The final station of the Copenhagen metro line M1 (there are two of them) is called Vestamager and is located in the south of the Danish capital, surrounded by green fields and three residential buildings. One of them is the famous "8 House", built by the Danish architectural bureau BIG. Three carriages without drivers run silently along the concrete overpass, like on the 14th line in Paris. The train reaches the center of Copenagen in 14 minutes, the metro operates almost around the clock - from 7 am to 5 am the next day.
The city authorities thought that not every resident has a car, and took care of creating a convenient transport infrastructure in advance. Part of the funds received by investors from the sale of apartments in houses located near the metro was transferred to the state.
Vestamager, tiny by Russian standards, became the starting point for a study tour organized for Russian specialists. A visit to Copenhagen by a group of St. Petersburg architects and urbanists, intensive excursions and conversations with Danish colleagues took place within the framework of the international project “Listening to architecture, composing spaces”. The three-year program involves the creation of a Baltic professional network for design, architecture and music. Organizations of three countries are responsible for its promotion: the St. Petersburg charitable foundation for culture and art "Pro Arte", the international college of arts, design and media CIMULUS from Finland and the Danish Cultural Institute.
From the top, 12th floor of the 8 House complex, even a layman can see the urban planning prospects of the entire Erestad City area (this name is displayed on street benches), which is located on Amager Island. To the north of Erestad City is historic Copenhagen, to the west is Kastrup International Airport, behind it is the Øresund Bridge and all of Sweden, to the south is small reclaimed territories, to the east is all of Denmark. It is obvious that the southeastern part of the island will gradually be built up. Although, due to the crisis, it is slower than in the previous decade, when the VM-House and
Mountain ". In the latter, the architects managed to combine a huge ground parking lot for 800 cars (this is enough for the entire district) and "green" architecture. This "Mountain" is a triangular pyramid, on the upper edge of which there are terraced apartments, each with a small personal garden. The parking lot repeats the shape of a pyramid, cars are located on four levels, drive into their place along the serpentine. The driver, having left the car, goes up or down on the minicunicular.
Walking around Erestad, I involuntarily recalled global projects for the construction of new residential areas in St. Petersburg, where, of course, they thought about CAT - the integrated development of the territory. High-speed trams, light metro and other transport benefits have been designed. But all the previous experience of our mass housing construction suggests that transport problems will be solved as they come. That is, when tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people will have to look for a way to get to work or study.
The northernmost point of Erestad City is
The Danish Radio Concert Hall, built in 2009 by Jean Nouvel's design, is clearly “for growth”. The master, true to himself (suffice it to recall the Cartier Foundation in Paris), hid the ellipse-shaped volume of the hall behind a mesh parallelepiped, through which the forms of the structure with high acoustic standards are visible. During the day, the parallelepiped looks neutral - dark blue, almost black. In the evening and at night, its illumination denotes the active life going on inside.
On the one hand, the Concert Hall consists of four studios that allow you to record music of any kind, performed by any composition of musicians. On the other hand, this is the main studio for 1,800 spectators, raised to a height of almost 20 meters, creating a huge foyer below. It is obvious that when Erestad City comes out to sea, and the Concert Hall becomes the center of attraction, at least for the entire island of Amager, Nouvel's idea of the mystical parallelepiped will unfold in full force.
