Too Much Food

There’s no better word to describe Copenhagen than overwhelming.

Crystal and Cloud

When I worked for Behnisch LA, one of the other interns had previously interned in Copenhagen and told me about all the amazing architecture, which is what led me there. Before departing, Erblin and I didn’t really know what to see. We knew there were the big players like Zaha Hadid, Daniel Libeskind, Norman Foster, and Jean Nouvel, but we also knew there were other important buildings like the Opera House, the Playhouse, and the Black Diamond (library). We decided to play it by ear and just see what we could.

Royal Playhouse

Saturday, March 26th, we were up at the crack of dawn when the only people on the Berlin U-Bahn are either coming home from the clubs or traveling. It was actually entertaining to watch all these drunk people trying to keep their balance on the subway.

SEB

We arrived in Copenhagen at 8 and were out and about by 9. We mostly stayed along the water and walked the entire day. Whenever we saw an interesting work of architecture, we would photograph it, walk around it, and try to get in. Copenhagen’s an interesting city. The “downtown” area is very old and industrial-looking, but then there are areas where it is entirely new architecture. It was also strange because we hardly saw anybody walking around. Maybe it was too cold, but it seemed like we had the whole city to ourselves—kind of eerie.

SEB

Black Diamond

Reflection on Black Diamond

Interior of Black Diamond

I won’t even begin to list how many buildings we saw (mainly because I don’t even know who designed it or what it’s called). The entire weekend was just a never-ending adventure because each building would lead us to another building. I definitely need to go back someday because a weekend was not nearly enough.

Sunday was an amazing day for architecture. We started off by taking the Metro (after our looooooong day of walking) to Jean Nouvel’s DR Concert Hall. We spent maybe 2 or 3 hours just in that area alone. The concert hall is connected to three other buildings which I believe is part of a university campus (I could be really wrong about that). The concert hall itself is contained within a blue shell made of canvas-like mesh. We couldn't get inside to check out the hall itself, but we walked around the building between the blue facade and the glass. My favorite part is the concrete of the building. The way it's finished makes it look like fabric. It reminded me of the Schindler House in LA because of the creases.

Around the DR area were a bunch of residential buildings. The area was very strange. It's very desolate and then there's a ton of new architecture in the middle of nowhere. From what I can gather, there's a master plan in action, so I would love to go back in a few years to see how the area has developed.

After wandering around to every building we liked, we took the metro down to visit BIG's mountain apartments. I am speechless. Erblin and I were both speechless. The building is incredible. It's tiered like a mountain, so the bottom half is all parking and then the tiered part is the apartments. The awesome part of the building is the elevator. It's not an elevator; it's a ski lift! The public is also allowed to walk around the exterior of the mountain, so you can climb the stairs and see through to the parking elevator and corridors.

Being the architecture students we are, we tried to get into the building. As luck would have it, a tenant was entering the building, so we just followed her. She noticed that we were geeking out at the circulation, and so she asked "architecture students?" Is it that obvious? We rode the ski lift with her and she told us about another BIG building nearby. After she got off, we walked around the corridors in disbelief and admiration.

Next door to the mountain apartments are BIG's VM apartments.We didn't really see too much of it because we were just so amazed by the mountain. We walked around it and just stared in awe.

Finally we got the motivation to go down to the BIG building that the girl told us about. It's called the 8 Tallet apartments because it's in the shape of the number 8. Talk about overwhelming. Erblin and I were just stunned. How does Bjarke Ingels think of things like this?! The entire building is accessible by ramp and stairs. Every apartment is two-stories, they're each on a different level (about a few inches higher/lower than its neighbors) and each has its own little outdoor area. We walked around all the apartments and went into a few of them. Needless to say, we were more than impressed (and a bit discouraged because it was so so amazing). When will I be able to design something like that?

 

After our afternoon of BIG, it was time to head out. I most definitely have to return to Copenhagen someday; I've only just begun to see all the architecture that it has to offer.