Copenhagen @ October 2011
The Nordic of all Nordic towns, so close and so far from core land Europe, tough part of it, is a miniature.
It belongs to the very nature of miniature, that they develope a sort of solid and not reproducible own life, which transform them, away from originals they attempted primarily to imitate. On some precise stage of history they have nothing in common with the original. That seems to be the fate of Copenhagen.
Seen in its pure existence, as a place of urban space, the town is just a blurred copy of any ! nord German Town. The morbid charme of any ! Prussian town is imposed on Copenhagen and determines its image and its destiny. The frozen urban structure of towns build in protestants regions of Northern Europe in last four centuries and later as its blurred and obscene version, thus puritanism, in the US, are depressingly prevalent on any street of Copenhagan, on any public place and virulently on any geometric perspective.
Copenhagen is just the actual, nice, slim and effecient format of a urban space, wich is, in terms of urban developement, backed by the paradigms of the terrible past and more depressing present of any! town in North and East of Germany. Not merely the unbelivable visual "dryness" (C) and anti-picturesque emphasis of this place is a marker for its very structure in the real of urban living, but more then that, the lack of any! statement seems to be the strongest value it radiates. Copenhagen is saying nothing to you, just nothing.
While the local government is suggesting to the inhabitants and with more brand consciousness to the visitors and potential visitors that this is the future. Browsing the streets and places in loco makes you believe that THE suggested future of the ideal urban space and of the optimal eco friendly living style have never been and that it will never come to the realm of our sensory system, not here. One has to admitt that the ideology of the altertnative live style, the NORDIC one, with its huge conventional imagery plenty of bicycles, bicycle ways, bicycle products, and, naturally, with its claimed "Design Turn" (C) is just another nice branding idea for a place of 600000 people away from all main cultural roads in the reformated global village we live in. In this way, it is understandable why Copenhagen trys to transform and re-narrates its dry and distant face into a wild, innovative, sustainable, eco friendly, alternative, organic, design driven and NORDIC things. What they attempt to make us believe in a persistent and sucessful way, is to ignore/ to forget the trancendent core of this place, which is its inherent ultra-protestant emptyness. A virulent and infictive emptyness, or if you like it: a metaphysical VOID, that is evident and unavoidable in the very vibes of the urban architecture and in internal space of imagery, literature, cinema, art. It is even evident with an enforced rhythmic presence in the worst version of post-liberal ideology: local politics, be it left or right or green or red. As terrible, as its more perverse version of "protestant ethics" (cave: Max Weber & co) : namely the calvinistic ideology and its real materialisation, which is Switzerland; Copenhagen is the miniature of an utopian world of ideas, thus images and words: a dry and distant place, free of chaos, joy, warmth, movement and uncertainty.
Copenhagen is one of most liveable in all recent surveys.
It is a place for clarity of mind, brightness of spaces, organic food for a healthy body, bicycles as vehicles of ideology, design as escapism and a lot of fresh air. What do you need more?
Copenhagen @ October 2011
First of all and foremost is Cøbnhavn an illustration.
The Nordic of all Nordic towns, so close and so far from core land Europe, tough part of it, is a miniature.
It belongs to the very nature of miniature, that they develope a sort of solid and not reproducible own life, which transform them, away from originals they attempted primarily to imitate. On some precise stage of history they have nothing in common with the original. That seems to be the fate of Copenhagen.
Seen in its pure existence, as a place of urban space, the town is just a blurred copy of any ! nord German Town. The morbid charme of any ! Prussian town is imposed on Copenhagen and determines its image and its destiny. The frozen urban structure of towns build in protestants regions of Northern Europe in last four centuries and later as its blurred and obscene version, thus puritanism, in the US, are depressingly prevalent on any street of Copenhagan, on any public place and virulently on any geometric perspective.
Copenhagen is just the actual, nice, slim and effecient format of a urban space, wich is, in terms of urban developement, backed by the paradigms of the terrible past and more depressing present of any! town in North and East of Germany. Not merely the unbelivable visual "dryness" (C) and anti-picturesque emphasis of this place is a marker for its very structure in the real of urban living, but more then that, the lack of any! statement seems to be the strongest value it radiates. Copenhagen is saying nothing to you, just nothing.
While the local government is suggesting to the inhabitants and with more brand consciousness to the visitors and potential visitors that this is the future. Browsing the streets and places in loco makes you believe that THE suggested future of the ideal urban space and of the optimal eco friendly living style have never been and that it will never come to the realm of our sensory system, not here. One has to admitt that the ideology of the altertnative live style, the NORDIC one, with its huge conventional imagery plenty of bicycles, bicycle ways, bicycle products, and, naturally, with its claimed "Design Turn" (C) is just another nice branding idea for a place of 600000 people away from all main cultural roads in the reformated global village we live in. In this way, it is understandable why Copenhagen trys to transform and re-narrates its dry and distant face into a wild, innovative, sustainable, eco friendly, alternative, organic, design driven and NORDIC things. What they attempt to make us believe in a persistent and sucessful way, is to ignore/ to forget the trancendent core of this place, which is its inherent ultra-protestant emptyness. A virulent and infictive emptyness, or if you like it: a metaphysical VOID, that is evident and unavoidable in the very vibes of the urban architecture and in internal space of imagery, literature, cinema, art. It is even evident with an enforced rhythmic presence in the worst version of post-liberal ideology: local politics, be it left or right or green or red. As terrible, as its more perverse version of "protestant ethics" (cave: Max Weber & co) : namely the calvinistic ideology and its real materialisation, which is Switzerland; Copenhagen is the miniature of an utopian world of ideas, thus images and words: a dry and distant place, free of chaos, joy, warmth, movement and uncertainty.
Copenhagen is one of most liveable in all recent surveys.
It is a place for clarity of mind, brightness of spaces, organic food for a healthy body, bicycles as vehicles of ideology, design as escapism and a lot of fresh air. What do you need more?
Copenhagen @ October 2011
First of all and foremost is Cøbnhavn an illustration.
