Copenhagen: a Trip Report

Both I and L. like to go on short trips. Stay away for two nights and then head home. Fill your vacation with a couple of such trips, and the weeks you have at your disposal feel longer. Much longer than when going for a long trip.

Short trips need a little planning, especially with kids. Our trip to Copenhagen this week, however, needed re-planning every hour during the second day of our stay, as L. got sick with food poisoning (I suspect the soft ice at Tivoli, L’s not so sure). Thus, our plans to go to Louisiana were sadly scrapped. (But the Jean Nouvel exhibition continues until September 18, and I hope I’ll be able to go there before it ends.)

I had an hour or two to myself, which I decided to spend visiting Dansk Arkitektur Center. I had tried to find out where the Danish Jewish Museum was, but couldn’t find it on the map. Then, as I was taking pictures of the Royal Library, I turned around and saw a sign.

I wanted to see it as its interior is by architect Daniel Libeskind. I’ve never seen any of his buildings, so this was a first to me. And it was a strange experience. I knew from what I’ve read and pictures I’ve seen that the walls were skewed. But I didn’t know that the floor was as well, and together, this makes you feel very unsure as you walk through the exhibition. You take one step, and suddenly the floor is angled slightly different. In the film room, short clip of Libeskind is run where he says that his interior design tells a story. I’m not sure what it says, but at least the skewed walls and floorboards made me more focused.

On the way from the Jewish Museum to the Architecture Center, I caught a glimpse of the new opera house.

The exhibition at the Architecture Center wasn’t too exciting, titled “Dream of Tower” and featuring several 1:200 scale models of skyscrapers from all over the world. It was interesting to compare the size of the buildings, but overall it was a quick walk through.

At the airport heading home on the third day, I was thinking as I confusedly navigated the tax free shop about what Daniel Libeskind’s interior design would do for the tax-free shopping experience. It seems that what they (the conspiratorial “they”) want to achieve is disabling your rationality. They want to give you the feeling that there was something you were supposed to buy, but you’re not sure of what. But they manage quite well without Libeskind. Eventually, I pulled myself together and realized that I didn’t need to pay DKK 40 more for a bottle of Poire au Cognac than I could have gotten it for at the Irma on Vesterbrogade.