There’s more to Copenhagen than fairytales. As the city’s stint as ‘World Capital of Architecture’ shows, imagination can be found on every street corner...
As the coolest kid on the Scandi block, Copenhagen has it all: good looks, smarts and influence that far exceeds its size. Where else can you dive straight into a once-polluted inner-city harbour, ski down an eco-friendly power plant or cycle across a ‘Circle Bridge’ designed by art-world superstar Olafur Eliasson? While not short on cobbled streets and fairy-tale palaces, Denmark’s capital is a metropolis of the future – a clean, green marvel of electric-powered ferries and cutting-edge architecture as striking as it is sustainable.
The next couple of years are big ones for Copenhagen. In January last year, it kicked off its three-year term as the UNESCO-UIA ‘World Capital of Architecture’. To celebrate, the city is serving up a bumper programme of special events, including talks, tours and exhibitions, many of them hosted at the Danish Architecture Center (DAC). Located inside Rem Koolhaas’ iconic BLOX building, the centre recently debuted its own inaugural permanent exhibition, So Danish, an interactive survey of Danish architecture from Viking times to the present. It’s a fitting addition to a city that has given the world architectural design deities such as Modernist Arne Jacobsen and of-the-moment star Bjarke Ingels. The works of both are featured on the free DAC app, which offers themed self-guided tours of Copenhagen’s most fascinating buildings. Among these are Peder Vilhelm Jensen-Klint’s ecclesiastical masterpiece Grundtvigs church, Schmidt Hammer Lassen’s showstopping ‘Black Diamond’ Royal Library extension and 3XN’s shimmering, whirlpool-inspired Den Blå Planet aquarium.
The Black Diamond is the most eye-catching Royal Danish Library building (Alamy Stock Photo)
The BLOX building is part of a wave of sustainable developments on the harbourfront (Alamy Stock Photo)
Across town, Designmuseum Denmark is back in business after a two-year facelift led by OEO Studio. Packed with cult-status objects by greats including Kaare Klint – the grandfather of modern Danish furniture – its refreshed galleries are hosting a string of out-of-the-box exhibitions. These include Little Table, Cover Thyself!, an exploration of table settings from the Renaissance to the present, and Wonder, a Wunderkammer-inspired display of the museum’s oldest and rarest curiosities. Both are due to run until December 2025.
Copenhagen is a master at revitalising the old – a skill you can see runs across the urban landscape. For example, a decommissioned shipyard in harbourside Refshaleøen is now one of the capital’s coolest neighbourhoods, serving global street food in upcycled shipping containers and showcasing world-class installation art in a former welding hall.
West of the city centre, the former Carlsberg brewery complex is even busy being transformed into Copenhagen’s newest epicentre of hip, with an ever-expanding cache of on-point boutiques, eateries and bars. Add to all this one of the world’s most innovative dining scenes, 546km of cycle paths and the fabled charm of Tivoli Gardens and you have yourself one seriously invigorating Nordic rendezvous.
While the Danish capital isn’t short of visionary architects, few have altered the cityscape as dramatically as Gen-Xer Bjarke Ingels and his practice BIG (Bjarke Ingels Group). Internationally renowned for his boundary-pushing designs, Ingels’ creations are bucket-list sights.
Superkilen – a collaboration between BIG, Copenhagen artist group Superflex and Berlin landscape architects Topotek 1 – turns the concept of ‘neighbourhood park’ on its head with its bold colour scheme, surreal architectural landscaping and playful details. From a Moroccan fountain to neon signs from Russia and Qatar, found objects from 60 countries punctuate the kilometre-long space, a joyful ode to its location in multicultural Nørrebro.
Bjarke Ingels’ CopenHill is a clean-energy facility that doubles as an adventure centre (Alamy Stock Photo)
Even more ambitious is Ingels’ CopenHill. A giant waste-to-energy plant east of the city centre, its sloping roof doubles as a year-round artificial ski slope and recreational hiking area with views across to Sweden. The plant also claims the world’s tallest climbing wall at 85 metres. Both Superkilen and CopenHill are stops on the 22km Architectural BIG Bike Tour, a self-guided route passing showstopping BIG creations. These include award-winning apartment complex 8 Tallet and its sloping green roofs, the mountain-inspired VM Bjerget building, and outdoor bathing complex Havnebadet Islands Brygge, one of Copenhagen’s most popular summertime hangouts.
The exterior of Operaen at dusk (Shutterstock)
Copenhagen’s controversial Operaen (Opera House) has been likened to everything from an alien spaceship to a fly. Its architect, Henning Larsen, deemed it his greatest failure, excoriating project patron and shipping mogul Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller for his compromising demands. Bad blood aside, it’s an impressive structure, home to one of the world’s largest orchestra pits and artworks by Per Kirkeby, Olafur Eliasson and Tal R.
From hipster-magnet Refshaleøen to nightlife hotspot Kødbyen, Copenhagen has a knack for transforming industrial sites into buzz-inducing precincts. Its latest regeneration effort is Carlsberg Byen (Carlsberg City District), a large-scale, mixed-use redevelopment of the old Carlsberg brewery site between Vesterbro and Frederiksberg. Here, contemporary design intertwines effortlessly with some of the city’s most whimsical 19th-century architecture – a fusion of Romanesque, Gothic and Moorish influences that includes towers, spires and an entrance guarded by four life-size granite elephants.
Renowned Swiss art gallery Von Bartha has moved into the brewery’s old lighthouse, while the boutique Hotel Ottilia occupies an old storage building. You’ll also find one of the area’s more exciting additions, the modern Danish restaurant Studio, just off showpiece square Bryggernes Plads. Big on foraged herbs, fermentation and sustainably caught local seafood, it’s helmed by Millennial superstar Christoffer Sørensen, awarded the ‘Young Chef Award’ by the Michelin Guide and ‘Young Chef Talent of the Year’ by Denmark’s White Guide in 2021.
The neighbourhood has long been acquainted with ambitious characters. The Carlsberg Brewery was once owned by 19th-century industrialist Carl Jacobsen, a voracious art collector who founded Copenhagen’s Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek museum and filled it with his extraordinary collection of antiquities and Danish and French artworks.
Tivoli Gardens was a favourite of Hans Christian Andersen (Shutterstock)
Finished in 1901, the Elephant Gate makes for a striking introduction to the old Carlsberg Brewery (Shutterstock)
It’s not all next-gen style in this old metropolis. Squint and you could be in a Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale of princely castles and towers. The Danish author was a regular at 19th-century amusement park Tivoli Gardens, whose chinoiserie Pantomime Theatre, complete with mechanical peacock curtain, has been charming audiences since 1874.
Another crowd favourite is that staple of Danish biscuit tins everywhere, Rosenborg Castle. This turreted Dutch-Renaissance fortress houses the jewel-drenched crown of former resident Christian IV, known as the ‘Builder King’. Another of his 17th-century legacies is the Rundetårn (Round Tower). Visiting Russian tsar Peter the Great was said to have climbed the tower’s equestrian stairwell on horseback several times in 1716; those who follow his lead will find Europe’s oldest functioning observatory at its tip.
Elsewhere, a spiral staircase coils the outside of the Escher-like tower of Vor Frelsers church, the work of Lauritz de Thurah, who brought Baroque to Denmark. From the top, it’s easy to spot Neo-Baroque Christiansborg Palace. This behemoth is home to the Danish Parliament and Royal Reception Rooms, the latter a lavish suite of chandeliers, stucco and treasures. The most spectacular of these are the Queen’s Tapestries – 17 riotously colourful Gobelin tapestries by contemporary artist Bjørn Nørgaard that depict 1,000 years of Danish and world history.
Christiansborg Palace in the heart of Copenhagen (Alamy)
A bedroom inside 25hours (Stephan Lemke)
What was once a porcelain factory, then later a university building, is now a fabulously idiosyncratic boutique hotel. Slap bang in the city centre, it shuns Nordic neutrality for eye-popping interiors big on colour and playful irreverence. Rooms range from snug to spacious, with eclectic communal spaces including bars, an LP-stocked Vinyl Room and the lipstick-red ‘Love Library’, which is filled with books and a fireplace. Sweat it out in the sauna or rent a coveted Schindelhauer bike to roam the town.
Modern Danish design inside the Radisson Collection Royal Hotel (Rickard L Eriksson)
Radisson Collection Royal Hotel
Created by Arne Jacobsen, this esteemed stay – just a pirouette from Tivoli Gardens – became the world’s first design hotel in 1956 and was Copenhagen’s original skyscraper. Guests with a love of Danish Modernism should request a tour of room 606, the only bedroom to preserve the designer’s original 1960s layout. While the rest of the property has undergone several refurbs, it still honours its mid-20th-century roots with Jacobsen furniture and Le Klint lighting in most of its 261 rooms and suites.
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