Culture Night

Friday night was Culture Night.  It is an evening where every museum, gov't agency, organization, church and association holds an open house.  There are more than 300 venues and about 100,000 people roamed the streets from 5 pm til midnight, stopping in and looking around places which usually aren't open to the public.  There were long lines in front of the parliment where one could meet the new female prime minister and look into the chambers where they govern.  The Supreme Court was open, the tax office ( I'm sure there must have been a long line there, waiting to talk to some actuaries), the town hall. etc.  We bought our 90 kroner button and got a 100 page brochure of all the venues and what they were offering.  We stopped at only a few places, though we could have taken 3 days to see it all.

First stop was the Danish Architecture Center where there was an exhibit on new urban developments which incorporate the best in Danish style, mixed use, pedestrian and bike oriented, mixed income and a mixture of high, dense apartment buildings and low, shared housing space, space for soccer playing and playgrounds, shops, etc.  The most delightful aspect was that I understood the young man's presentation in Danish!  Upstairs the kids activity was to build a future city of cardboard and paper, like the displays downstairs.

We came out into a splendid fall sunset overlooking the canal and the Royal Library.

  

Next stop, the Gov't Archives, where Nhat did his PhD research 20 years ago.  It is housed in a building from 1603.  There people were perusing ship's logs from a journey taken in 1749 which one could page through.  The children there were learning to write old Danish script with quill pens and ink.

The lines were too long to go into parliment and the stock exchange (build in the 1500's) so we went to Christiansborg Palace, and the Queen's reception room.  There we donned the plastic booties we were to wear several times that evening, to protect the marble and wooden floors.  The palace was resplendent with marble walls, crystal chandeliers and a display of the handpainted desert plates used for royal occasions.  The Royal band was playing a rousing concert.  We exited through this hall where we surreptiously took a photo.  I particularly like the statues, holding up the palace.  Probably represents the common Dane supporting the royal family and how they feel about it.  We also heard the organ concert in the Palace church.

 

Walked through throngs of people to the city cathedral and listened to the Copenhagen's Boys Choir sing beautifully in the soaring nave.  I strongly felt a connection with Nhat's parents who would go to church there in 1938 and Edna wrote about listening to the choir there at the time.

We headed to the main public library where they were featuring hippies.  You can imagine the scene.  Nhat shanghaied one of the first six occupiers of Christiania coming out of the public bathroom to have his picture taken with him.  Christania is the "free state" in Copenhagen which to this day is a living 40-year-old social experiment in hippiedom.

Stopped in a few places and then the Design Museum of Denmark.  There they had a fantastic exhibit of furniture.   Despite it being an exhibit of fine furniture, we could touch, sit on and try out the furniture.  I loved the cabinet, with its four sides which opened and the adjustable shelves inside.

We ended the evening at the Kastellet, the original fort from 1600's built on the harbor.  We heard about life in the barracks in the 1600's.  By now, it was 11:30 and we were spent after 6 hours walking on cobblestones.  We hopped onto the harbor busboat, which dropped us off at the Metro, which we took to a bus which dropped us off on our street.  All free with our KultureNat button.

 It seemed as though all of Copenhagen was out.  Our only disappointment was that we didn't have the energy to go out to Carlsberg brewery for the "after-party" which went until 4 am.  Maybe next time.