Exploring Copenhagen and environs
Starting point: Hotel Skt. Petri

Start the day early with coffe and home baked bread at the Café Blanc, on the ground floor of the Hotel Skt. Petri. The café offers a wide variety of homemade breads and speciality coffees, as well as a daily selection of 50 international newspapers.

Photo: arcspace

Walk out of the café and across Nørregade to Skt. Petri’s Church, one of the few remains of Medieval Copenhagen. The church and burial chapels have recently been restored, preserving the main room from 1450. Light enters the white Gothic interior through a large clear glass window.

Photo: arcspace

Walking along Nørregade you will pass the Church of Our Lady (1811-1829), with its spireless tower and Doric portico, one of several buildings by Danish Classicism's leading architect C.F.Hansen; the first architect to place Denmark in the International history of architecture.
Further along, passing by Arne Jacobsen's Stelling Building (1938), is one of Hansen's first large projects; the City Hall and Courthouse (1805-1815).

Photo: arcspace

Continue to the canals and Thorvaldsen’s Museum (1839-1848) designed by Michael Gottlieb Bindesbøll. Denmarks first art museum was built to house Danish sculptur Bertel Thorvaldsen’s work, and extensive collection of art and antiquities, on his return from Rome. The colorful architecture, inspired by the polychrome Antiquity, represented a more sensual classisism.
A long colororful frieze on three facades, from a sketch by Jørgen Sonne, depicts Thorvaldsen's homecoming in 1838.

Photo: arcspace

Photo: arcspace

Behind Thorvaldsens Museum is C.F. Hansen's grandest church, the Christiansborg Palace Church (1803-1828), with its elegantly detailed Classic portico and flat dome, inspired by Roman architecture.

Photo: arcspace

Finish the Classic morning with lunch under the enormous cast iron and glass dome i the subtropical winter garden at Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek.
The facade of the museum, currently being renovated, resembles a Venetian palace with its patterned red brick work and polished granite columns. The building complex was built in three stages; the oldest part from 1892-1897 was designed by architect Wilhelm Dahlerup, the area in the rear was designed by architect Hack Kampmann and built in 1901-1906.

Photo: arcspace

Enter the world of Contemporary architecture with a visit to the new Annex, an independent building in the courtyard, designed by Henning Larsens Tegnestue between 1994 and 1996. Walk up the glass roofed stairway street, between the existing walls and the new building, through the three stories of galleries to the roof terrace.

Photo: arcspace

Photo: arcspace

The Danish Design Center (DDC), across the street. is also designed by Henning Larsens Tegnestue.

Walk to the Royal Library and visit the new Jewish Museum, designed by Daniel Libeskind, and the Black Diamond addition, on the waterfront, by schmidt hammer lassen.

The Danish Jewish Museum is located in the former Royal Boathouse built by King Christian IV in 1598, the oldest section of the Royal Library. The intertwining of the old vaulted brick space, and the unique exhibition space, creates a dynamic dialogue between architecture of the past and of the future.

Photo: Jens Lindhe

While the old Library building sits firmly on the ground, the Black Diamond floats on a ribbon of raised glass. From the interior foyer there are panoramic views of the entire waterfront.

Photo: arcspace

Take a waterbus across the harbor to Dock Island and the new The Opera House designed by Henning Larsens Tegnestue. The front of the house is visually integrated in the harbor space and on axis with Amalienborg, the Royal Residence, as a counterpart to Frederik’s Church, forming the termination points of the east-west axis from the harbor and across Amalienborg Square.

Photo: arcspace

Two exciting new buildings are currently under construction in Copenhagen:
Across from the Opera House, also on the waterfront, construction has started on the new Royal Theater Playhouse designed by Boje Lundgaard and Lene Tranberg. The exterior of the building will be clad in copper; integrating the stage tower in the Copenhagen skyline of copper domes and spires. At night the transparent top level will act as a symbol signalling the building is in-use.

Image courtesy Lundgaard & Tranberg

And the new Concert Hall for the Danish Broadcasting Corporation designed by Jean Nouvel. The 45 meter tall rectangular box has transparent “screen” walls that will light up at night with images projected on the screen.

Image courtesy the Danish Broadcasting Corporation

There is an exellent guide with maps, Copenhagen Architecture Guide, published by Arkitektens Forlag which can be bought in the bookstore at the Danish Architecture Center (DAC).
The DAC, located in a refurbished 1882 warehouse building on the waterfront, shows the latest trends in Danish architecture. The warehouse was converted in 1884 by Erik Møllers Tegnestue; Skt.Petri’s architects.

The Environs by car; a must for this program.

For architecture aficionados no visit to Copenhagen is complete without a drive up the coastline.
to Klampenborg and the Bellevue Theater and Bellavista apartments, designed by Arne Jacobsen between 1932 and 1937. Lunch or dinner at “Jacobsen” restaurant, brilliantly restored by Jens Ladegaard, is always a treat.

Photo: arcspace

On the way to Klampenborg stop at Paustian Furniture House designed by Jørn Utzon, with his sons Kim Utzon and Jan Utzon. The Utzons also designed the two additional buildings occupied by a Sail Club and "Lakajen", a restaurant.

Photo: arcspace

Drive inland from here to Ordrupgaard museum where the Ordrupgaard Extension by Zaha Hadid is nearing completion. The two buildings separate two distinct conditions of the garden and responds to them with a gradation of use that is represented by a change in transparency and access possibilities.

Photo: arcspace

Go further inland to Bagsværd Church, designed by Jørn Utzon. This modest church, the color of the Nordic sky, stands tall and proud between birch trees, its back turned towards the noisy street. The exterior walls are clad in white prefabricated concrete panels and white glazed tiles that reflect the light. The sculptural concrete ceiling in the church is sublime and always changing with a blend of direct and reflected light light that filters through floating clouds. The church, completed in 1976, is not to be missed.

Photo: arcspace

Another church, well worth visiting on the way back, is Gruntvigs Church designed by Peder Vilhelm Jensen-Klint (1921 - 40), The monumental Gothic style church was built to honor the poet priest N.F.S. Grundtvig’s (1783 - 1872) who was a great influence on Danish intellectual life.
After the death of Peder Vilhelm Jensen-Klint the church was completed under the supervision of his son Kaare Klint.
Kaare Klint helped establish the influential Department of Furniture at the Royal Academy of Art in Copenhagen and made Danish modern style explode onto the mid-century international scene.
Klint designed furniture for Thorvaldsen’s Museum and the Danish Museum of Decorative Art ; a contemporary museum for Danish and International crafts and design.

Photo: arcspace

When moving around Copenhagen take the new Copenhagen Metro, designed by KHRAS, the principal architects for the new Copenhagen Metro stations. The pyramid-shaped skylights let natural light into the depth of the stations helping passengers stay oriented. Escalators and lifts provide easy access to the tracks.

The majority of links are to arcspace features about the buildings.
More in an earlier kk Letter
News from Copenhagen

Starting point: Hotel Skt. Petri arcspace feature