06_a path & a park

Two days before July, and two days after we were assigned our rented bikes, Magdalena introduced us to Rasmus Frisk. Recognizable by his unique accent and popular TEDx Talk, Rasmus is the founder and leader of his urban design firm, arki_lab, which is headquartered in Copenhagen with another office in Sydney. Like his fellow citizens,…

Memories of Malmö

Near the end of June, we learned that the municipalities of Copenhagen, Denmark and Malmö, Sweden are essentially separated in distance, time, culture, and history by less than 10 miles of water and a small island. Traveling between the two cities takes about an hour, and involves a train ride both under and over the…

05_tietgen dormitory

The Tietgen Dormitory is an architectural fan favorite of several Auburn architecture students and its plan has been studied for countless housing studio projects. Visiting it in person left me starstruck, and its ArchDaily page really didn't do it justice. The dormitory houses graduate students at Copenhagen University and sits right beside a couple of…

copenhagen continued

If you've been keeping up with this blog then you may have realized that our trip has come to a close and most of us have returned back home to the United States. Our days abroad were so incredible and jam-packed that experiencing Copenhagen and writing about it was difficult to do so quickly. The…

04_superkilen

A half mile in length, Superkilen Park winds its way through the west side of Nørrebro. The expanding and contracting wedge fills in the previously unprogrammed space among Copenhagen's most diverse neighborhoods and housing blocks. The project mainly involved landscaping, urban planning, and streetscape design and was intended to reflect the surrounding ethnic diversity with…

03_grundtvigs kirke

North of the Nørrebro area of Copenhagen in a startlingly well-coordinated neighborhood stands the memorial church of N. F. S. Grundtvig, a famous hymn-writer and educator. The church was designed in 1913 by Peder V. J. Klint. The Danish architect also designed the exteriors of the homes that surround the church to match his yellow-brick,…

02_black diamond

Affectionately nicknamed, the Black Diamond, this addition to the original Danish Royal Library is located on the Southeast water edge of Power Island. Completed in 1999 by Danish architects, SHL, the library also holds a photography museum, a cartoon museum, several exhibition spaces, and a 600-person auditorium. The project includes the private programming in the gray…

Time Traveling with Dr. Courtney Coyne-Jensen

The past two days of our Copenhagen excursions have been lead by the brilliant Dr. Courtney Coyne-Jensen. A long time friend of Magdalena's, we borrowed her from her usual day job of teaching in Malmö, Sweden. Casually stepping through time as we turned corner after corner, Dr. Jensen gave us just a snippet of her…

01_rundetåarn

Day one of our class time abroad began at 9:30am this morning at The Round Tower (Rundetåarn) in the heart of Copenhagen. As a large scale construction, the tall building holds a landmark status both on a map and in time. The Round Tower was built in 1642 by King Christian IV as an observatory…

First Impressions

Obviously, there are bicycles everywhere you look. Possibly an infinite number of bikes: as many and as unique as the people we've seen walking around. There are wide bicycle lanes, special street lights, and bike racks galore and they certainly do not go unused. You'll never know how many street items can be chained up…