File:Arne jacobsen, enghaveparken bandstand, copenhagen 1927-1928 (4736366937).jpg

bandstand detail, enghaveparken, enghave plads, copenhagen, denmark 1927-1928. architect: arne jacobsen (1902-1971) working for the copenhagen municipal architects department under poul holsøe (1873-1966).

unknown jacobsen.

in copenhagen everybody knows enghaveparken, but hardly anyone knows who designed its buildings. even I wasn't too sure about the bandstand and went to the park this morning, through the garbage and the smell of piss from friday night's parties and past city pigeons so butch they only move as far as you kick them, to see for myself. vesterbro, the working class neighbourhood where jacobsen's park is found, still has a long way to go despite years of gentrification and his structures are derelict and covered in graffiti.

at least, I am now sure they are by jacobsen. the thinness of the concrete shell and the delicacy and apparent simplicity of the detailing gave its architect away immediately - and I have since found the texts to confirm it. yet, this is one of the only neoclassical works from his hand: jacobsen worked for the municipal architects department for just two years after finishing his studies at the royal academy, before opening his own office and completing his first modernist house in 1929.

in terms of detailing and the integration of art, we are very close to asplund here, making it clear that jacobsen was following the Swedish master long before the two met as modernists in the 1930's.

on the whole, holsøe and jacobsen took great care with the neoclassicist credentials of their park. the benches are reproduced from a design by bindesbøll père so admired by carl petersen and asplund, and the one little sculpture they could afford is by kai nielsen whose work famously dominates carl petersen's faaborg museum, the first major building of the movement.

but the true qualities of the place are found in its architecture, not least in how the red brick walls of holsøe's surrounding social housing define the park as an urban space. I am also very fond of jacobsen's floor. as I have just learnt on flickr, miralles said that the quality of a city lies in the first 20cm built from the ground. here is confirmation.

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jacobsen's enghavepark from above.