21st Day: How to improve Christiania’s Image

One of the challenges in study the Christiania Open Spaces is identify the problems of the city and propose improvements. Christiania is city full of personality. Any intervention in the Community needs to respect the way of life which was constructed almost 40 years ago.

The significant features about Christiania are: An urban space full of creativity expressed by artistic interventions and the Christiania’s history which contemplates politic, communal and environmental/natural aspects. The representative words for Christiania are: Art, History, Urban Space, Creativity, Politic, Nature and Community. Sure there are many other features in Christiania but these ones really stimulated me.

About studying the open spaces in Christiania I feel I should propose some new improvements which can highlight the Christiania’s attributes. To tide all these characteristics in a single project is the key for the success. An urban interference should deal with the community to improve these features instead of change anything in the Freetown. This is the way I’m thinking about the proposal I’ll show next week.

20th Day: 2 zones in Pusher Street

As I told you in a previous post, Christiania seems divided in 2 zones: Residential and Commercial. These 2 zones are used by different people. The residential one is used by people whom live in here and the commercial zone is a mix of people who lives in here and people who does not.

The Pusher Street is the main road in the Commercial Zone. Even this road is divided in two another parts. The first goes from the entrance to the Jazz Club. The second part goes from the Operaen to the Nemoland. We can notice a clear division of the urban space where the second part is used mainly by the hash dealers. Nowadays we notice a new configuration of the Pusher Street. The road seems to be changing its profile. The Pusher Street is the main entrance to Christiania. What the visitants thinks when they arrive in a Freetown which does have this configuration?

I think a city as a society where everybody does have your own place. The city is the intersection between the commonwealth and the individual interests. The society shouldn’t be divided… this division will be expressed in the urban space as it’s happening today. The bigger challenge of a city is how gather the different interests and purposes in the same space.

How to think a Pusher Street where everybody does have your place? Also the urban space is the place where everybody expresses the respect to the other people… Where is the place of the respect in the Christiania urban space?

The Map shows:

Yellow: Organized zone

Purple: Un-organized zone

Magenta: Intersection zone between Christiania and Copenhagen

19th Day: Two Higher Spots

Looking the Christiania skyline we can notice two higher constructions: The Chimney and the Tower of the Church. Maybe the people say: Why the Tower if Christiania doesn’t have any tower in its Church?

It’s really magical to be out of Christiania and look the horizon with these two focal points. I speak about the Tower of the Church Our Saviour because this tower is completely integrated with the Christiania’s image. The Vor Frelsers Kirke is a church sited outside Christiania. The tower does have a particular architectural design which is easily attributed to the Christiania’s urban space. The helicoidally shape tower with a sphere on the top is a quite strange image to a church… it’s even gold! The tower seems to be moving every time you look it. The same magical looping presents in the Christiania art design.

The Chimney is another different approach of this city. It is not preserved like a historical icon. It does have ivy in most part of the building. For me, the chimney works like an obelisk, a kind of troffy to this sustainable city. It’s a cultural troffy. And it looks perfectly good.

One tower and one chimney. The two visible points which take you out of order after you look to the horizon. There are no limits to the human creativity. The world can be happy with a lot of irony.

The Two Higher Spots

The Tower of the Church Our Saviour

The chimney covered of ivy

18th Day: The Architecture Which Came From the Dreams

Another particularity of Christiania is the character of its architecture. As Architect I might say: I couldn’t imagine or expect one thing like this before arrive in here.

The fantasy and the dream seem to arrived in here. We can live all sorts of combinations of shapes and colors by many different ways. Different scale and times living together, one house does have dragon’s eyes in the clocks of its chimney, another house does have a rocket at your door… Huge ladies in metal, dragons and monsters scattered through the whole city. The architecture is done by non-architects. It’s true and it works.

I’ve heard some interesting old histories about German builders, about carpenters and about local artists. I can’t think how they started the process of build a society like this at almost 40 years ago. I don’t even think they did it consciously. The people who started this process learned how to live in a place without any rules but respecting each other. This is the most important rule.

I feel like living in a playground. My childhood seems never get over. I walk through the roads with a smile on my face. I start my creative process even looking my real world. The magical real one.

One Indian influence…

A dragon chimney

House near of the Kindergarten

A house that looks like 3 instead 1

17th Day: The Two Big Flows

There were some days I notice one thing: the incredible number of people coming and going from Christiania. Approaching this matter I notice two big and fast flows of people in the city: The tourists and the hash buyers.

I ask with myself: Why people are interested in Christiania? Why the tourists? Why the hash buyers? At the first glace it’s very easy and simple to answer: 1) Because here there’s one of the fewer and important “Alternative community” in urban areas in the world; 2) Because the buyers can’t buy freely in another place of the Copenhagen.

I don’t know if Christiania doesn’t have a good image to all of the Danish society. I think some of them link Christiania with the hash market. Some Christiania’s residents think that it’s impossible to survive without the hash market because it attracts the tourist and without the tourism many of their commercial houses and restaurants would be broken.

I don’t think it really works like this. I notice the tourist groups going inside Christiania and not only at the Pusher Street where is sited the hash market. It shows us different interests in the Freetown Christiania. I believe the things like: Christiania’s history, the urban artistic interventions, the character of its urban space, the sustainable development, the funny of its buildings, the art done by non-artists, the alternative society in the middle of a great European city… so… there’s a lot of different reasons to people come here.

Nowadays I wonder what would happen to Christiania if the Danish Govern legalizes the hash market… I don’t think that Christiania would disappear… maybe the commercial one but only the hash market one. Christiania has really beautiful spaces where people can come and smoke and feel free and happy. As I told you before: The Freetown has a rich urban spatiality that Copenhagen can’t have by itself. Christiania does have a special enough character to attract more and more people… even more without the stigma of the hash market.

16th Day: The open spaces

I use to study open spaces where I live, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. I think it’s a good time to write about it.

Christiania does have some good open spaces. Some of them are very well used while others are not. The good ones are the Nemoland square, the cafe square and the little playground in front of the Loppen. They are normally used by the bars nearest and as playgrounds by the children. They help to characterize the urban space.

The ones which are no very well utilized are the green area near of the skate indoor, the entrance space and the one between Operaen and the Nemoland. These spaces do have a big area and a big potential. They can be used by many different ways but in the moment they are abandoned, without any care and seems to be a kind of space without any meaning. It’s an urban problem which needs to be solved otherwise there’s a big chance of Christiania earns unpleasant spaces.

The abandonment of the open spaces propitiates an unexpected use like illegal commerce and garbage storage. These kinds of uses create a bad image of the city. Who seize these abandoned open spaces are mainly people whom doesn’t even care of the space … they are a kind of parasite of the space. They use it because the space doesn’t seem to have owner.

Some of the open spaces in Christiania do have fences. I ask myself what it better to do: Close the space with fence and doesn’t care of it of leave the space open keeping of it…

The urban space of Christiania is really beautiful today but it’s threatened by disengagement of their owners who doesn’t care about them. The open spaces of a city are the place where the community gather and share communal things and celebrations. I think about to improve these open spaces ;-)

Open Spaces in Christiania