is breathtaking - as though a gothic cathedral has been stripped bare of all its ornamentation and manifested entirely in cream-colored brick masonry. I have never seen anything so simultaneously austere, intricate, fantastical, and serene. As the students settled into the mood of the church in their minds and in their sketchbooks, what appeared to be a “mommy-and-me” acoustical therapy session commenced at the apse. Without straining or a microphone the leader sang to each baby and mother in turn – tuning her voice and a lightly hammered xylophone to harmonious building. It was intimacy writ large.
15:00 – Again on the S-Tog, this time looping back up to another suburb (Klampenborg) – and then walking about 2 miles through a rather posh neighborhood to the Ordrupgaard Museum of Art. This old Danish home supposedly houses one of the premiere collections of Impressionist art in Europe – though there was an odd inelegance to the place. Haphazard curatorial decisions and omnipresent security measures suggested an air of paranoia as well. Nonetheless, there must be some internal dispute about wanting or not wanting visitors – because to my mind the new addition/wing designed by Zaha Hadid (2008) could have no other purpose than to attract visitors. A concrete bunker-like extrusion that seems to pride itself on, well, itself – and what little art was displayed was completely overshadowed by the building. I hate to rag on Hadid here, but I always have the same reaction to her work – that it lacks subtlety or refinement. It doesn’t help to see such poor concrete work – though the “camera-friendly” exterior form really goes a long way to explain the hype. There was a stark contrast here between the choreographed mastery of light and space in the Bagsværd Kirke and the deadends and misconceptions of the Ordrupgaard extension. The students are of varied opinions, but I was happy to hear some sharp analysis on site.
18:00 – Back into the heart of the city on the Slotsholmen island to Den Sort Diamant (The Black Diamond), the extension to the Royal Danish Library designed by competition winners Schmidt Hammer Lassen in 1993. The soaring central atrium is a nexus of balconies, bridges, escalators, and stairs – and as many of the students made a bee-line for the 7th floor overlook bridge the change in temperature was significant – ah, the challenge of atria! Although we were not permitted much beyond the central space, the cleaved block of stone that summarizes the building’s diagram is much warmer on the interior than may be surmised from afar. My personal favorite discovery is that the skin is none other than Black Absolute granite panels. But wait, I didn’t set this discovery up properly… Let’s just say Copenhagen is a city build primary of granite (and brick). At the street level everything – I mean everything (sidewalks, curbs, benches, large areas of paved plazas, and building foundations) is made of granite – presumably for its durability. It’s likely that the exact cobbles beneath our feet have been there for at least 200 years. It is ubiquitous. So to see it here, as a polished and hung skin was smile-inducing. [As a side note, we found out the following day where all the granite comes from… formerly a Danish island between Denmark and Sweden – Bornholm – although these days it’s more likely to come from east Asia – surprise, surprise).
19:30 – A short walk to the Danish Architecture Center, also along the harbour – though across the bridge on Christianshavn. Housed in a 19th century building, the new interior “interventions” have carved, restored, and revealed the beautiful heavy timber interior structure and solid multi-wythe load-bearing masonry walls. But mostly we enjoyed the soundscaped swings and plywood platforms of the Roskilde Concert Pavilion exhibit – we were rather tired by this point...
21:00 – Dinner in the Free City of Christiania (the cheapest you’ll eat in Copenhagen, hands down) – and a stroll through the haphazard, pragmatic, and whimsical houses and public spaces of this unique social “experiment”. Read more about Christiania here or here , because I won’t be able to do it justice. It was a wonderful juxtaposition of placeness between the tony Klampenborg this afternoon and the free-wheeling Christiania this evening. Architecture with and without architects...
22:00 – We watched the sun begin to set as we rode the bus to the Opera House (Henning Larsen Architects). The lone visitors this time of night, the building was ablaze as opera goers were presumably soaking in the remaining aria of Turandot. As we waited beneath the massive “floating” roof outside for the performance to let out, Andrea sweet-talked us into the lobby. The stunning network of bridges and stairs are stretched umbilical connections to the outer skin (and attached balconies) from the many entry points of the main stage house (a pumpkin-like volume skinned in high-lacquered warm wood). At 11:00 the audience poured out into the lobby and what had just been a calm space of anticipation was now at its bustling finest. We watched the evacuation for a spell, and then queued up for the harbour bus return to Nyhavn. We parted ways at 11:45 – quite a day!
