Or How I Learned to Loathe the Bus

My curriculum this semester includes two “study tours” where the program takes advantage of the fact that Denmark (and Europe in general) is extraordinarily culturally dense*. In other words, the program gives us transportation to neat places and feeds us, and in return only asks us for our weight in schoolwork completed during the tour. For the architecture and design students, this schoolwork is in the form of sketches done at a mile a minute (or a kilometer a minute, sorry). For someone who has not had this type of experience before, it was pretty brutal.

But the sites we visited were more than worth it. Last weekend was the three-day tour around western Denmark, where we visited Aalborg, Holstebro, and Århus.

All three cities are located in Jutland (Jylland in Danish), which is considered to be the rural part of Denmark. This is a pretty accurate assessment, since Århus is Denmark’s second-largest city with 256,000 inhabitants to Copenhagen’s 1.4 million*. But it is amazing how many interesting sites there are, considering the size! Here are some highlights. 

Koldinghus is a 13th Century castle that was restored in the 1980s. It is an interesting restoration; there are sections of wall that are completely modern, and are covered in a black shingle material. An interesting choice of material, but it does serve to differentiate between the old and new. 

But mainly, I wanted to include this place because of the view from the top of the tower. 

Now, doesn't that look like a real European city? 

Another neat place we visited was the Århus Town Hall, designed by Arne Jacobsen and Erik Møller. It is a case of total design, where the architects design everything down to the doorknobs and light fixtures. 

Jacobsen is famous for his total designs, and almost every class a professor asks us "Now, what famous architect designed the doorknobs/lamps/chairs?" Make sure that the name you give is a Danish one. I'm still trying to make up for the incident where I told my history professor that I thought Jørn Utzon was Swedish. Oops. 

So how did I learn to Loathe the Bus? It is never fun to have someone tell you that you have to leave the interesting building behind because the bus is about to leave you behind. And there was the part where I was almost left behind in Kolding because I misread the annoyingly precise schedule. And the fact that the tour leaders would always say "good morning" whenever they wanted our attention on the bus, even when it was afternoon. So other than the bus, the trip was fascinating, and I throughly enjoyed it. 

*I am not quite sure if I should be allowed to abuse adverbs in that manner. Or the English language in general.

*Raw data courtesy of the info booklet provided to me on the trip.