7th Day: The Events in Christiania

Today I visited a friend in the Gallopperiet Gallery, the Art Gallery in Christiania. We had a nice chat. He presented me the old and the new Christiania Map and told me about some events that usually happens in Christiania.

As many others cities in the world, Christiania does have your Cinema, your Church, your Art Gallery and your open parties. The Cinema uses to open every Sunday at 21 pm; the Church at the same time. The Art Gallery uses to open every day from 14 to 19h but Monday (Every Sunday the artists use to goes there so, it’s a nice day to visit it).

Today is happening an interesting party at “The Beach”, a place in the border of the lake and near of the kindergarten. The Event is called Sølyst and there is presentation of little boys and girls that use to sing traditional Danish songs. They are very pretty. After the show we’ll a lunch and around 20h will start the presentation of young bands… at the night I think will be there some DJs so, there’s parties for all ages in the same place :-)

The Nemoland is a little public square that uses to take open air shows every Sunday. It gather a lot of young to hear music and to do picnic. Christiania is a place full of events… the city seems blooming every day. Today I noticed a new pamphlet with the dates of the next Christiania Festival (June 26^th and 27^th). There is events also to those doesn’t use to come to music events: free workshops, meditation’s house, vegetarian restaurant and some cafes with no smoking areas.

I think there’s a bit for everybody.

View of the Nemoland from up to the hill

Loppen and Gallopperiet Building near the entrace

The kindergarten

The Sølyst

6th Day: I look for a friend at the weekend

It’s almost 10Pm and I can even see the sunlight. It’s a bit strange to me, Brazilian, who doesn’t have the sunlight around 6pm. Seems the night doesn’t arrives in Christiania.

Sure the Christiania doesn’t have the night… the same way she don’t even have the morning. The time in Christiania is only one… The city has the same melody, the same rhythm 24h per day. Sun or rain. Day or night. Every other day. The number of people crossing its streets doesn’t increase or decrease. It never stops. The time seems in a looping in here.

As many other cities in the world, Christiania is a place to be lived together. She does have comfortable places where you can be alone but the synchrony with the city came when you’re in couple or more. I didn’t live it yet but I can feel it. She looks like the Lapa in Rio de Janeiro, or like the Chinatown in London, or even like Taksim in Turkey. I look for a friend to the next weekend.

The fashion places in here seem to be the Nemoland, the Woodstock and the Lopen. They concentrate the greatest number of people. The fireplaces at the cans in the dark streets warm our slow ride. The rock’n roll and the warm chats’ sounds don’t allow the silence of the night. The sunlight takes time to get out. Christiania doesn’t close her eyes.

The Nemoland at night 01

The Nemoland at night 02

5th Day: A Little Tour

Walking unadvertised through the Pusher Street I found one of the friends who invited me to come to Christiania. He was very kind to introduce me faster in a short tour.

Walking by the principal streets he told me about a day in a month when everybody gets a tool and helps to “clean” Christiania! But the surprise came when he spoke that everybody should get a bath before/after of it! This kind of “Day of cleaning” is the kind of thing that helps the place to be how it is: personal and humane.

Walking through the city, we showed me the place where the machines of Christiania are stored, where the garbage goes, the laundry, the bakery, the postal office, the art gallery, the workshops and a skate park indoor! That fascinated me. He told me they need to have everything that a normal city does have because Copenhagen doesn’t help them with anything.

I felt very happy because it makes me feel an active citizen in this city. It is like: Do by your city because it needs of you. I could notice that in most of the big cities the citizen doesn’t feel like participant of that. In most of cases we seem to be a prisoner of a huge system of bureaucracy and rules. I feel integrated at the Christiania Freetown.

4th Day: The private and the public Christiania

I decided to get in the center of Christiania’s Freetown after to know its borders yesterday. Walking from my house in direction to the Pusher Street I could notice that this city is divided in two zones. One zone is a kind of private and residential zone while the other is more public and commercial.

The private zone is located to at the north of the island and the public one is around southwest. This division is exhibited even in its architecture: the private zone has little and wooden houses while the public one have buildings constructed with brick and most of them has more than 2 pavements.

These buildings in bricks have no farfetched architecture. They seem old and in some cases seem abandoned. But it’s a mistake. If we look near, we’ll see a lot of pamphlets pasted in the walls that annunciate the party or other events that will happen in the next days at night. They seem to be very useful to the people that go there at night.

An interesting thing is about the people who go to the public zone because they don’t even use go to the private one. It’s like a kind of natural regulation by the urban space. In most of the contemporary cities we use to see this division by the use of wall or fences but in Christiania the urban space is open and free to everybody.

An old construction covered with green

A typical house in wood

One of the old buildings constructed in brick

The integration between the houses in wood and the old buildings in bricks

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

2nd Day: The Second Glance: "Times goes by... so slowly..."

Monday, raining. The weather forecast advises: much rain for the next 3 days. Result: Walk through the city with rain and temperature around 57ºF (12ºC).

I intended to walk through the Copenhagen’s Center. I believe it's a good way to understand the urban context which Christiania is inserted. It's a way which I believe I could link Copenhagen and Christiania.

At the first 15 minutes walking, Copenhagen showed itself beautiful and charming, having a labored and European architecture in most of your buildings. In the next 4:15h... the city became itself in a circus for the monotony, the boredom and the repetition. Buildings with 5 floors, with regular volume and with colors from the same palette, cooperate to keeps the silent environment of the homogeneity. The people walk through cyclists and runners in the streets. The education, the discretion and the individuality are elements so valued like the welfare, the security and the fashion. The Copenhagen’s Center is the place for the certainty, the predictability and for the personal cold.

This society seems learned that modernity doesn't mean pomp. Now they increase the value of a simple life without extravagance. I noticed it looking its urban space: the number of green areas, the few number of cars on the large streets and the absence of visual pollution giving place to a creative and modest urban art.

In the first moment, Christiania was similar a place for the teenager's leisure... Now I understand Christiania lives because Copenhagen need her. At a metropolis where even the green parks are places for the rationality and the regularity, Christiania is strong enough to be the breath of a so controlled society.

Street Patterns in Copenhagen

1st Day: The First Glance

The arrival in Christiania was quiet and comfortable. Walking through the Prinsessegade Road after get out of the metro, I could see the first wood gateway. There was written in golden and irregular wood: Christiania. At the first moment, it sounds like a land for the dreams and the fantasy.

In this evening, the music's presence was notable. In the main square which I don't even know the name, was happening a little show. In this sunny Sunday, the rock with shrill guitars seems to be the background for the casual meeting of children, teenagers, adults and elderly. The people are on benches, on the floor, on the bikes, on the hills and on the sliders deep in the woods. The freedom doesn’t seem to have a finish in here...even the trees are decorated with shinnies.

The rivers, the green in high size and the old storages made up in bricks, isolate Christiania from Copenhagen. Getting in this warm and colored environment leaves to forget we're in European Union and so, we delight the nature and the casual.

My intention was start my job since that moment but I was advised by one of the young boys that I could not shot in there. He showed me the many advises "No photo please" that I couldn't read due my distraction. I ask myself how I should work when the videos and photos are so essential to me...

30 days in Christiania... This is the period of time I intends to be at this city. For me, a urban planner, it looks much more like a small village than a city.

The main entrace in Christiania

Christiania in Copenhaguen's Map