ROBIN D WILDER: City Explorations

I've spent the last two days bike touring with my friend and classmate McKenzie (self-guided of course). We picked up our steeds from Buddha Bikes, a hard-to-find shop north of the city that fixes old bikes and rents them for low prices. The three-month deal is 450 kroner, about $70 USD, and comes with a lock and lights. Mine is an old white frame (no brand name in sight) with fairly skinny road tires, mud guards, old-school cruiser handlebars and a three-speed hub gear. The city is incredibly flat, so a fancier machine would be totally unnecessary.

The bike system here is magical. As a biker you almost always have your own lane, at least as wide as the sidewalk, with a curb between you and the car lanes, and your own set of traffic lights. Everyone respects each other and uses hand signals. Ride on the right, pass on the left, go at your own pace. At rush hour there seem to be as many bikes on the road as cars. Beautiful.

Yesterday we explored the island / neighborhood of Christianshavn. We went up the spiral tower at Church of our Saviour, had shawarma for lunch at the hippie hangout of Christiania, wandered around the Opera House, and ended up at the most amazing street food market at Paper Island http://copenhagenstreetfood.dk/en/.

panorama from Church of our Saviour
I live across the water on the left – central Copenhagen is on the right

a fellow tourist offered to take our picture

wood structure from the 1700s

opening at SMK, national gallery of denmark

Today's adventure took us to some of the contemporary architecture in our area. Ørestad, an area of Amager just south of my home, has been developed like crazy in the last decade, and is home to many famous architecture projects. It's a strange area because there's a ton of housing, a metro line and a mall, but it doesn't feel very lively – no main street or cafes or galleries, just big buildings. Here are the ones we saw:

housing project / Lundgaard & Tranberg

Danish Radio Concert Hall / Jean Nouvel
interior is amazing but hard to photograph. look it up.

Mountain Dwellings / BIG and JDS
view of north side – garage below, homes above

Mountain Dwellings / BIG and JDS
view of porches from the south

Mountain Dwellings / BIG and JDS
parking garage

VM Houses / BIG and JDS

As we walked around the VM houses, a young man approached and asked if we'd like to see the inside. He happened to be an architect, and let us into his home and balcony so that we could see it first-hand. He had lots to say about the building, the area and the community. It was amazing to see the inside of such a famous project that is generally kept private, and to hear first-hand what it's like to live there. No interior shots, simply out of respect for our tour guide's privacy.

from the balcony

looking from the V building to the M building
(the letters describe their footprints)

McKenzie and I both had concerns about the amount of glass and openness used in this project. The balconies are close enough that you could hold a quiet conversation between them, and every dwelling has an enormous glass wall facing another home or balcony. The resident told us that after about a week they were used to it, and decided they didn't mind being seen walking around "butt naked" in their living room. You're far enough away that faces are difficult to make out, and the transparency actually adds a unique sense of community.