The Morning after Pride
It’s rained copiously overnight with thunder and lightning but Sunday dawns sort of bright with some sun. I’ve got three things in the list today before flying out. First up is to explore the Christianshaun area a bit more. There’s the Danish Architecture Centre which looks interesting.
It’s housed in a big old warehouse and mounts temporary exhibitions. Today there’s one which greets me with the message that the exhibition is outside – in the city. It’s about sustainability and building for human beings and communities rather than the eye-catching design. The main feature is a plastic model of a circular student hall of residence (the Tietgen Dormitory) photographed by a drone. The images are printed and pasted onto the model. Bedrooms and studies face outwards while the living areas look into the circular central space. This apparently creates a community feeling where everyone can see (if they want to) what everyone else is doing socially. It’s been a successful social experiment.
Other featured buildings in the exhibition include a bank just down from my hotel, the New Opera House and National Theatre. Upstairs is a small exhibition about Japanese architecture for family living in very small spaces. From the outside they are unremarkable but full of invention inside.
I walk a few blocks, intending to look at Our Saviour’s Church, which on a Sunday is supposed to open at 10.30am. It’s the one with the brown and gold spiral steeple. There’s a service going on and the tower is closed due to bad weather. King Christian’s church is having a christening which people are rushing to attend. The tower is covered in scaffolding so not currently photogenic. The Crypt however is open, displaying family memorials and wooden coffins, presumably containing bodies.
It’s raining again so I shelter under an awning by a bus stop waiting to be transported semi-dry to the Carlsburg Glyptotek, just near the Tivoli Gardens. Copenhagen has been flooded and the bus is diverted. Everywhere are fire-hoses pumping water into canals and harbour. As I walk down the side of the Tivoli Gardens, clinging to my very small umbrella, there are huge queues of bedraggled tourists standing next to their tour busses. They look very pissed off because the Tivoli Gardens are flooded. It’s still raining and I can see a few rain-coated dads with similarly waterproofed children in the soft play areas seeming to have fun.
The Glyptotek looks like a much more comfortable option and I discover that it’s free on Sundays – no wonder it’s popular. Just as I make a start of the ‘Ancient Mediterranean’ section, there’s a text from David. He’s just seen Luci onto the train to the airport, is soaking wet and wonders what I’m doing today.
‘Come to the Glyptotek, it’s just around the corner from the station,’ I reply.
Several texts later he arrives and we sit in the Winter Garden, a covered atrium in the centre of the building. He dries out and after some lunch and coffee we investigate the collection. There’s a modern wing – out the back – accessed by marble steps and ramps which houses a very good collection of impressionists – Manet, Monet, Van Gough, Renoir & David.
Of particular note is the Gauguin collection ranging from excellent early work to later Tahitian examples. If you’re a fan of Degas and ballet girls, then this is a good place for you – bronzes and paintings. There’s an accent on sculpture here and a vast collection of classical heads which have been ‘dug up’ minus their bodies and ended up here. Some of them are missing bits, so there’s a display of spare parts used to restore statues for exhibition purposes. We can’t see it all in our time left and now that the rain has abated we separately collect our luggage, meet back at the station to head back to London.
