Diversionary Daily

In Their Natural Habitat

Witness the Swan chair in its natural habitat, in this case the hotel foyer at the SAS Royal Copenhagen. The chairs are arranged around low tables in small pods of five or six, between the front door and the check-in and concierge desk.

From the bar at the side of the foyer you can sit and watch the bizarre dance of the hotel staff constantly realigning the chairs so they look picture-perfect.

As people move through the space they'd stop, sit in the chairs and then get up and move on, leaving their chair slightly out of the previously perfect visual arrangement around the table. So the concierge would scuttle out from the desk and do a lap of the room fixing the chairs so they all looked just right.

Then someone else would waltz through, sit, leave a chair slightly out of place, and the dance begins again.

Posted on Wednesday, February 28, 2007 | Chairs , Europe 2006-2007 | 3 Comments

Happy Man

While I was in Copenhagen I had pondered a pilgrimage to visit the SAS Royal Copenhagen hotel, which is usually described as the first "designer" hotel in the world.

Pretty much the entire place, from the exterior to the chairs, cutlery and doorhandles, was designed in the swinging 1960's by Danish designer Arne Jacobsen. Of particular interest for me were the chairs: this is the hotel that Jacobsen's famous (and my favourite) Swan and Egg chairs were created for.

So I spent a couple of nights in the uber-luxury of the Royal, surrounded by Swans, Eggs, and Series 7 chairs. For someone who's slightly weird about chairs, those first two in particular, the place is just a little exciting.

Of course plenty has changed since the sixties and the hotel's been redesigned since Jacobsen was let loose on the hotel, though they've kept the chairs and a few other bits and pieces.

I went a little silly with photos while I was there, so I'll be posting them over the next while whenever I find net access. This shot's of one of the Egg chairs in the hotel foyer — they're arranged in little pods across the room.

Posted on Monday, February 26, 2007 | Chairs , Europe 2006-2007 | No Comments Yet

Briefly

One last photo from Carlsberg Brewery. Plenty happening here, I'd write more but I'm sitting in the Apple Store's theatre borrowing their wireless connection and the iPod sales pitch is starting to get annoying.

Posted on Friday, February 23, 2007 | Europe 2006-2007 | 1 Comments

Checking In

I'm back in London now — sadly without reliable internet at the flat I'm borrowing floorspace in, but at least there are plenty of cafés nearby so I can still get my internet in short caffeinated bursts. As we've already discussed, this suits me fine.

Here's another photo from Carlsberg Brewery of the old-school dials and instruments they used before brewing went all high-tech and digital.

Posted on Wednesday, February 21, 2007 | Europe 2006-2007 | 2 Comments

Shadows

Shadows from hop mashing machinery at the Carlsberg Brewery, Copenhagen (some fairly lethal looking machinery).

Posted on Saturday, February 17, 2007 | Europe 2006-2007 | 2 Comments

Giant Shiny Tanks

Turns out there's a lot I didn't know about Carlsberg beer.

The brewery's history, and that of its brews, is lovingly retold in the great exhibition at the old brewery here in Copenhagen. It's all been updated recently with new audio and lighting trickery to help tell the story, and here and there some smells thrown in for good measure. The whole thing is staged within the original brewery buildings themselves, so there's plenty of photo opportunities of big old tanks and barrels, pipes and the occasional unconvincing mannequin (but more on that later).

The tour wraps up with a beer tasting in the bar above the active Jacobsen boutique brewery, which has plenty of shiny new copper tanks in active use.

Posted on Friday, February 16, 2007 | Europe 2006-2007 | No Comments Yet

Back To Wireless

I've spent a few days in a couple of random places here in Denmark: Odense and Ribe, before heading back here to Copenhagen for a few more days.

The photo above is from Ribe, Denmark's oldest town. It's a tiny little place with beautifully preserved buildings and little laneways. It's very much not the tourist season at the moment (I got the impression it'd be quieter still were it not for last week being the local school holidays) so things were pretty low-key, and quite a few places closed up for the week/month/season.

Unfortunately the (large) places I stayed both Ribe and Odense didn't offer wireless net access, which brings me to a rant that's been brewing for a while...

Namely: why is it so hard to find a café with free wireless? There are more and more popping up with wireless that requires subscriptions to various paid providers, but it seems it's actually getting harder to find free wireless these days. On this trip I've lost count of the number of times I would've gladly stopped in at a café and bought a coffee and lunch or a snack. Surely there's a market there?

Someone. Anyone. Offer me a warm café, good coffee and free wireless, and I'll be your best customer.

Posted on Thursday, February 15, 2007 | Europe 2006-2007 | 1 Comments

I'm Lazy

There's plenty to see and do here so I'm going to be lazy and post another London photo rather than mess around with new photos.

So here's a swan in Hyde Park.

In the meantime, if anyone needs me, I'll be down drooling over things at the Danish Design Centre. I hear they have egg chairs.

Posted on Wednesday, February 7, 2007 | Chairs , Europe 2006-2007 | 4 Comments

It's About to Get Cold

Well, I've finally made it to Copenhagen. I'm cheating and using an old photo from London on this post but everything outside is littered with umlauts and o-slashes, so I'm definitely in Denmark now.

You know you're in for some cold weather when the giant neon thermometers on the side of buildings can show temperatures from +20° C down to -20° C (the BBC's forecast for Friday has snow and -2° C... it actually snows here I'll be a happy man).

Tomorrow's first mission will be finding a tasteful Danish designer beanie.

Posted on Tuesday, February 6, 2007 | Europe 2006-2007 | 3 Comments

On the Move Again

Well we didn't make it there on the big road trip so tomorrow I'll be starting my own design pilgrimage to Denmark.

I'm still working out where I'll get to outside of Copenhagen, which will depend what's open — it's very much the winter off-season right now so plenty of tourist places and places to stay are closed up till April.

Speaking of places to stay, I'd been thinking of splashing out on a night or two in a designer hotel in Copenhagen, since it's an uber-design capital, but actually looking at it I've realised there's a lot of options there: Hotel Fox has 21 individually-designed rooms (some by Aussie firm Rinzen) are all very cool; then there's The Square or Hotel Skt. Petri.

But really it'd be hard to go past the Radisson SAS Royal Hotel if this is going to be a real pilgrimage: it's designed inside and out by Arne Jacobsen. In case you haven't been subjected to the rants (or the holding page) Jacobsen is one of my design heroes. I'm looking forward to checking out some of his architectural creations after already falling for his chairs and other designer toys.

And then there's plenty of other bits and pieces to see around Copenhagen, from ultra-modern opera houses to classical buildings and a microbewery with cool labels.

So that's where I'll be for the next couple of weeks. Updates might be a little sketchy depending how often I can find wireless.

Posted on Monday, February 5, 2007 | Europe 2006-2007 | No Comments Yet

Another Day

The view down a lane in Stockholm's Gamla Stan district.

And in case you were wondering, no, I haven't decided who the Belgian chocolates and tacky postcard are going to. That's waiting until tomorrow.

Posted on Sunday, February 4, 2007 | Europe 2006-2007 | No Comments Yet

By Foot

Cobbled streets in Prague. In case you're wondering, they do actually have cobble repair guys, who rip out chipped and broken stones and then replace it with a matching one from a bucket of pre-cut shapes. It's like a never-ending jigsaw game.

The weather's turned good here in London — today was still cold but with brilliant sunshine making it a perfect day for a wander through the city's parks. A few more photos today, which I'll post on here sometime in the new week..

Posted on Saturday, February 3, 2007 | Europe 2006-2007 | No Comments Yet

Prague Streetlight

I think it's time for a break from photos of the lights-on-a-stick at the V&A, so here's a light on a wall instead.

This one's from Prague, in the Czech Republic, on the hill up towards the Castle, looking down the steep winding streets and out over the city.

Posted on Friday, February 2, 2007 | Europe 2006-2007 | No Comments Yet

Blue Poles

(With apologies to Jackson Pollock)

Hanging around for a while meant having time to play with different shots including some like this one which dropped the lights out of focus, giving fairly trippy effects.

I've got some new photos from the last week but I'm having some troubles downloading them at the moment... so just imagine blurred taxis and Tube station escalators.

Posted on Thursday, February 1, 2007 | Europe 2006-2007 | No Comments Yet