Radisson SAS Royal Hotel, Copenhagen
Encyclopedia
Copenhagen
Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...
, that was designed by Danish architect and designer Arne Jacobsen
Arne Jacobsen
Arne Emil Jacobsen, usually known as Arne Jacobsen, was a Danish architect and designer. He is remembered for contributing so much to architectural Functionalism as well as for the worldwide success he enjoyed with simple but effective chair designs.-Early life and education:Arne Jacobsen was born...
for the airline Scandinavian Airlines System
Scandinavian Airlines System
Scandinavian Airlines or SAS, previously Scandinavian Airlines System, is the flag carrier of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, and the largest airline in Scandinavia....
(SAS) between 1956 and 1960. At its completion the hotel was the largest in Denmark, at 69.60 meters in height, the first skyscraper in Copenhagen until 1969 and at the same time the tallest building in Denmark. In 2009, it was the seventh highest tower in Denmark.
It is located in the heart of the city, in the Vesterbro district
Vesterbro
Vesterbro is one of the 15 administrative, statistical, and city tax districts comprising the municipality of Copenhagen, Denmark...
, close to Tivoli
Tivoli Gardens, Copenhagen
Tivoli Gardens is a famous amusement park and pleasure garden in Copenhagen, Denmark. The park opened on 15 August 1843 and is the second oldest amusement park in the world, after Dyrehavsbakken in nearby Klampenborg....
and the central station. On a road island outside the hotel is the "Freedom Statue", commemorating the abolition of serfdom in Denmark.
The hotel was renamed the Radisson SAS Royal Hotel in 1994, when SAS bought a share in the foreign division of Radisson hotels. When SAS sold their share in 2009, it was renamed the Radisson Blu Royal Hotel, its current name.
Design
The entire hotel – from the exterior façade through to the stainless-steel cutlery used in the restaurant and the SwanSwan (chair)
The Swan is a chair and a couch designed by Arne Jacobsen in 1958 for Radisson SAS Royal Hotel in Copenhagen. It is manufactured by Danish furniture manufacturer Republic of Fritz Hansen....
and Egg
Egg (chair)
The Egg is a chair designed by Arne Jacobsen in 1958 for Radisson SAS hotel in Copenhagen. It is manufactured by Republic of Fritz Hansen.The Egg was designed in a typical Jacobsen style, using state-of-the-art material....
chairs gracing the lobby – was designed by famous Danish architect, Arne Jacobsen. Since most of his work has been replaced by corporate standard fabrics and furniture, the hotel is referred to as Jacobsens' Lost Gesamtkunstwerk. Only a single room has been kept in the original design. It has all of the original, green furniture and the wood panels on the wall. This room, with the number 606, is still available for booking.
Shades of green dominate the entire design. Jacobsen, who was also working as a landscape architect 1955-1960, pursued a "modern garden" theme. He implemented this theme using green textiles and furniture combined with "organic shapes" and rigid geometric forms.
Jacobsen has created several furniture, lighting and textile designs. Some models were later adopted into mass production and have become design classics, which are exhibited in museums worldwide. Others, however, remained unique pieces.
During the design phase sketches of the building where published in Danish newspapers. Critics feared a destruction of the traditional skyline of Copenhagen. The building was compared to a punch card. Jacobsens response was: "it’s funny, for that is actually what it looks like when the windows are open on a hot summer’s day." Another term used was introduced by Jacobsens former associate Erik Møller
Erik Møller
Svend Erik Møller was a Danish architect.Møller used to work with the famous Danish architect and designer Arne Jacobsen. Together they won the competition to build the new City Hall in Aarhus, which was built from 1938 to 1942. At the same time they built another town hall in Søllerød. From 1955...
, who called it the 'glass cigarbox'. The promoter of the international style
International style (architecture)
The International style is a major architectural style that emerged in the 1920s and 1930s, the formative decades of Modern architecture. The term originated from the name of a book by Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson, The International Style...
, Philip C. Johnson, said it was the worst copy of the Lever house. Jacobsen responded: "At least, it came in first when they held a competition for the ugliest building in Copenhagen."
Structure
The structure is twenty stories high and a defining characteristic of Copenhagen's skyline. The structure was inspired by New York Park Avenue structures, namely Skidmore, Owings and Merrill's Lever House. The building's sense of lightness emanates from its Lever House-inspired form with a two-story base supporting its lofty "punch card" tower.The reinforced concrete frame structure erected in the tower has a curtain wall of aluminum profiles and transparent green and gray anodized glass. The windows can be opened to the inside stories in all. The horizontal distance between the aluminum profiles is 60 cm. Vertical take turns green glass followed by 168 cm 120 cm window is installed. The curtain wall construction Jacobsen at the three-story City Hall was first used in 1955 Rødovre Denmark. The hotel façade differs only from the City Hall by the light green colour of the intermediate elements and some slightly different proportions.