3rd Day: The Borders

Tuesday... cloudy but no rains... better than yesterday. The sun was showing itself slowly...

Like the Situationists would think: “The great game to come”(1)… like in a labyrinth… so, There I was... walking from my house to the unexpected... following the feelings of the paths, they were quietly taking me to the hills of Christiania's city. Passing through fencings, gates, bridges, staircases in wood... all sorts of architectonics elements was built in the middle of this amazing natural environment... There I could hear the sounds of many different birds and see the fishes swimming in the rivers. A couple of swans did remember my last love affair.

I was living an new urban experience: multiplicity of paths through the hills gave me an amazing sensation of freedom in a domestic nature. Tracks on, in, out, through, cross and across of the hills, taking me to find colored houses, fancies roofs, hiding-places in wood and many different artistic interventions... I felt like I was in Alice in Wonderland in the sixties.

Walking and delighting this delicate nature I didn't notice I was walking through the frontier of Christiania. The river at my side was a natural obstacle to get in the city and the hills works like walls to this land. Concerning of that, I went out of Christiania and this thinking was confirmed: From outside I couldn't see the city behind of the hills. So I decided to go up on the hills and there was another good surprise: The hills were the limit between both cities: Christiania and Copenhagen.

A new face of Christiania was becoming visible to me: the fortress. Your original style is apart of the Danish society. The outsiders feel alive in Christiania. An alternative way of life is possible in this contemporary European society. Christiania is a fortress till today.

1 CONSTANT. “O grande jogo do porvir”. (1959) IN JACQUES, Paola Berenstein (Org.). Apologia da Deriva: Escritos situacionistas sobre a cidade. Rio de Janeiro: Casa da Palavra, 2003, p.98

Some views found in Christiania's Borders