News from Denmark:
Jean Nouvel, Zaha Hadid, Coop Himmelb(l)au, Maya Lin, Vandkunsten, Henning Larsen, Søren Robert Lund, Daniel Libeskind, khras architects, Verner Panton, Kasper Salto, Lauritz de Thurah, Oscar Niemeyer, Jørn Utzon and ...
Jean Nouvel's Concert Hall for the Danish Broadcasting Corporation, is now under construction. The Concert Hall is raised ten meters above street level, with the upper Foyer under its "belly", giving the impression of a big wooden sculpture.
Image courtesy Danish Broadcasting Corporation
© Ateliers Jean Nouvel
The "screen" walls enclosing the volumes will be constantly changing depending on the lighting conditions and the time of day. At night live images are projected on the screen. Jean Nouvel posed in front of a "screen" mock-up on his last trip to Copenhagen.
Image courtesy the Danish Broadcasting Corporation
Photo: Stefan Kai Nielsen
The old Torpedo Hall on Holmen the former Royal Naval Dockyard area, has been converted to loft apartments by Tegnestuen Vandkunsten.
With its canals and maritime atmosphere Holmen is an area of great natural beauty and significant architectural value.
Photo: arcspace
Residents will live in walking distance to the new Copenhagen Opera House, designed by Henning Larsens Tegnestue, now under construction on Holmen.
The focal point will be the large, floating roof with its 32 meter long cantilever covering the four-story curved Foyer.
Photo: arcspace
Building 90, a former U-boat assembly plant, is another new conversion on Holmen. Designed by S¿ren Robert Lund the building, with its two new additions, now serve as headquarters for high tech firm Netbureau Araneum.
Photo: arcspace
Photo: arcspace
Lund has kept the industrial feeling of the former U-boat plant by exposing heavy details and by having the floors (decks) constructed at a shipyard and literally sliding them into place.
The Danish Jewish Museum, designed by Daniel Libeskind, is under construction in the vaulted brick space of the Royal Library.
Photo: arcspace
Models and drawings of the project were on view at The Danish Centre for Architecture during the summer. Also on view were sketches and visualizations of Daniel Libeskind's winning design for the World Trade Center
A Retrospective, Verner Panton - Vision & Play, is on view at the Danish Design Centre through October 21st.
With his visionary, colorful home furnishings Verner Panton (1926-98), the "enfant terrible" of Danish design history, created his own unique design universe, where his uncompromising exploration of form, color and light resulted in a number of timeless products.
The traveling exhibition "Outreach: Designs for a Mobile Health Clinic to Combat HIV/AIDS in Africa", organized by Architecture for Humanities, was at the Danish Design Centre during August.
Photo courtesy Architecture for Humanities
1st Place winning entry by KHRAS
The Copenhagen venue is notable, not just as the first European show, but also because the 1st placed winning entry was by Danish KHRAS architects.
The exhibition will return to London and be shown at the RIBA Headquarters from November 6th to December 6th.
Another Copenhagen Metro station, designed by KHRAS architects, is nearing completion. KHRAS architects are the principal architects for the Metro Copenhagen project.
Photo: arcspace
There will be 22 stations; nine below ground and 13 elevated stations. The first phase of Copenhagen's new traffic system - the Metro - opened in October 2002.
The Baroque garden at Court Master Builder Lauritz de Thurah's (1706 - 59) summer residence Gammel Holtegaard, now a museum, was inaugurated after a long restoration project.
Photo: arcspace
Lauritz de Thurah created the garden after his own visions of the ideal place.
The restoration project was possible because of 3 large drawings by de Thurah dating from 1757.
The Danish Architectural Press has updated their Guide to Danish Landscape Architecture 1000-2003. Well worth buying.
Furniture designer Kasper Salto was awarded the 2003 Furniture Prize in recognition of his ability to..." produce functional, light, graceful furniture that testifies to significant art-craft insight, upholds the best in Scandinavian furniture traditions and value concepts as well as forging new pathways in terms of both use of materials and idiom."
Salto's latest indoor/outdoor chair ICE was on view in a block of ice.
Salto's breakthrough came in 1998 with the Runner stacking chair, with its elegant, dubble curved, laminated back inspired by the structure of the human spinal column.
Maya Lin was presented with the newly established Finn Juhl Award at the Danish Museum of Decorative Art where a smaller exhibition of the architect's work was on view.
Photo: arcspace
Photo: arcspace
Lin was selected as the winner of the first Finn Juhl Award for addressing "complex historical and social issues" in her architectural design, sculpture and art.
Designer Finn Juhl (1912-89) exemplifies the quality of craftsmanship and beauty that made Denmark a leader in modern home furnishing during the 1940s and 1950s
The extension to Ordrupgaard by Zaha Hadid will start construction this Fall.
The new building will be separated from the existing long French Gallery building by a courtyard. Earthworks and embankments bring the building into the ground at key points around the plan.
Image courtesy Zaha Hadid Architects
Rooms in the new addition are transformed into a series of flowing connected spaces displaying works from the permanent and temporary collection.
The North Jutland House of Music by Coop Himmelb(l)au is in the final design phase. Construction start is planned for Spring 2004.
Image courtesy Coop Himmelb(l)au
Oriented towards Limfjorden, Denmark's largest fjord, the Concert Hall floats over the banks where the city and the fjord flow into each other.
Coop Himmelb(l)au envisions the House of Music as a cultural hub and as a center of communication and interaction for the region of North Jutland.
The first international Utzon symposium, organized by the Institute of Architecture and Design, Aalborg University, took place the last weekend in August.
International architects and academics, who have known, worked with and written about J¿rn Utzon discussed the sources of Utzon's inspiration and Nordic background.
Caricature of the Sydney Opera House presented by Australian students of architecture as Queen Elisabeth II officially inaugurated the Opera House.
From the new Taschen book "Architectural Theory": From the Renaissance to the Present.
The long list of guest speakers included: Author of the book UTZON: Inspiration - Vision - Architecture Richard Weston, Great Britain - Peter Myers, Australia - Francoise Fromonot, France - Kenneth Frampton, USA -Tobias Faber, Denmark and one of Utzon's sons architect Jan Utzon.
And a retrospective of Oscar Niemeyer's work will open on September 27th at Arken Museum of Modern Art. The exhibition will be on view through February 1, 2004.
Photo courtesy Arken Museum of Modern Art
Cathedral. Bras’lia, 1959-70.
The planning and construction of Brasilia's many palaces and government buildings from 1956 until the mid-60s is the pice de rŽsistance in Niemeyer's ouvre.
Oscar Niemeyer
Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2003
Oscar Niemeyer
A Legend of Modernism
September 8, 2003