Copenhagen Pleasures: Part One

I always like to travel in autumn, rather than in the summer months. The cool weather is better for touring, the colors richer, the crowds smaller, and cities are alive, humming with fall events. This year my husband and I decided to go to Copenhagen. Why? One reason was that we'd never been there. Yet, sight unseen, I already had an agreeable impression of Denmark. I liked the country's reputation for taking care of its citizens, for the relative smallness of the disparity between rich and poor, the supposed modesty of Danish lifestyles. Also appealing was the Danish history of innovative design, not to mention the Michelin stars recently awarded to several Copenhagen restaurants. On a map of Europe, I even liked Denmark's precarious position, its disparate parts jutting up energetically from the mainland towards Norway and Sweden.

Scandinavia wasn't totally virgin territory for me. I had been to Helsinki and loved that visit. But that was many years ago-- a work-trip to cover the opening of the then-new Kiasma contemporary art museum, designed by Steven Holl. Oddly enough, while we were in Denmark, Steven Holl's name cropped up again. His architectural firm had just won an international competition for a major Copenhagen commission-- a new and dramatic gateway to the city. To be sited at the Copenhagen harbor, Holl's so-called "LM Project" looks to be a stunner. (See pics at left for night and day views.) It will consist of two eccentric high-rise office towers set on opposing banks of the waterway and connected by pedestrian bridges 65 meters above the harbor. In these worrisome economic times, and in keeping with Denmark's commitment to alternative energy, it's notable that the buildings' public spaces will be constantly lit ("always glowing," in the words of the project statement) by electricity generated from wind turbines lining the bridges.

If my experience this fall was typical, the turbines should work fine. I can testify that there's no shortage of wind-power in Copenhagen. Or rain. Since, at least in autumn, the two often occur together, a hood on your waterproof parka turns out to be far more practical here than an umbrella. Umbrellas have a terrible tendency to collapse. Or to catch the breeze and make you fear that you'll momentarily be airborne above the Tivoli Gardens or the Stroget, Copenhagen's long pedestrian shopping street. Or perhaps you'll be dangerously blown about while trying to rush directly across one of those wide ten-traffic-lane avenues that are commonplace in this city. And what good is an umbrella when you're on a bike, which is how multitudes of Danes get from here to there, rain or shine.

I could see some of those never-ending streams of bicyclists from the wide picture window in our comfortable 15th floor hotel room at the Radisson SAS Royal. The expansive view-- onto the busy Vesterbrogade, Tivoli, and way out over the cityscape towards the Oresund Bridge to Sweden-- was marvelous. So, too, the good-natured, cheerful service from everyone at the hotel. And not only the hotel. The service people I met everywhere in Copenhagen-- in shops, supermarkets, restaurants, theaters-- all seemed to be amazingly tall, blond, good-loking, amiable and eager to be of help. And surprisingly fluent in English. Equally kind were those Copenhageners I boldly accosted on the street or in train stations or at bus stops to ask for assistance finding my way. Citizens on public transportation were generous with help, translating impenetrable (to me) announcements about delayed trains, arranging for bus drivers to indicate my correct stop, etc.-- all without being asked. (Danish public signage, on the other hand, was often peculiarly misleading...) Was I just lucky, mostly moving about in the right (i.e., upscale) parts of town, or was I in a country totally without spleen?

Well-- not entirely. In spite of Denmark's high standard of living and strict immigration policies, migrant issue are not unknown here. And neighborhoods, of course, vary. In Copenhagen newspapers (several have on-line English-language editions) I did read about the darker side of the city-- e.g., shootings and biker-immigrant clashes in the Norrebro area; violence, fires and destruction of squats in Christiania. And walking back to the hotel late one night through back streets beyond the rail station, I saw a lineup of obviously poor immigrants waiting to get into a shelter. So-- perhaps life is less good for those workers from Turkey, Somalia, Lebanon, Iraq.

For a tourist, in the center of the city, those problems seemed distant. More pressing was how to have enough time to see everything we wanted to see-- the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, the "Black Diamond," the Danish Design Center, the Caillebotte show in Ordrupgaard, Daniel Libeskind's Jewish Museum, the Louisiana Museum, the new theater, the art galleries, the shops, the palaces, the university, etc., etc., etc.
Next installment-- two terrific events we did see...