Tietgen student hall in Orestad
On a cold winter
morning, Southern Copenhagen is almost deserted. Near the Metro
station, two students rush to their bikes. A tiny, toy-like train is
zipping past a bright blue cube-like building – it is the
Copenhagen metro, running overground in Orestad. Not far from it we
have a look into the courtyard of the circular Tietgen student hall,
with colourful letterboxes and washing machines prominently visible
on the ground floor. The circular building is influenced by some
traditional Chinese architecture: The Hakka people built round walled
villages, which can be defended easily, and where several extended
families live together.
Southwards, we
continue along a cycling road lined by different, but all extremely
Scandinavian family homes, until we reach the Bella Sky Hotel.
Standing beside the nondescript halls of the trade fair, the hotel's
two towers seem to be swinging forward and backward: both towers are
markedly leaning in different directions, right angles having all but
disappeared. From the equally odd connecting corridor on the top
floor of the towers, we get an overview of the Orestad development
area: The Mountain House, the Field's Mall, and in the distance the
big 8-shaped building, all strung up along the metro line. Placing
the mall and an also quite interesting high school (without
traditional classrooms, only open learning spaces) in the centre of
the new town quarter was clearly a clever move, as it creates some
movement between the modern office buildings. However, especially at
its southern end, the area appears a bit lifeless, not least because
much of the new architecture is self-contained and inward-looking:
The offices all have fancy-looking cafeterias, the apartment
buildings are arranged around courtyards as social spaces.
For visitors, it is
both fascinating to gape at these glass-and-steel explosions with
oddly-shaped windows and balconies, and lonely because you don't meet
the inhabitants much. But then, after all, we visited in winter,
when it was bitterly cold. No wonder that people try to stay inside
if they can.
Info:
The Danish Architecture Centre offers free Podwalks on Orestad
architecture:
http://www.dac.dk/en/dac-life/podwalks/podwalks/oerestad/
