Copenhagen CityRingen Metro
This is the view from our apartment window at the moment:
As you can see it's not that glamourous do to the Metro extension project underway in the city. The view from our window should be of a lovely green park stretching down the middle of Sønder Boulevard, as it does further down the road. Thankfully the construction work has been largely noise free as they are building the new Metro station deep underground. There was just one night where they pumped concrete underground for 36 hours none stop; it was good fun to watch the endless stream of cement mixers!
As alluded to in some other blog entries this is all due to the construction of Copenhagen's CityRingen or as we'd call it in the UK a circle line. At various points in the city you can see into the construction site and look at whats happening. Also appended to the hordings is information detailing the project.
I noted that Sønder Boulevard had it's own special blue square on the plan accompanied by the word skaktsarbejdspladser an impressive 20 letter word that needed investigating. This is a good example of the Danish knack for compound words similar to the approach used in Germany. Google translate tells me that the phrase means Shaft Work. I suspect this isn't a wider comment on Vesterbro's reputation but a comment that this is where big gear is being sent underground; literally shaft-work-place.
One of the first things we noticed when we arrived in CPH was the plethora of street art and graffiti on the building site screens. Imogen quickly learnt where our apartment was; next to the polar bear in the floating bubble and just before the giant purple octopus. This artwork really brings something to the city at the moment and it will be a shame when it's gone.
The best of the artworks are those that are interactive of which there are a few dotted around the city. When Imogen, Albert and I were on the way to the library this week we were lucky enough to catch an artist at work on a new installation. I had a chat to him and he explained that you have to apply to the metro company to be assigned a space; once your stuffs up it's there for either four or six months. Here's his contribution at Enghave Plads, the wheel of niceness (sounds a bit like an Edward Monkton book):
It's a bit like a random act of kindness generator, spin the wheel read your act and carry it out. We had a spin on the way to pick up some Danish pastries from Brød as a breakfast treat for Rich and Natalia's visit. Imogen got "Smile" (not an issue for her), I got "You look amazing hug yourself", whilst Uncle Rich had to give Imogen a hug. We all left feeling positive and nice! The biggest installation at the moment also aimed at inducing a feeling of wellbeing is the Happy Wall at Konigs Nytor.
This is a large wall of coloured squares that can be flipped over to show the colour or black. The first few times we walked past we didn't partake but we first got stuck in with Andy and Fi doing the basics of names. I had to stop at Imo as someone else was writing their name. But pretty boring huh? A bit like googling yourself. So with Richard and Natalia this week we stepped it up a gear. Gaining control of the ladder (important to reach the higher tiles) I was able to cobble together a yellow cat/lion type thing. Whilst I was doing this I did draw a mini crowd and I felt a bit like a street artist.
Imogen is now dreaming up impossibly difficult pictures for me to create next time we walk past. Ultimately it would be very satisfying to do a design across the whole wall. I'd have to get there for 4am though to ensure exclusivity so I'm not sure it will happen.
One thing I'm sure of though. We'll definitely be back in CPH post 2018 so that we can see it in it's full glory: a complete Sønder Boulevard; a pristine Konigs Nytor; a lawn in front of Statens Kunst Musee. Well probably take a ride on the CityRingen as well.
