Warm-up

Today I gave a little warm-up presentation of some of the research I've been collecting to a small studio of bachelor students at the Architecture Academy. There may be a larger venue/audience in the near future. In the middle of my spiel, I realized I could go on and on--all day about this stuff. I'm not sure yet if this is good or bad.

Karriere (Career)

I first discovered this local art journal a month or so ago. For a free newsprint rag, I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the essays. They are kind of "art essays lite," but yes, real essays, with legitimate footnotes, and well chosen images... unlike so many of the free rags I pick up here in Copenhagen which usually display the same new designer chair by HAY (or/and) party pictures of early 20 something hipsters sporting the latest color of Cheap Monday jeans. The journal also promotes Karriere the place... which is, in fact a Bar/Cafe/Restaurant located in the former meatpacking district. (I'm wondering now, where the meatpacking district might have moved?) Anyway, I finally went to check it out this past Saturday partly because they have several art pieces incorporated into the everyday function of the place... and these are some heavy hitters too. Lights by Danish artist Olafur Eliasson. A dividing screen/wall by Dan Graham, a chrome floor and "dancer pole" by Thai artist Rirkrit Tiravanija, a piece by ? with a what's behind door number 2 scenario wherein one opens a door only to find 5 identical doors, of which one opens to another corridor with 5 identical doors-- out of about 15 or so doors, only about three of them are actually doors that lead to a bathroom, and finally a piece by ? that is completely out of place. Not only does it seem like something out of a first year college sculpture class, it also reminds me of something from the movie beetlejuice. (Go to Flickr to see some photos since I didn't have my camera) I'm sure you will have no trouble picking out the beetlejuicy piece with dangling watch-a-ma-jigs! The place really did turn into quite the jam packed DJ driven club at midnight...

**I just discovered that if you go to the second page of results from the flickr link above you will see the crazy bathroom piece I mentioned... it's called Passage.**

Herzog & de Meuron in China

Last Thursday I went to a small film screening of the documentary Birds Nest: Herzog and de Meuron in China. At one and a half hours it's feature length, and definitely digs quite deep. Light on the technical architecture side, but heavy on culture, politics and business, Birds Nest is a good window into what one might expect working as an architect in today's China. Thumbs up... I like how there is no Danish word for "Popcorn." (Link to the filmaker's website here.)

Socialist Lighting

I've been harping on this to some of you for a while... but I think it's really great! All of the street lights in Copenhagen are strung across the street by wires that are attached to neighboring buildings. The buildings literally have to share the weight of the lights thus acting in a communal way. Imagine trying to convince a bunch of Americans that you want to drill a hole into their building and stretch a steel cable across the street which will be attached to another building--hmmm just might not happen. The other nice thing about this lighting system is that a kind of canopy, or ceiling is created across the street--furthering the feeling that the street is its own sort of room. Oh and also, it uses less material and keeps the sidewalk clear of lightpoles which makes space for wider bike lanes! Sweet.

Presse

When I came across this place during a trip down south, I couldn't help but get a bit homesick for my favorite cafe in Capitol Hill, Cafe Presse. (It's the same sign! -- apparently it just means hey, you can get newspapers and tobacco here, or something like that) ... ahh the baked eggs with gruyere and ham... the rhubarb marmalade... soccer matches on the tv...

Museum Melee

Serendipity delivered a little trip down-south last week, and I was able to see a handful of great museums. Just a few photographs with highlights below. (Click to enlarge images)



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Foundation Beyeler_Renzo Piano
There is a sort-of family of art museums that Piano has realized (all using repetitive roof elements, and a series of diffusing layers in order to deliver a blanket of even, diffuse light into the galleries) of which the Beyeler is a good example. Other family members include the High Museum, de Menil, and Nasher.



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Kunsthaus Bregenz_Peter Zumthor
I was lucky enough to see a show with the kind of art that really shines in this powerful building by Zumthor... sculpture and installation work. John Fabre took over the entire building beginning with the bathrooms on the basement floor in a surrealist work that culminates with a figure excavating a human brain(mind) on the top floor of the museum. Zumthor brings daylight into the exhibition spaces via an extra half-floor of space above the ceiling plane that allows light in on all four sides of the room and then down through the milky glass ceiling. Brilliant!



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Kunstmuseum Stuttgart_Hascher and Jehle
This fairly new museum sits right on the busiest pedestrian street in the city center. A modestly sized glass cube sits atop a huge underground complex of galleries that occupy space leftover from abandoned roadway tunnels. Now that's a good idea. Replace cars with art! Link to H&J site here.



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Kolumba_Peter Zumthor
Built into and over the ruins of at least two churches and one working chapel with off-white Danish bricks, the Kolumba Museum also houses the Archdiocese of Cologne's amazing art collection. This project has enough palimpsest to sink a cruise ship designed by Frank Gehry. Or something like that. My point-and-shoot had a hard time with the contrasting light/dark levels in the gallery spaces, so you might want to try a flickr search for better shots of the interior. Really amazing project... ask me about it sometime.




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Museum Insel Hombroich_Erwin Heerwich
A series of pavilions in the landscape. No air conditioning or heat. No gaurds. No art work labels on the walls. No electrical lights. A substanitial art collection with many of the heavy hitters collected by other museums. Doors left open to the landscape. Leaves blown in from wind, left scattered on the floor. Even a few cobwebs here and there. A powerful un-museum. A kind of freedom.
(Use arrows to click through pictures on the Hombroich website here.)

Denmark Road Trip

White Rope, Fake Grass and Golden Leaves
In a park next to the Silkeborg Art Museum lies a forgotten mini-golf course. Probably a seasonal activity... off season at least, it's more of a sneaky art-installation-in-the-woods... nicer than some of the comissioned art- installations-in-the-woods that I have seen.



Chair Spider
I just couldn't help imagining this cluster of chairs as a stop-action film animation. Scurrying off into a corner of the hedge like a frightened spider.




Skovvilla's Three Columns
One of my favorite gallery spaces out of all ten art museums I visited was in this modest old "forest villa" by Danish architect Anton Rosen. This one wasn't on my list--I didn't even know about it--but just happened upon it when visiting another museum in the same park. The exterior remains original as you can see in the left hand photo. The interior has been converted into display spaces, but with remnants of the orginal floor layout. On one level there are three beautiful columns left in the center of a room--on another level the same structure appears as bearing walls and forms a strange little extra space (pictured on right). The contrast between the outside of the building and the interior conversion is a fantastic surrealist painting.




Green Rooms and Heart
There is a complex of buildings in Herning Denmark that includes a design school, two art museums, a sculpture park, a Jørn Utzon prototype building, various large scale public art works, and a stunning work of landscape by Danish landscape architect C. T.h. Sørensen. Sørensen's "Geomtric Garden" is definitely the highlight of the area. A series of hedges in geomtric shapes create beautiful green outdoor rooms...the height of some of the tree-formed hedges are amazing! Most of the rooms are completely closed (as in a complete oval) with only two small people-sized openings and maybe one bench.
The museums are a bit underwhelming--and maybe this is the reason for a new one--being built by U.S. architect Steven Holl. The new Herning Art Museum or Heart, is about half-way built, and I was able to wander around (there are no gates or fences at many Danish construction sites) the raw spaces that will eventually house art works. For the geeks: Its built in pre-cast concrete with funky steel-trussed curvy roof planes. The photo above shows, I'm guessing, one of the large--open plan gallery spaces. Very promising. Link to the Heart website here.



These great roadside attractions were consistently the view from my rental car window.




Two Seas Meet
At the northern most tip of Denmark (see the map above) it is possible to walk all the way out to the last bit of land on the peninsula. This is where the North Sea meets the Baltic in an elemental clash of waves. The Danes refer to the two colliding water bodies by there names as straits (the Skagerrak and the Kattegat) instead of the two oceans... which, I guess, is a more local way of relating...

Global Positioning

I am back from five days of museum-hopping. With a GPS aboard the rental car, it was almost relaxing driving to and from each destination. Just type in the address and do what the nice GPS lady says--and bamm! you're there. So so great. I know this is old technology, but man I am just getting to take advantage. Currently, I am working on a printed booklet (that I will make available for download) documenting all the museums I visited. So, for the blog posts I will put some of the random-ish other or additional things from the trip. And by the way, I can now highly recommend couchsurfing.com. I couch surfed with two different hosts along the way and it was just fantastic... I met 3 friendly Danes a good-natured Lithuanian, and a Slovak kitten. Perfect! Oh, also, I stayed with my friend Mark's parents in northern Denmark and that was great too! They roasted a whole chicken and over wine we talked American politics and all sorts of this and that. Thanks Niels, thanks Susan.

Museum Hopping

Tonight I am doing all the last minute packing and address-gathering for a potentially mind-numbing trip to see ten art museums in central and western Denmark. I am working on a booklet that will document the trip with photos, notes, etc. Alright, it's go-time.

Survivors

A good example of some of the few old half-timber buildings that mostly burned down in Copenhagen's great fires during the 18th century. I'm not sure why some of these look like half-buildings also... did the other side burn, or maybe there was another building there at some point...?

The title slide of the powerpoint presentation had a picture of him giving a lecture somewhere else

I heard urban geographer Edward Soja from UCLA speak at the Danish Academy the other day. He mostly presented ideas from his last two books, namely the one called Post-Metropolis. There was a whole row of Seattle folks in the audience... five I think, great!