A' travelin'

In these waning weeks of my 20's I'm hitting the road south and east. Berlin, Prague, Munich, Vienna and then to Croatia, Bulgaria and Istanbul. But first, my friendest friend Kiel is coming to Copenhagen to visit. We'll both be here three days, then I hop on a train to Berlin and he stays in Copenhagen with some other friends visiting from Norway. Then he's popping down to Prague for another couple of days, including a possibly drunken, greasy post-election breakfast on the 8th. Then I'll be headed to Munich for a very brief visit with my friend Andreas while Kiel heads back up to Copenhagen for his last two days. A bit complicated, no?

Then I'll be headed through Vienna and down to Croatia. Split and Dubrovnik are the planned stops in that country. I may go over land or I may fly to Bulgaria or straight to Istanbul.

Here's a rough map of my route.

It's gonna be all trains on the first half, probably
a lot of buses and maybe flights for the next.

I've wanted to go to Istanbul for a very long time.

I must have first learned about the Byzantine Empire playing computer games... I think I first got excited about playing as the Byzantines in Medieval Total War when I was 15 or so.

Constantinople, now known as Istanbul, was their capital.

It's got what I love in a historical place: it scrambles our expectations of time, place and culture and (probably because of that) it's generally overlooked in the popular consciousness of history.

Briefly:
Constantinople was founded by the Roman emperor in 330 AD as the empire's second capital and the center of administration for the more prosperous, populous, and historically richer eastern half of the empire. As the western half of the empire, centered on Rome, collapsed in the 400's, the eastern half carried on fairly well and has come to be known by historians as the Byzantine Empire. Constantinople was the largest and richest city in Europe during the middle ages and was never captured by foreign armies until a surprise attack by western crusaders in 1204 (who were overthrown by Byzantines 60 years later). The only other time it was captured was by the Ottomans in 1453, bringing to an end the Roman empire once and for all. The Turks revived the city and changed its name. Between the Romans/Byzantines and the Ottomans the city was an imperial capital for almost 1600 years.

Here is a map I made several years ago to demonstrate how much of a nerd I am. Each territory is marked with that last date that it was part of the Roman Empire.




It's always been the fulcrum between Europe and Asia, a point through which trade, armies, and ideas needed to pass through.

I am very excited to be there, if just for a few days. I'm going to see the Hagia Sofia, the Blue Mosque, the old city walls, and just the huge city itself.
I'm also excited to spend my 30th birthday there on 11/24. It will be a good place to start a new decade.

Typology: Welfare Era Apartment

Typology: Welfare Era apartment

Development of the type

The Welfare Era apartment block describes a type of building which was built from around 1920 to 1990. It exhibits the wide-scale implementation of the fundamental structural elements of Industrial Era apartments with efficiency of cost and standard of living prioritized. It also incorporates modern technological improvements and improvements in standards of living into traditional Danish multi-family housing forms.

Physical Characteristics

Welfare era apartments changed significantly in form over the period in which they were constructed. A few aspects remained constant, however.

These buildings consist of long buildings composed of flats arranged side-by-side without interior corridors which are accessed by limited entry stairwells. They can be to six stories tall, and lack elevators. Like industrial era apartments, they tend to be about 10-12 meters deep (33-40 feet).

The street environment in areas with Welfare Era apartments end to be characterized by continuous unadorned facades. Without visual hierarchy it is unclear which, if any parts of the buildings are more important or where the center of the building is. This can have a disorienting or monotonous effect. Streets tend to be somewhat wider than in older neighborhoods and have higher motor-vehicle traffic. Green space or vehicle parking is sometimes provided in spaces where buildings have been set back from the street.

Large-scale government involvement in housing construction meant that for the first time a single development could cover an entire block. This was common in earlier iterations of the type. By the 1930’s architects began to deconstruct the traditional block, first by eliminating the southern side, to allow greater solar radiation to the rest of the apartments. Later plans further dismembered the traditional block with L-shaped patterns, “step” patterns of free-standing apartment buildings, parallel rows of buildings, and various other formations of free-standing buildings to take advantage of topography and site exposure.

Floor Plan

Floor plans of this housing type initially were similar to industrial era apartments, with the living room facing the street and bedrooms and the kitchen facing the street. This began to change in the 1920’s, when apartments began to be designed with the living rooms facing the (now larger, landscaped) courtyard. Other designers experimented with orienting flats based on solar radiation, with living rooms located on the south or west sides of the flat. Balconies became more common, initially as a fire-safety measure which allowed architects to eliminated one of the two staircases previously required by law. These came to be a popular amenity however, especially as recessed “bay-balconies” which offered greater privacy and protection from the elements.

Two-room flats continued to be the most common, and the share of apartments with only two rooms actually increased from 39.9% in 1890 to 46.8% in 1950.

Pictured is a three-room floor plan for a Welfare Era flat constructed in 1941. It features a recessed “bay-balcony” on one side. The living-room and balcony are on the “back” side of the building which faces landscaped yard, a reversal of the traditional orientation.

Uses

Welfare Era apartments were often 100% residential. Some units would include ground-floor commercial spaces, and very large developments would include child-care and other amenities for the use of the entire complex.

This type demonstrates the increasing segregation and specialization that characterize modern living. Land uses and social classes became more segregated. Meanwhile, each building and each room became more specialized.

Construction and Appearance

Building construction methods changed rapidly during the period of the welfare era apartment, in part due to a conscious effort on the part of architects and project managers to modernize these processes. This played out in the production of materials and in the increased use of machines in construction. However, the humble brick continued to be the most common construction material for buildings of this type. Red tile became popular for roofing in the 1910’s and is the most common roofing material for buildings of this type. An unexpected outcome of the return of red tile (Industrial Era apartments tended to have slate roofs) is that it is easy to tell roughly which areas of the city were developed before and after WWI. In the image below we can see how the roofing material correlates with parcel size and building form.

Density/Capacity

Welfare Era apartments tend to feature larger rooms and lower building coverage than previous multifamily housing types, which reduces density. Typical unit density in welfare era apartments is about 150 DU per hectare (62 DU per acre).

Adaptations

The Welfare Era apartment is relatively recent housing type, and has not needed as extensive modifications as older housing types have. In the period from 1930-1950 94% of new flats had private toilets, however only 66.3% had central heating, 69% had private bathing facilities, and only 60% had hot water. Retrofits have addressed such deficiencies in these and older Welfare Era apartments. Other adaptations include connecting buildings with district heating, adding balconies, energy-saving retrofits, and unit combinations.

Tenure

Welfare era apartments were constructed by private firms, cooperatives, and housing societies. All of these entities made use of public funds or loans for a significant share of their construction. Social housing organizations and cooperatives continued to construct buildings of this type into the 1980’s.

Variations on type

Welfare Era apartment type buildings are highly specialized for use as housing, and generally do not fulfill other uses. The Aarhus University campus design by CF Møller and Kay Fisker reflects many of the functionalist developments of the Welfare Era housing type, such as right-angle combinations of buildings, solar orientation, ample landscaped open space and minimal ornamentation applied to educational uses.

One variation on this type is to increase the height beyond size stories, without significantly altering the layout of the building. This requires elevators in every stairwell, as there are no interior corridors linking apartments. Such a layout can be seen at the Dronningegården complex that was built as part of a slum clearance program in the central city.   

Neighborhood profile: Nyhavn

Profile: Nyhavn

Nyhavn (“new harbor”) is a canal in Copenhagen lined with brightly colored buildings, lively waterfront restaurants and bars, historic boats and ships along the quays, and many tourists. It is also perhaps the most photographed place in Copenhagen and it’s image has become a widely recognized icon of the city.

The combination of factors that have lead to this place becoming so attractive for photographers and tourists is probably worthy of an in-depth study in itself. One reason its image functions so well as a symbol for Copenhagen may lie in the way this assemblage of buildings, public space, people, and water represent each of the key elements that define Copenhagen.

The buildings serve as the backdrop. What are they like? They stand tightly packed in a row, with similar dimensions, window design and roofing materials. However, their facade treatments vary brilliantly and the floors of each appear to be of different heights and configurations. They are narrow - generally less than 12 meters (40 feet) wide with a few as narrow as 5 meters (16 feet) meaning the eye, or pedestrian, does not have to travel to find a new element to add to the tableau.  

This row of townhouses dates mostly to the late 17th century and early 18th, in the decades following the excavation of the canal and the renaissance expansion of the old city. They were merchant houses, and likely each housed a large family, with servants, perhaps tenants, and ground floor shops and businesses. They each have access to narrow courtyards, hemmed in by wings and back buildings with passageways leading to yet more narrow courtyards and buildings. They combine with adjacent structures to make a seemingly endless number of formations of open and built space with overlapping layers of ownership and privacy contained within a membrane of a lively public face.

Nyhavn block structure - top photograph
shows the bottom edge of the block

These elements: multiple households of different classes under a single roof, public frontage and semi-private courtyards, dense combinations of buildings creating complex block patterns, and the overlapping of residential space with commercial space defined urban housing in the late renaissance and are woven through the structure of the city in the many forms that urban housing has taken on since then.

This report attempts to describe that structure through a profile of different housing types which are common throughout the city. Particular attention will be paid to the density of population supported by each type and by the characteristics of these types which may contribute the urban livability - the idea of urban living with a high quality of life
The report will also feature profiles of neighborhoods or examples of housing types that demonstrate important dynamics that affected the development of housing in Copenhagen, although they themselves are not widespread enough to merit a typology.

Nyhavn is one such neighborhood. Due to multiple city-wide fires throughout the 18th century, it is one of a few surviving instances of the built fabric of late-renaissance Copenhagen. However, it provides us with a useful starting place to begin our analysis.

Også

I also got to visit Oslo, the capital of Norway, briefly last weekend. I went with Andreas, another of the guest researchers at C-DIST and we took the Pearl Seaways ship up there and back in the course of 36 hours.

We were booked for the "mini-cruise", but the line is also an active transportation line and ferry between Norway and Denmark. Tickets, even with the cost of a room, are cheaper than flying, and the ship also carries cars. So, after years of reading sea-stories, and a fair bit of time spent on the water recreationally, I finally spent my first night at sea.

We awoke in the Oslofjord - a sound about 100 kilometers long with beautiful little rocky islands and hills (hills, Gandalf!) in golden October colors. The rocky islets and inlets look remarkably like parts of the San Juans, except with more broadleaf trees and cute Norwegian houses. Unfortunately it was overcast so the photos look like shit.

Once in the city we got to wander around for six hours before getting back on the boat. We checked out Akershus Fortress, was the first real castle I've gotten to visit, the Edvard Munch museum, the Botanical Gardens and got pretty decent hole-in-the-wall Indian food for lunch before navigating back to the port without the aid of a map or cell-phone service. 

The title "I found a castle!" on instagram lead folks to think I'd just bought it

As we left the harbor again I enjoyed the view from one of the aft-deck hot tubs. I stayed in there for an hour, and thought maybe I could just stay in forever, but decided that this would not work out. 

The cruise ship band was not very good, and the piano bar pianist kept playing awful songs, but hey, at least they were live musicians, in a world where even recorded music is increasingly organized and distributed by algorithmic whim. I bought some duty-free Akvavit once we left port and enjoyed this and beers with Andreas, while we shared stories about the peculiarities of our homelands (he is German) and the places we have lived. 

We arrived back in windy, flat, dear Copenhagen Monday morning, and promptly got back into the familiar groove of being distracted and stressed. 

- IC

Danish Deutsche Dutch

It was a busy week!

Eight days ago I was in Gronigen, in the Netherlands, visiting fellow UW MUPs Ali and Allison and Rebecca. That Saturday I took the train there from Copenhagen, which involved a lovely ride through the southern part of the island of Sjælland, then the islands of Falsetr and Lolland. Then the train went on to a ferry in which we crossed to Germany, passing through Lubeck on the way to Hamburg. I transferred in the huge Hamburg trainstation to a train for Bremen, and from there transferred to a train to Leer. Finally in Leer I got on a bus to Gronigen, a sweet little city in the middle of the unreal flat greenness of the Netherlands.

Southern islands of Denmark

this is a train on a ferry

deluxe Hamburg station with chesse

It was gorgeous and sunny that first day, which was great for looking out the train window. I didn't have any trouble with the transfers except for with the Bremen - Leer leg, where there was no room and everyone was squeezed into the corridors, and then trying to figure out which bus to get on to get to Gronigen.

I spent three full days in Gronigen, generously hosted by Allison. As always, it is a very good idea to stay with people who have cooked professionally. It was mostly cloudy and cold, but I enjoyed seeing the town with its cute, narrow townhouses and the nearby countryside, which I was able to walk to on my first night. They have an incredibly extensive network of bike trails both in the city and in the surrounding countryside, meaning you can ride on a paved path right through a cattle pasture and work your way across the land with minimal interaction with automobiles. I even saw a couple of old windmills, which are pretty remarkable machines if you get to see them up close.

It had modern aluminum blades and an electric motor to rotate it

I was surprised to be reminded of Paraguay while in the countryside in the Netherlands. It's not so surprising really: both are flat, green, and have lots of cows. Still it's strange to have one of the wealthiest countries of the world suddenly transport you back to one of the poorest in the western hemisphere.

this is what you call a MFing rail network

Then on Wednesday morning I got the train to Amsterdam. Which is a cool place. 

I got to spend the day walking around the old, cool, prosperous, strange city. It felt so much like it's own place, not like any other place I've ever been. It reminded me of New York in that way, or maybe I was just thinking of New Amsterdam. The Dutch have such an interesting history of forging their own destiny out of being stuck on the soggy shallow edge of Europe surrounded by powerful states. I can't even really fathom when and how this city came to be what it is, but I quite liked it. It is a good place to go shopping too.

I bought a book, had a good lunch, bought a hat, read by a canal, drank a coffee, drank a beer, sketched by another canal, and then headed (by train) to the airport for my flight back to Copenhagen.
 

Then I came back, spent two and a half days working, and then got on a boat to go to Oslo and back for the weekend.

My life is very nice right now.

Neighborhood Profile: Nyboder

During the 16th and 17th centuries the Danish state went through a period of expansion and consolidation of state power, symbolically culminating in 1648 with the elevation of Danish throne to the status of an absolute monarchy. Kings during this period undertook major building projects, building fortresses, ports, palaces, public buildings and expanding the size of Copenhagen by more than half by reclaiming land from Copenhagen’s shallow harbor. These were top-down state-driven projects, and they employed a rigid, formal spatial approach which contrasted sharply with the disorder of the older parts of the city.

One of the main expressions of the expansion in state power was the growth of the Danish navy, which was one of the most powerful in northern Europe in this period. The personnel of this navy needed homes, so the state built Nyboder, or “new booths”.

Nyboder is shown by the red vertical lines on the right side

These houses are arranged in long straight rows in along a grid of perpendicular streets. They were initially one story with a back yard for each house. Over time the neighborhood was expanded and most of the houses were rebuilt to two stories. Following defeat by the British in 1807 Denmark’s naval power declined, and suddenly the need to maintain a large military population in Copenhagen abated. About half of the neighborhood was demolished in the mid 19th century. The remaining houses continue to be inhabited, and are owned and managed by the Danish Defense Forces.

Today 319 of the row houses remain containing 605 dwelling units (DU) in an area of 6.31 hectares. This gives the neighborhood a density of about 96 DU per hectare (38.8 per acre). However, the neighborhood’s population of about 2000 means that the household size of 3.3 in Nyboder is nearly double the national average of 1.7.

Nyboder is now a well-known feature of old Copenhagen, and despite the age of the houses they are highly sought-after. Nyboder stands out as the first instance of state-sponsored, state-planned housing constructed on a massive scale in Denmark. Though such a phenomenon would not reappear for several centuries, similarly rigid, formal, functional qualities would also characterize state-sponsored housing projects in the 20th century.

cheese and foam

The Danes take the Germanic universe and give it some kind of lightness. It's places like this:

and this:

and it's hygge, and weird fascinating HC Andersen stories.

If the Germanic peoples are like milk, the south Germans (the Austrians and Münchners) are like a savory cheese, thick and fragrant. The Danes are like a light foam, that floats on top of your latte.

The whole country, and all the seafloor that surrounds it, lies within about 100m of sea level. They're just floating on, or slightly below the surface. Like the Vikings, who built on empire on lightness, on swiftly moving shallow-draft boats, attacking and withdrawing.

The Germanic thing usually feels so dark and heavy, like the lead blanket at the dentist. I've rarely been able to pierce very far into any Germanic imagination, except perhaps Beethoven. This Danish thing is still strange, and it's a bit cold, but it is light and there is fresh air at least.

Typology: Industrial Era

1. Physical Characteristics
   

The typical Industrial Era Apartment building is about five stories tall, with an attic. It maintains the “Golden Era” organization of a central stairway with apartments on either side and an entrance onto the street, however, these buildings tend to be larger in scale than Golden Era buildings. They have a minimum frontage of about 16 meters, and are 10 to 12 meters deep and usually have five stories, with at least one attic level and a basement. Roofs can either be peaked or leveled off at the attic level. The minor streets they face tend to be around 12 meters wide, while the arterial streets tend to be around 18 meters wide.

Protrusions on the rear of these buildings for kitchens, lavatories and secondary stairwells became common after the turn of the century, resulting in a “haircomb” pattern which maximized floor-space at the expense of light and useful space in the courtyard. Units were usually arranged perpendicular to the street, with living rooms on the street side and bedrooms and the kitchen on the courtyard side. Two-room apartments, with one bedroom and one living room were very common. The length of frontage of buildings of this type is more variable than for Goldern Era apartment houses, although it is still unusual for a single building to dominate an entire blockface.

Industrial Era apartment buildings were adaptable to specific sites and block shapes, however their forms are more standardized than Golden Era apartment houses. Often buildings which fronted onto the street were extended away from the street at a 90o angle making a T or L-shape. U- and O-shaped buildings also occur. L’s, T’s, wings and backbuildings were also combined in a wide variety of forms to best maximize the block shape.

1. Uses

Industrial Era apartment buildings were primarily used as a residence. In keeping with the Golden Age model, the Industrial Era apartment buildings were stratified based on socio-economic class. The first and second floors were the most prized, and often feature elaborate ornamentation on their outer features. Ground floor units could be low-rent residential, due to the lack of privacy, or have commercial or productive uses. Basement units are present but tend to be much less prominent than in apartments from the previous era. Very small ground-level windows offer little access to natural light.

Construction Materials and Appearance
Construction materials were almost always red brick and painted stucco until about 1900. Stucco ornamentation could be quite elaborate, especially on the 2nd and 3rd floors. A common motif for buildings of this type is a stucco facade on the ground floor and sometimes 1st floor with joint lines rendered in imitation of ashlar masonry. After 1900 yellow brick without stucco becomes more popular. Roofs were tiled with slate or made to look as such in the earlier period to about 1900, often with the roof flattened off above the attic level. After 1900, pitched red-tile roofs become more popular.  

2. Density/Capacity

Industrial Era apartment buildings in the modern era typically have two units per floor per stairwell, and one stairwell every 10-20 meters. [don’t know family size from this period]

3. Tenure

It was common for buildings of this type to be constructed by speculators as a profitable venture. The first building finance company was established in 1851, allowing the construction to be financed by loans as a profitable venture.

A law passed in 1975 gave the tenants of any building put up for sale the right to purchase it collectively from the seller before it could be offered to any other buyer. This lead to the creation of many co-ops, especially in older buildings, including many Industrial Era apartment buildings.

Other apartment buildings continue to be privately held, or exist as condominiums of “freehold flats”.

4. Energy Usage/Efficiency

According to Danish Building Research Institute, the typical energy usage for an apartment building from 1850-1930, is relatively high, however can be improved significantly with refurbishment. The demand for heating in an unrefurbished Industrial Era apartment building is estimated to be 127.2 kWh per m2 annually (kWh/m2a), falling to 70.2 - 36.5 kWh/m2a with an “advanced refurbishment”. The CO2 emissions for this type of building are estimated to be 66.1kg annually per square meter, falling to 32/m2 with an advanced refurbishment, which is significantly less than Golden Era apartments.

5. Adaptations

Since the mid 20th century, government and private efforts have improved the quality of many of the Industrial Era apartment buildings in Copenhagen. Early efforts to reduce overcrowding and improve living conditions lead to the demolition of courtyard buildings and the installation of private toilets and bathrooms. The opening of courtyard space has allowed improvement of courtyards with landscaping and playgrounds by block committees with city support. Efforts to increase increase home values have lead to the combination of small units into larger units and installation of balconies. Some buildings have also been equipped with elevators and roof-top decks.

6. Variations

Like the Golden Era apartment house, this type of building was suitable for modification as an institutional office or educational building. Its pattern could be repeated infinitely to fill any needed parcel or block size, a practice that became increasingly common for workers housing and ultimately evolved into the “welfare state apartment block” of the 20th century. Further from the city center Industrial Era apartments were more likely to be three or four stories rather than five or six. As time went on these buildings became increasingly specialized by social class, another trend which lead to the evolution of the “welfare state apartment block” type, which is described in the next section.

Vesterbro Study Area

Historic Development

In the years when Copenhagen was a fortified city several roads radiated out from the city, one from each of the city gates. These roads were important travel routes leading to the different parts of the kingdom, but they were also key to the taxation of trade goods. A limited number of entry and exit points from the city, with its port, ensured easy measurement and control of imports and exports. Along the routes were inns and roadhouses for travelers, however no masonry structures were allowed outside the city walls within a distance of several kilometers.

When the ramparts came down, these roads, paved with cobblestones and already with basic support infrastructure, were the core structures from which new growth could branch out. The cobblestones of the trunk roads, called brosten, leant their name to these neighborhoods, which are called collectively the brokvarter. Vesterbro, my next study area, is one of these neighborhoods.

Industrialization accelerated in northern Europe in the latter half of the 19th century, and people from the countryside flocked to cities for work and economic opportunity. The brokvarter neighborhoods accommodated much of this rapid growth in Copenhagen as the population rose from 150,000 to 400,000. [need source] Vesterbro

During this period the enormous need for housing was met by construction of apartments on a massive scale. These apartment buildings share many characteristics, and were themselves based on the models developed after the rebuilding of Copenhagen in the early part of the century. This type, which I will call the “Industrial Era apartment” is one of the key types studied in this project.

Vesterbro and similar neighborhoods continued to fill in well into the 20th century. Electric tram service was introduced in the 1890’s and expanded in the first decade of the 20th century, replacing horse-tram lines which had been running along main roads since the 1860’s. As transportation improved, it allowed upper and middle class families to move further from the city. Housing built for industrial workers degraded over time and these neighborhoods saw a lack of investment in their infrastructure and building stock.

By the 1950’s Vesterbro and other brokvarter neighborhoods of the city were seen as in need of serious intervention. One city-sponsored effort that took place around this time was the demolition of courtyard buildings. Some street-fronting buildings were demolished as well and replaced with subsidized social housing. These developments tended to reflect modern architecture and planning’s emphasis on large, centralized facilities, unprogrammed open space, mechanized construction methods, and lower population densities.

In the 1990’s the city began a new approach to addressing areas of high crime and shrinking populations and tax bases through a program of urban renewal through investment in neighborhood services, public spaces, and building refurbishment. One of the first neighborhoods targeted by this program was Vesterbro. The program succeeded in its goals by significantly increasing the number of families and higher income residents choosing to living in the neighborhood. It has become one of the most attractive in Copenhagen, with thriving schools and well designed, popular parks. However, significant displacement also occurred to the preexisting population of the neighborhood, and backlash caused by this displacement has lead the city to re-examine its approach to urban renewal in low-income neighborhoods.

Study block

Streetscape

The chosen study block for Vesterbro is located between Matthæusgade (north), Istedgade (south), Oehlenschlægersgade (west) and Saxogade (east) streets. A streetcar route formerly ran along Istedgade, which has an 18 meter right of way, with 4 meter sidewalks on both sides . The other three streets all have rights of way of about 12 meters, with 2.5 meter sidewalks on both sides. Istedgade is unusual among arterial streets in Copenhagen in that it lacks complete bikelanes. Non-roadway space is occupied by wide sidewalks, parking and partial bikelanes, with a small amount of cafe seating in the sidewalks. Sidewalks are paved with cobblestones and concrete blocks, while roadways, parking areas and bikelanes are paved with asphalt. The smaller streets accommodate one lane of traffic with automobile (and bicycle!) parking on both sides of the street. Sidewalk bulb-outs shorten crossing distances in some of the intersections. 

Block Size

The study block forms an irregular quadrangle, with sides 56, 68, 162, and 125 meters long on N, S, W, E sides respectively, for a total perimeter length of 412 meters. Building frontage is continuous along this entire length, meaning the inner spaces of the block are fully enclosed. The block occupies an area of approximately 8,760 m2.

Parcels

There are twelve parcels on the study block, all of which include street frontage and a rear area for a courtyard and backbuildings or wings. Although the street-fronting sections of the parcels are mostly uniform in width, in the courtyard areas some parcels are much wider than others.
Most parcels appear to have changed little since the area was first developed in the late 18th century. The one significant change has been the combination of a number of lots on the north-east corner of the block for the creation of a social housing complex, which was completed in 1982.

Buildings

There are fourteen buildings on the study block. Of these, eleven were constructed between 1883 and 1885, which are located along Oehlenschlægersgade and Istedgade. Three buildings (or three segments of a single building) were constructed in 1982 as social housing along Saxogade, replacing a number of older buildings of the same type as to those on Oehlenschlægersgade.
The older buildings on the block are consistent in scale and style, and it is possible they were constructed by a single firm. They are all five stories tall with basements and dormers, with the exception of the south-west corner building, which is six stories tall. They range in width from 16 to 36 meters, and have ornate decoration around the windows, especially on the middle floors, and have painted stucco facades. These buildings are iterations of the “Industrial Era apartment” type which proliferated in this and similar neighborhoods from the 1870’s to the 1910’s and is detailed in detailed in the next section.

The social housing buildings are shorter than the others but are significantly longer. They could be considered one continuous building, but are being treated as three separate buildings due to variations in height. They have a continuous, unadorned brick facade and are clearly the work of a mechanized production and construction processes. These buildings are a late form of the “welfare state apartment” type which will be detailed later.

Streetwall

The appearance and interest of the exterior face of the block is enhanced by a number of practical and decorative elements. These include windows, doors, facade treatments and exterior ornamentation. Entrances and windows to shops add another degree of complexity. The block face along Oehlenschlægersgade exhibits a degree of variation in ornamentation, facade treatment and color within repeating patterns. The block face along Istedgade has a high density of shops with entrances and windows, despite the lack of variation in decoration of building 116-122.

Open Space

The entire inner area of the block forms a single courtyard of 4,500m2; other open space on the block is negligible. This courtyard is not necessarily accessible to all residents of buildings on the block, and may have fences dividing it into sections for each building. The largest section of the courtyard is accessed from the social housing complex.

The building coverage for the block is 48%. This represents a significant decline from the 85% seen in aerial photography from 1945. At that time eight apartment blocks were present on the east side of the block in the area now occupied by the social housing buildings and their associated courtyard. There were also several courtyard several backbuildings in the west side of the block which have since been demolished.

Density

There are 206 dwelling units on the study block, yielding a block density of 235 DU per hectare or 95 DU per acre. The current average household size in Denmark is 1.7 [cite] leading us to an estimate of 161.5 residents per acre.

If the density of the demolished buildings was the same as that of existing Industrial Era apartments, the block would have had about 295 dwelling units in 1945. This would translate to 337 DU per hectare or 136 DU per acre.  

Parking

There is no on-site parking on the study block. There is parallel street parking along all four streets surrounding the study block, for a total capacity of about 50 spaces, or 0.24 spaces per unit.

Traffic

Rents/Unit value/tenancy

Seven of the Industrial Era apartment buildings on this block are co-operatively owned. The remaining four are privately owned by a single entity and rented out or are owned as condominiums. The social housing buildings are owned and operated by KAB, the largest social housing provider in Denmark.

Nearby Industrial Era apartment buildings are quite similar to those on this block, and are listed between $360,000 and $870,000, or $5,600/m2 and $8,870/m2. Social housing rents on this block vary from $900 per month to $1200 per month. This range includes units in co-operatives as well as freehold flats.

Interviews

Kristian! Lives in a co-op in Vesterbro

Typology: Industrial Era Apartment

Physical Characteristics

The typical industrial era apartment building is about five stories tall, with an attic. It maintains the “Golden Era” organization of a central stairway with apartments on either side and an entrance onto the street, However, these buildings tend to be larger in scale than Golden Era buildings. They have a minimum frontage of about 16 meters, and are 10 to 12 meters deep and usually have five stories, with at least one attic level and a basement. Roofs can either be peaked or leveled off at the attic level. The minor streets they face tend to be around 12 meters wide, while the arterial streets tend to be around 18 meters wide.

Industrial Era apartment buildings were adaptable to specific sites and block shapes, however their forms are more standardized than Golden Era apartment houses. Often buildings which fronted onto the street were extended away from the street at a 90o angle making a T or L-shape. U- and O-shaped buildings also occur. L’s, T’s, wings and backbuildings were also combined in a wide variety of forms to best maximize the block shape.

Protrusions from the backside of apartment buildings became increasingly common towards the 1910’s resulting in a “haircomb” pattern which maximized floorspace at the expense of light and useful space in the courtyard. The length of frontage of buildings of this type is more variable than for Goldern Era apartment houses, although it is still unusual for a single building to dominate an entire blockface.

Depending on the ownership of the block and if it was developed at once by a single entity or not, industrial era apartments could form blocks with haphazard or ordered layout. Any excess space in courtyard areas almost always was occupied by back buildings or wings, generally creating courtyards about about ___ meters in width. These blocks can resemble a pomegranate, with a solid skin concealing Numbers individual cells. In the late 20th century many backbuildings were demolished, opening up courtyards and creating hollow blocks.

Uses
Industrial Era apartment buildings were primarily used as a residence. In keeping with the Golden Age model, the Industrial Era apartment buildings were stratified based on socio-economic class. The first and second floors were the most prized, and often feature elaborate ornamentation on their outer features. Ground floor units could be low-rent residential, due to the lack of privacy, or have commercial or productive uses. Basement units are present but tend to be much less prominent than in apartments from the previous era. Very small ground-level windows offer little access to natural light.

Construction Materials and Appearance
Construction materials were almost always red brick, with painted stucco on the street-facing side of the building. Street-facing facades feature rich ornamentation in the Beaux Arts/Neo-Classical style, especially on the 2nd and 3rd floors. A common motif for buildings of this type is a stucco facade on the ground floor and sometimes 1st floor with joint lines rendered in imitation of ashlar masonry.

Density/Capacity

Industrial Era apartment buildings in the modern era typically have two units per floor per stairwell, and one stairwell every 10-20 meters. [don’t know family size from this period]

Tenancy

It was common for buildings of this type to be constructed by speculators as a profitable venture. [don’t know much about this]. A law passed in 1975 gave the tenants of any building put up for sale the right to purchase it collectively from the seller before it could be offered to any other buyer. This lead to the creation of many co-ops, especially in older buildings, including many Industrial Era apartment buildings.

Other apartment buildings continue to be privately held, or exist as condominiums of “freehold flats”.

Energy Usage/Efficiency

According to Danish Building Research Institute, the typical energy usage for an apartment building from 1850-1930, is relatively high, however can be improved significantly with refurbishment. The demand for heating in an unrefurbished Industrial Era apartment building is estimated to be 127.2 kWh per m2 annually (kWh/m2a), falling to 70.2 - 36.5 kWh/m2a with an “advanced refurbishment”. The CO2 emissions for this type of building are estimated to be 66.1kg annually per square meter, falling to 32/m2 with an advanced refurbishment, which is significantly less than Golden Era apartments.

Adaptations

Since the mid 20th century, government and private efforts have improved the quality of many of the Industrial Era apartment buildings in Copenhagen. Early efforts to reduce overcrowding and improve living conditions lead to the demolition of courtyard buildings and the installation of private toilets and bathrooms. The opening of courtyard space has allowed improvement of courtyards with landscaping and playgrounds by block committees with city support. Efforts to increase increase home values have lead to the combination of small units into larger units and installation of balconies. Some buildings have also been equipped with elevators and roof-top decks.

Variations

Like the Golden Era apartment house, this type of building was suitable for modification as an institutional office or educational building. Its pattern could be repeated infinitely to fill any needed parcel or block size, a practice that became increasingly common for workers housing and ultimately evolved into the “welfare state apartment block” of the 20th century. Further from the city center Industrial Era apartments were more likely to be three or four stories rather than five or six. As time went on these buildings became increasingly specialized by social class, another trend which lead to the evolution of the “welfare state apartment block”.