Fairytale exit from Europe

As my contract draws to a close, I managed to make it to two final conferences, one in Odense, Denmark, home of Hans Christian Anderson, and one in Kassel, Germany, home of the Brothers Grimm.  There ends the fairytale content of this post, as I spent 60% of my time in university conference venues, 30% of my time in a succession of local restaurants and pubs, and the remaining 10% desperately trying to grab a reasonable amount of sleep.  As a result there wasn’t too much sightseeing.

Anyway, I have no intention of boring you with an account of the conferences, but here are some photos.

First off, the University of Southern Denmark campus, which is an astonishing building.  I can’t find any information about it on the internet, and my knowledge of architectural vernacular isn’t up to providing an accurate description, but basically the whole campus is oriented around a 500 metre long North-South corridor, with lots of exposed concrete, elevated walkways, pre-rusted panelling, climbing plants and natural light.  I was very impressed.  Apparently it was built in the 60s and it has aged extremely well.  Some of the local students informed me that walking backwards and forwards down the long corridor gets old rather quickly though.

 

Syddansk University, where the conference was held, was quite a remarkable building. This corridor stretched several hundred metres, from the entrance to the main seminar room. The parallel white lines demarcate the path upon which service staff whiz up and down on little motorized scooters.

 

I was going for a noir look here. Note the temporal ambiguity.  Whatever the time, I was probably supposed to be in a seminar room rather than walking around taking photos.

 

Arty exterior shot.

 

Another exterior shot, showing extensive use of pre-rusted panels.

 

Second up, I squeezed in a day in Copenhagen at the end, which is a beautiful city (if only for the surfeit of bicycles).

 

The Copenhagen stock exchange, commissioned by King Christian IV in 1625, by moonlight. The tower consists of four sculpted dragon tails.

 

I liked this colourful pairing.

 

Ascending the round tower, site of Europe's oldest observatory, also built by King Christian IV (busy chap).

 

Nyhavn, the old sailors' quarter, now filled with cafes, bars and restaurants.

 

Long-exposure night-shot of the stock exchange

 

No camera in Germany, so no photos from there…

The rest of the Denmark photos here.