The Hagen

Stockholm Part Two.

We woke up as usual on study tours too early for our day of trips around Stockholm. We began the day taking the metro (Copenhagen’s is better!) to a cemetery. Yes a cemetery. Skogskyrkogarden, Woodland Cemetery. It was truly a beautiful place. I noticed the circulation through the site as I entered through a narrow marble enclosure into the large open vast entrance field of the site.

Until this point we usually visit places of historic value, or architecture importance but they are always pretty much unused. Woodland Cemetery is currently a working cemetery and crematoria. Which became very clear to us as we started touring the many chapels. At the Woodland Chapel, we were studying Gunnar Asplands dome and circulation through the church, and all of a sudden a coffin gets wheeled into the room and placed on its alter bed. After the initial shock that we were in the room with a person in that coffin, we actually realized that this was a great indicator of scale in a room! It was definitely an experience I wont soon forget.

We began to tour the grounds and its name became apparent. It was essentially a cemetery inside a forest. We toured the other chapels and then headed out, caught the train by seconds and moved through the city to the Stockholm Public Library, my building for assignment two! It was amazing actually being inside the library, but after a little while my friends and I decided that it was definitely time to leave and go explore the city for the rest of the day/night. The four of us grabbed a quick lunch and headed out into the city to wander, get lost and explore. We definitely achieved all three. Sketched by the water front, wandered into a church and got lost in the new modern districts of Stockholm. It was an amazing afternoon! We made it back to our hostel just as the sun was setting, perfect timing. For dinner that night we looked around our area which was apparently the Vesterbro of Stockholm, we found this great place and have some nice Swedish Italian Pasta. We enjoyed a nice Monday night out in Stockholm, at a bar that only had spanish speakers. Thank god for highschool spanish. 

Our final day in Sweden we toured a a sustainable community called Hammerby. The urban environment was great, and it was so much fun touring around the town with our group. After a sushi lunch (I highly recommend the asian bistro buffet future DIS students!!) we got back on the tram and headed to an Architects office where we got a great tour and presentation. Afterwards we had a meet and greet session with them, a full spread and free access to their coffee machine meant that we would be alive and well in preparation for our cruise that night. The boat was sweet! Its actually a huge ship, we had an unlimited food and drink dinner and a night to remember (or to not) on the ship. In the morning, we docked in Finland at 645am exhausted and needing a few more hours of sleep. But this is study tour, you can sleep when your dead. 

Stockholm Day One.

The long awaited long study tour has arrived. As I am writing this I cannot believe that it has happened already. The study tour in my head was always so far away, and now that it has came and went it is making me realize how fast time moves here! 

I guess I will start at the beginning, I was a little bummed when I saw the tour lists and pretty much all of my friends were on one and I was on another. I had pretty low expectations for the trip as I woke up at 5 am to hop on the metro and race to the airport to catch our flight to Sweden. It was pretty much naps to sweden, but as we touched down in Stockholm, we saw the frost had frozen the forest surrounding the airport, and the sun was just rising in the sky. If thats not a good omen than I don’t know what would be. 

We took a bus from the airport into town meanwhile listing to our professor Kelly talking about the design of the Stockholm airport. Though its apparent the distaste Danes have for Swedes, it was interesting to hear his perspective. He was a designer of the Copenhagen Airport Terminal Three, and comparing that piece of art to other airports across Scandinavia made me being to think about architecture as identity. 

We began to explore the old town, Gamla Stan and the medieval qualities seen there. 

After wandering around sketching, eating and realizing we were in Stockholm, it was time to compare these winding narrow streets to the modernist movement of Urban Design in Sweden at Sergels Torg. 

This space was created in the 1960s and largely separates people from cars which in theory sounds good, but this area is often darker from no cars and thus has become dangerous at night. We then wandered around the Kulure Huset, a building that houses a library, dance studio, cafes and lots of other community engagement activities. Oh and these awesome chairs: 

After this we headed out to some museum and pretty much all exhibits were closed but they had a great book sale going on, one book for approximately $70 USD. Way within my budget. 

For dinner we were treated by DIS to a traditional Swedish meal of Meatballs berries and potatos. A great end to the day. 

Study Tour!

With DIS (pronounced D-I-S by the americans and as an actual word DIS by the danes) we are sent on our short study tour based on our program. For the Architecture and Design students were all mixed together, placed on a bus and sent to western Denmark (to which my danish friends were very upset because there is no “western” Denmark, its all just Denmark.) Regardless It was an early friday morning and its becoming typical that I just catch the bus as its leaving. Might have something to do with the fact that I packed that morning also. We were treated to some Danish pastries, and a morning nap on the coach. 

This was the first time I have had to listen to my ipod in such a long time! I was almost overwhelmed by all the choices I could listen to, it was very strange. I have to now put a plug in for my sister, because it hit me that she was obviously who I was going to first listen to. I mean how could you not want to?  

Anyways moving on, I am now realizing that this will be a several post series because I took 458 photos in 2.5 days. We arrived in Kolding at the Trapolt Museum, there special exhibit at the time was furniture and specifically chairs. When we heard this, pretty much all 40 kids on the bus started freakin’ out. For some reason all designers (architects, interior architects, urbanists) love chairs. Needless the say, it did not disappoint. 

The museum its self was what we were suppose to be looking at, the space was stunning, its its lighting strategies and effects worked very well, here are some examples of that:

Kronborg Castle

Well hey there. My fellow architect in crime Karina and I had both signed up for the DIS tour to Kronborg. It was so cool!!! We made it to the bus with seconds to spare before to departed along the coast to the town of Helsingør (Elsinore in english). I am so glad we caught that bus! We started off the day exploring the little town. It was so interesting to see the vernacular architecture of the town. So beautiful, colorful and historic (I assume). We were starving so we grabbed lunch at cafe Andre. Good choice by us. I am normally opposed to posting food pictures, taking them too but this was just too good to be true. This was my 35DKK ($7, so cheap for denmark!!) sandwich. 

After that we explored the town for a little while longer, 

Finally we made it back to the bus and set off to the castle! 

The castle was amazing. Its history complex and I highly recommend this trip to all future students! One negative. It was freezing, and believe it or not, 15th century castles are not heated. So now, I have a cold. But not to fear mom and dad! For I have friends on the pre-med track! (Eliza fix me!!) 

Now to do some research for my studio project which is re-designing Israel Plads checkout this example from BIG. and COBE