Architecture Books
DIS recommends the following Architecture books:
Copenhagen Architecture Guide by Olaf Lind & Annemarie Lund (2005)
This book is Copenhagen's first architectural guide. With approximately 300 topics, it covers buildings, gardens and parks. The introduction to the guide relates the history of the city from its period as "Køpmannæhafn" up until the present. The architecture of Copenhagen –and this includes both the nineteenth century estate, the public housing block from the 1920's, and the contemporary office building— has its own tone, which can be differentiated from the tones of other cities.
Life Between Buildings by Jan Gehl (1996)
"Life between buildings" was first published in 1971 & is a classic that is frequently revised over the years. It is still the best source for understanding how people use public spaces in our cities. Published in many languages, it is a standard textbook in Architecture and Planning Schools around the world, and continues to be the undisputed basic introduction to the interplay between public space design and social life.
New City Spaces, Strategies and Projects by Jan Gehl & Lars Gemzøe (2001)
The upsurge in interest in public spaces and public life over the past twenty five years has generated an impressive array of city plans, public space strategies, and designs. This book presents an overview of this development and provides a detailed description of architecturally interesting and inspiring public space strategies and projects from all over the world. Nine cities with notable public space strategies were selected for special review: Barcelona, Lyon, Strasbourg, Freiburg, and Copenhagen in Europe, Portland in North America, Curitiba and Cordoba in South America, and Melbourne in Australia. In addition, thirty nine international public space projects are presented and discussed. Drawings, plans and photographs illustrate city strategies and public space projects in detail.
Public Spaces Public Life: Copenhagen by Jan Gehl & Lars Gemzøe (2004)
This book describes the remarkable qualitative improvements which have taken place in central Copenhagen over the past 34 years, and how they have been accomplished. It presents a method of assessing urban quality and gives a thorough insight into how people use urban spaces. A handbook on how to create human qualities in the city.
Classicism in Copenhagen: Architecture in the age of C.F. Hansen Edited by Hanne Raabyemagle & Claus M. Smidt
Architecture in Copenhagen during the last fifty years of the Absolute Monarchy coincides with the flourishing cultural epoch now known by the term neo-Classicism, or simply Classicism, for the particular style of architecture that reached its peak in this period.
It was a peak in quality because outstanding architects made their mark on the city –from C.F. Harsdorff’s Amalienborg Colonnade to Gottlieb Bindesbøll’s Thorvaldens Museum. It was also an artistic peak because the genius of C.F. Hansen raised the architecture to highest international stature through such magnificent buildings as Christiansborg palace and the Royal Chapel, the Town Hall and Courthouses on Nytorv and Vor Frue Kirke (The Church of Our Lady). And it was a peak in scope, since a series of great fires—in 1794, 1795 and 1807—led to a veritable building boom during which architects together with a large group of Academy-trained master craftsmen gave the city an entirely new face—the face of Classical Copenhagen.
