Began the day with Johannes accompanying me by bus to Lyngby ( pronounced Lungbue ) It is a leafy suburb of Copenhagen where I lived with a Danish woman who gave me a room in her home when I attended architecture school at the University of Copenhagen for a summer in 1977. I had fond memories of that summer and wanted to see the house again. Gretli, of course, would not be there, she was in here fifties back then and would be close to 100 today. Johannes had done academic work at the technical university that was right next door and he was very curious to see where I had lived. I of course remembered nothing of the route from the subway station so if Johannes had not been there the walk would have been much more tiresome. His company and relentless good cheer made the whole morning a joy. We found our way but alas the house was no longer there. I am convinced that the University had taken it over for expansion. Still it was fun to see “the old neighborhood” and the walk from Lyngby Center was as pleasant as my company. It amazing to see how much of your memory is erased in 40 years. And, what remnants are left. The walk down memory lane was nice and with that Johannes suggested I take a trip to the future by riding the new subway out to Ørestad (don’t even ask how to pronounce this) This is an entire new part of metropolitan Copenhagan began in 2002 and still going strong. 

A soon as I got out of the elevated subway car I felt like I was in a sci-fi movie about the future.

Everything was gigantic and brand new. It was also beyond human scale by a factor of ten. The empty plazas around the building were oversized and under peopled. The roads were wide and straight which made all walks seem endless.

The endless avenue.

The area was adjacent to a giant shopping mall call Fields which had the same shops at home and a food court that served a form of burger at each restaurant. It didn’t matter if the food was presented as Italian, Mexican or even Chinese they had a burger front and center on the menu.

Sidewalk experience.

Everything in the mall was hyper modern, Video screens jumped out at you from every surface and even the map kiosk presented the pathway to your requested destination with an animation. Outside were lonely smokers perched on benches mouths around their smokes with their phones pressed to their ear. There was no reason to linger outside as there was nothing to look at except blank walls and an occasional  person here and there scurrying toward the entry’s to the buildings afraid of getting picked off by a sniper.

Albert Speer would love this!

This area makes City Hall Plaza in Boston look positively welcoming and make Albert Speer (Hitler’s favorite architect) proud. As far as I’m concerned the architects of this part of the city should be indicted for crimes against humanity. Now to be fair Steine said she liked it and called me an old fart. Said it was the age difference. Maybe, but I would love to see who really wants to live there in 20 years.

In the end Johannes was delighted that I got to see this and was happy for my experience. I described the journey from Lyngby to Ørestad as cultural whiplash. What an experience!