Wide Urban Spaces

Arts in the open add color to a busy city, especially round a hasty rail road station. At Place du Havre, a pile clocks tells you when the trains departure. Or so you would think.

‘Accumulation’ is a sculpture by the late French artist Armand Pierre Fernandez, known as Arman. It’s placed outside the east entrance of Gare Saint-Lazare on the corner of Rue Saint-Lazare and Rue d’Amsterdam. A tall stack of disused clocks towers several feet up in the air.

Arman’s long list of works includes many sculptures similar to the clocks. Apparently he piled anything from scorpions, tools, music instruments and weapons.

However, the clock sculpture fits perfectly on the plaza in front of the busy Gare Saint-Lazare railroad and subway station. None of the hands show the same hour, like none of the trains arrive or departure at the same time.

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It’s an icon of France. Almost anyone in the world knows that the Eiffel Tower is a landmark in Paris.

It was erected on Champs de Mars beside the Seine River between 1887 and 1889, designed by architect Gustave Eiffel. In the summer 2008, the Eiffel Tower became adorned with a symbol of the European Union, EU.

After France took over the presidency of EU in the second half of 2008, twelve yellow stars - as in the EU flag - were mounted on the north-west side of the tower between the first and the second level.

Typical for the French, some might say, but it’s hard to deny that the 1,063 ft (324 meter) iron structure is indeed the most famous landmark in Europe.

Perhaps one day the Eiffel Towel will be the symbol of Europe equal to what the Statue of Liberty is to USA. You gotta admit, it does fit the tower beautifully.

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In October 2008, Copenhagen was named the Cycle City of the Year 2008 by the Danish Cyclists Federation; for a good reason.

Every day, one third of the 1.7m citizens in Copenhagen ride 715,000 miles (1.15m km) on the 242 miles (389 km) bikeways, lanes and the so-called green routes.

Riding a bike is a necessity in Copenhagen. During the rush hour the traffic is so dense that you easily overtake cars and buses. You get around much faster on two wheels than behind one.

Copenhageners have their own bikes. Tourists can either rent one or use one of the 2,000 free city bikes for a deposit of DKK 20.

The city is literally filled with bikes. Especially around the train stations bicycles fill the racks, and when the city runs out of racks, the bikes take up walls and sidewalks.

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Like many other big cities around the world, Copenhagen also has a triumphal arch.

The arch is placed on Halmtorvet in the Vesterbro quarter.

Take a closer look at the photo. It’s really a gable painting from 1991 called ‘The Triumphal Arch’ by Danish artist Peter Abelin, painted with the so-called trompe l’oeil technique.

The painting is very naturalistic and from a distance, it looks like a real structure.

The building once housed a healthcare wholesaler, and when it was renovated and turned into an apartment building in 1991, Peter Abelin was hired to create the extraordinary gable painting.

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One of my favorite urban spaces is the south end of the Lake in Central Park.

First of all, it’s a small open area fenced in by Bow Bridge, a diversity of apartment buildings on Central Park West, the skyscrapers to the south and the open shoreline on the east side.

Then of course there are plenty of leafy trees and dense vegetation.

The San Remo Apartments is the most exciting of the buildings visible across the Lake, located on 145-146 Central Park West. The art deco style limestone building is drawn by architect Emery Roth and stood finished in 1930.

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Tycho Brahe Planetarium is an exciting building in the center of Copenhagen.

Despite its name, it’s not a real planetarium. It’s a public center for astronomy and natural science and an IMAX theater, named after the great Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe (1546-1601).

The exhibition inside the planetarium features models of the solar system and the planets orbiting the sun. The IMAX theater mostly shows films about nature, and after each viewing the current night sky is explained to the audience.

The building also houses a gift shop which sells a variety of gadgets, posters and magazines about astronomy.

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