Not a hat maker

Signs can be deceptive; this is not a hat maker's sign but the sign of Image House, a company that is a "supplier of components and systems for automatic visual inspection and analysis in laboratories and industries" as they state on their website. Their office is in Store Kannikestræde or Great Collegial Canon Alley, named after the three old colleges in the area.

Hats anyone?

Another hat maker...and one of the oldest in Copenhagen. It's said to be the only gentlemen's hat maker in Scandinavia, but I doubt that to be honest. The shop is on one of the busiest pedestrian streets in Denmark, Købmagergade (Merchant Street), wich is part of the area called Strøget (literally the Shopping Street).

Here most of the major retailers have a shop and it's packed with people. You can be sure to encounter street performers, beggars, bleeding hearts trying to get a signature on a petition or just plain old fraudsters and pickpockets. At night I avoid this area, as mobs of drunken youngsters dominate it as soon as it turns dark.

Need a hat?

In the old part of Copenhagen you can find all manner of old signs. This hangs outside a...hatmaker (of course). I love these old signs; they have so much more charm than the new ones.

A new Dragon

Yesterdays dragon lamp was a hundred years old, this one is only a couple of years old. It is right next to the Copper Tower I've shown in a previous post and is lighting a parking lot. It was designed by Dutch architect Adrian Geuze, who actually was inspired by Vilhelm Dahlerup's Dragon Lamps. When I saw it, I really felt stared at! So yes, they do know how to make fine details today too.

Blog de Ouro

Today I received this nice award thrice, once from Joo of Daily haiku, once from Unseen Rajasthan from Unseen Rajasthan and once from Asta from Hyperenergy and other obstacles. I'm really honoured and happy to recieve this one. Thank you to the three of you:-) And to all others; do pay them a visit as all three know how make an interesting blog.

Now I have to follow rules which are:

- Put the Award in the blog
- Link back to the blog who gave you it
- Pass the Award on to other blogs
- Inform owners about Award
- Make rules visible

And these are my blogs:

Scottsdale Daily Photo
Photo Carraol Images of Mexico City
Clueless in Boston
Nikon sniper
Trieste Daily Photo

All great blogs that deserves to be recognised.

PS: I've had to revise this post as I got the award more than once:-)

Honest Scrap Award

Jacob of Creative Confections and Ocala Daily Photo has awarded me the Honest Scrap Award. This is a great honor, for the Honest Scrap Award is bestowed upon a blogger whose blog content or design is, in the giver's opinion, brilliant. The Honest Scrap Award is for bloggers who post from their heart, who oftentimes put their heart on display as they write from the depths of their soul.

It is suggested that recipients provide 10 different ways in which they are honest. That is a tall order, as it's sometimes better not to be too honest ("Honey, do I look fat in this dress?"), but I'll try anyway:

1. When writing on my blog I often has to refer to Wikipedia and a dictionaryI do my posts in advance, mainly to avoid being forced to abandon a daily post because of busyness.
2. I positively hate to be the center of attention, especially at parties and conventions, so forget to get me to hold that inspiring speech.
3. I do suffer acutely of vertigo. Rollercoasters and tall towers are not my thing. I do have a season pass to Copenhagens biggest amusement park, Tivoli, but that's only to enjoy the garden.
4. I often cancel everything in the weekends, shut down my phones and refuse to open the door. I do need some time off from people from time to time.
5. I'm lazy, especially when an unpleasant task has to be done. Why do it today, if it can be postponed until next month? Luckily enough I also work well under pressure.
6. When having to choose between sports, reality programs and chicken breeding from the Faroes Islands on the telly, I choose a good book.
7. I read a lot, but I prefer to be entertained instead of having to endure one of the litterary classics. Hemingway, Dostejevskiij and Karen Blixen are not on my bookshelves, Bernhard Cornwell, Robert Ludlum and Steven Pratchett are.
8. The same goes for movies. I love a good movie, but I think life is too short to be bored by them.
9. I'm a controle freak when travelling. Everything is planned from home and nothing is left to chance. I can change the plans on-the-fly, but that only result in new detailed plans.
10. Also when travelling I have the principle that if it can't fit in one bag, something will be left behind.
    

It is also suggested the award be bestowed upon other deserving bloggers, and that I intend to do.

I have chosen the following exemplary blogs for this award:

Saijo-Hiroshima Daily Photo
Sniffles and smiles
Hyperenergy and other obstacles
Catherine Mark-Beasant

Theme start: Details

As I told yesterday, I'm starting a new theme today, details of the city. In this theme I'll show you lamps and poles, stone carvings and figurines, doors and windows, signs and posters, and all manner of details in the city of Copenhagen. I might not write so much to each post and I will only post a few photos at a time, but I'll try to show you what I think is the most important in a city, the details. A city can have great buildings and roads and loads of people, but what really defines it, is the smallest of details.

Today's image is from Toldboderne, the old tax booths on the wharf of Langelinie. Here a couple of dragon lamps give light to the area. They were designed by Vilhelm Dahlerup in 1892. They don't make them like this anymore...or rather that was what I thought! I'll show you tomorrow how sadly mistaken I was.

Visit the stars!

A fitting end of my theme, a building bathed in a sunset

Right next to one of the artificial lakes that ring the old part of Copenhagen is a building that houses the biggest IMAX theater in Copenhagen, the Tycho Brahe Planetarium. It's named after renowned Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe, who is known for his many observations on the movement of stars and planets. The legend tells that he died in Prague of a burst bladder at a Royal dinner, because he couldn't leave before the king.

The fountains make for good rainbows

The Planetarium's star projector can show 4.000 stars and the solar system, and underneath is a small museum. It also got a great restaurant appropriately called Cassiopeia. The building was a gift by Bodil and Helge Petersen to the Urania Foundation, and it was finished in 1989.

This concludes my theme of modern buildings. I've missed out on quite a few, but I think it's time to move on, before you get too bored with buildings. I'll stay in town, so to speak because my new theme starting tomorrow will be about what really defines a city, the details.

From Fast Patrol Boats to apartments

This building was formerly used as a production hall for fast patrol boats when the area of Holmen was the biggest Danish Naval Base. The concrete hall was built in 1952, is 130 m long, 33 m wide and 17 m tall. When the Navy abandoned most of the area in the 1990's the building was rebuilt as an apartment block with a very large glass roofed atrium and its very own internal wharf. Of the original building only the visible concrete pillars and the steel girders are left. With its wharf right beside the canals around the old fortifications this is a regular stop for all the sightseeing boats.



Tomorrow I'll show you the last stop on my tour of modern buildings in this theme, as I'll start a new theme in two days. The building tomorrow would like to take us to the stars...or at least show them to us:-)

From red to green in 20 years

The Copper Tower or Plesner Building is just a stone throw away from the statue of the Little Mermaid on Langelinie Warf. It's covered in copper plating, and therefore it started out flaming red (I haven't got a picture of that), then turned brown but as the copper oxidise further it'll turn green in the next couple of decades. Built in 2004 it houses the international law firm Plesner and has shops and cafe´s on the ground floor.

Just across from it are the ferries to Norway and Poland, and next to it is a little old building; a former train station. The train station is preserved and so can't be torn down or moved.

Bury that coffin!

Probably the most debated building in Copenhagen this one is either hated or loved by the citizens. Built in 1996 to house ticket sale for the public transport, tourist information and public toilets it wasn't the most expensive building with a cost of 1.5 mio. Euros. It's situated at Copenhagen's City House Square, one of the busiest places in Copenhagen with a great number of crossing bus lines, lots of cars and bikes and pedestrians in great flocks.

Critics say that it divides the square into two, it's design clashes with the buildings surrounding the square and that it's plain ugly. Several mayors have promised to tear it down, until they discovered what the cost would be and that something had to replace it. So the Black Coffin, as it has been nicknamed, still stands firm.

The discussion have finally ended though, because a new metro station will be built here, so now the building is on the demolition plan for this year. One of the "tenants" in the building will have to find a new location to place a television studio, as Denmark's Radio's Evening Show has been broadcast live from here for the last couple of years.

The City Hall

I for one won't miss this coffin!

West Harbour II

Yesterdays post was about Malmö's Vestra Hamnen (West Harbour) area. The tale continues here.

A hundred years ago there was nothing here. 40 years later this was an artificial island with one of Europe's biggest submarine shipyards with huge cranes and assembly halls and docks. This heavy industry is all gone now and has been replaced in the last 10 years by residences, office blocks and a university.

One of the clauses in the construction contracts states that for every sq. meter of office or residence a proportional area should be laid out as a green area. I confess that I'm a bit envious that the Swedes have managed to create such a lovely area, where we on the other side of Øresund just let the companies build whatever they like. I know that the construction companies in this area have had some heavy restrictions on their buildings, but isn't that exactly what the municipality should do to control the development of its areas? I think so.

In tomorrows post I'll hop back to Copenhagen and show you a coffin that has been debated for the last 13 years.

West Harbour I

The area of Västra Hamnen (West Harbour) in Malmö, Sweden, not only have the Turning Torso from yesterdays post, but also a sprawling city of its own. The houses here were built at the same time as the skyscraper, but on a much lower scale. Even though they were built at the same time, no two houses are the same. It's a mix of one, two, three and four storey buildings with different colours, materials and designs. Among the houses are small playgrounds, gardens and streams to make this a nice place to live.

The cars are mainly left outside of the whole area, so it's a pedestrian heaven. There's a lot of cafés and restaurants along with some nice shops (and a huge mega store), and the promenade gives the casual stroller a wonderful view to Øresund and Øresund Bridge. It even got its very own marina, where some house boats make an alternative living possible.

It's obvious that this is a well-thought-out area. And it's very popular. I didn't notice a single empty flat other than those that were under construction. Tomorrow I'll tell you a little more about Västra Hamnen.

A Turning Torso

I know, this looks like some giant child took his plastic model of a skyscraber and twisted it in a fit of rage, but in fact it's the tallest building in Scandinavia. As I warned yesterday, I would make a bit of a jump. This one is not in Copenhagen, not even in Denmark. It's in Malmö, Sweden, just 30 minutes by train from Copenhagen and just across the strait of Øresund. It's situated in a newly developed area called Västra Hamnen (West Harbour) and is quite a dominant feature here. You can actually see it from Copenhagen on a clear day, so I hope I'm forgiven this deviation from my theme.

The name is Turning Torso and it was designed by the Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava. It was finished in 2005 with a height of 190 m and 54 stories. The bottom two segments are offices and the rest is residential; 147 luxury apartments. The idea was to give Malmö a new skyline after the demolition of shipyard Kockum's gantry crane in 2002.



I'm normally not in awe about sky scrapers but I must admit, this one I love. Though I'm sure it'll be a challenge to furnish these apartments! And I know I couldn't live there, vertigo would set in the second I looked out of the window, so this is a no-go for me.


Tomorow I'll show you a bit of the surrounding area.

"Excuse me, which station is this?"

The Copenhagen Metro is a new one...and a small one. The first stations opened in 2002 with further stations in 2003, 2004 and 2007. A total of 9 underground stations and 13 above ground on two lines with a length of 33 km make up this Metro so far with more planning being done for further lines.

Frederiksberg Metro Station...I think...

The stations are all designed alike and it can be difficult to tell them apart. They are kept in grey steel and grey concrete with the same internal dimensions and the same accessories. Only the signs proclaim that this Nørreport and not Kongens Nytorv. Not a place for anyone with their mind wandering!

Only the adverts and the travellers
add some colour to this grey world

Why couldn't they have done what was done in Paris; different stations that reflect the neighbourhood with lots of colours and different materials? Or like London? These grey stations are mind numbing dull! And what worse is, the planned stations will be just like these, even when finished in 20 years time!

Skylights

On a positive note, the stations all have daylight filtered down through these glass pyramids. And after some difficulties in the beginning the trains run with very few hitches. And people are using them. It can actually be crowded during rush hour, not like London or Tokyo, but crowded to Danish standard.

"Breathe in, please!"

On Kongens Nytorv

I actually love the idea of a Metro, and I think it should be extended to cover as much of Copenhagen and its suburbs as possible. I know it's expensive and will take time to build, but with the traffical situation in Copenhagen (too much traffic on too small roads, very few parking spaces, a sea of bikes and the closing of major roads) a good Metro could ease the situation a lot.

Tomorrow I'll jump a bit and show you something high and turning.

BTW these photos are the first ones shot with my new camera, a Nikon D300. The learning curve is steep, but it's a very nice camera!