Natalia on the Farm
Image by Stuck in Customs
Natalia on the Farm
After getting back from one of those long hikes in Patagonia, I stayed with my Russian friends at a small hotel in El Chalten. It was a little family-run operation and the daughter Natalia helped out by running errands and these sorts of things. I took her around with me to take some photos in the little town, and she was happy to pose! It was plenty easy to find all kinds of interesting backgrounds, since El Chalten is a picturesque little town with old buildings, horses in fields, and mountainous backdrops.
Read more here at my travel photography blog, Stuck in Customs.
christiania, glass house, august 2007
Image by seier+seier
please view large for texture and details.
august ’07: christiania, copenhagen’s autonomous favela, has just been given a new lease of life by the Danish government. no buildings will be torn down in the next year while negotiations on future developments continue. the fine examples of a modern "architecture without architects" like this glass house are safe for now.
but christiania’s troubles are many and cannot be reduced to the hostile attitude held by our right wing government. what was initially a squatters’ community has become a permanent settlement. it has been called a flawed experiment but the truth of the matter is that the experiment is over and has been for many years.
the rich cultural life that sent out subversive theatre groups into the ‘real’ world is long gone. the brilliant santa army happening of 1974 when large numbers of fake santas doled out goods from the shelves to christmas shoppers in copenhagen department stores would make little sense today: christiania is every bit as comfortably materialistic as the rest of denmark…the inhabitants’ parked cars line the borders of this self-proclamed pedestrian community and hypocracy is rife. any criticism today would need to be self-criticism, never a real strength of the activist left.
to many, the final straw has been the ruthless exploitation of christiania’s naively liberal marijuana politics by drug dealers. threats and violence form the worst chapter in this, the decline and fall of copenhagen’s hippies, and a poignant reminder as to why the rest of the world chooses the rule of law above utopian anarchy.
but if the loss of ideals is felt so keenly here, it is only because those ideals had promise and beauty in the first place. in the words of architectural sage steen eiler rasmussen, in his 1976 defense of christiania:
"understood correctly, christiania may become an important corrective to a consolidated consumer society run amok. if it didn’t exist, we would have to invent it".
as a corrective, the place doesn’t exist anymore and we may need to reinvent it.
till then, we have the houses.
le corbusier famously claimed that all architecture could communicate was ideas. and the original ideas of christiania are well put by the best buildings out there: an open community of equals; a deep distrust, no, dismissal of authorities – including architects; a deep trust in the creative potential of ordinary people when left to govern their own lives. modesty. individualism. sustainability.
today, there is a strong political will to tear the houses down. they are illegal, follow no building code, have no permits. the old copenhagen defense line on which they are situated must be cleared to protect the city’s cultural heritage.
but these buildings are cultural heritage too. and while the 20th century has left us all with a distrust of utopian and idealist thinking, tearing them down will be acting in a dangerous denial of history.
all my photos of the glass house.
more words, yada, yada, yada.
this photo was uploaded with a CC license and may be used free of charge and in any way you see fit.
if possible, please name photographer "SEIER+SEIER".
if not, don’t.
Nice Bokeh Trey!
Perfect.
lovely image
Beautiful, capture, the eye gets to roam free as the horses.
Beautiful !!
A wonderful picture.
Fantastic portrait!
nice capture !
Pretty lady!
Amazing shot
wow so thats the farmers daughter
Amazing
Love that soft focus mate. Great portrait.
Beautiful. Lucky to have a willing model tagging along. Great shot.
Great!
she looks a little christina applegateish
quality. nice glass.
Stunning shot and colours!!!!!
lovely portrait!
very nice!
a nice portrait of a real beauty….
that is terrific, man..
Beautiful portrait!!!!!!!!!!!!!! She’s sooooooooooo pretty!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
wow, love it!
Gorgeous image and model!
Gorgeous portrait…and bokeh.
An interesting piece of architectural history here – both in your photo and your illuminating account. Thanks.
thanks!
This is a brilliant house and it is very well captured. It strongly remind me of the "Hexenhaus" near Lauenförde in Germany, built in 1984 – 2001 by Alison + Peter Smithson and is a fine example of The New Brutalism, as documented by Reyner Banham in 1955.
you are right, there is a lot of christiania in hexenhaus.
I remember peter smithson presenting it at a lecture at the academy in copenhagen – and thinking that an ongoing small-scale project like that was not a bad way to end a career.
I have since learnt that their career effectively ended with the robin hood gardens and the scandal that it became. in fact, the smithsons built very little since 1970, their reputation ruined at least in england.
what a waste.
fantastic!
thanks, miolo
This is an amazing photo of this house. I’ve only seen it from across the water, never this close.
Great text on Christiania, by the way. Email us, if you like, about our english language documentary, "Christiania: Our Heart is in Your Hands" (work in progress) – busno.8@gmail.com
thanks for the generous comment. the text is an attempt to make sense of my own very mixed feelings, both for christiania and the way they have mismanaged their priviliged position and the so called cultural battle waged against the old left by the very successful right wing in Danish politics today.
but I am merely an onlooker and don’t have any connections with christiania in my private life. I am attracted to the place as an architect; I believe there are important lessons to be learnt from the modernist venacular that has developed in self-governing favelas across the globe but I could be romanticizing.
the photo is a very careful composite of three pictures. you can’t get the house in a single frame because of the water. I was standing on a raft with my baby daughter in one hand and the camera in the other, shooting from the hip.
I googled your documentary: it sounds very interesting – and balanced which is the hardest thing with this subject
We came to be involved in Christiania because my partner, who is also an architect, was in Copenhagen for five months on a Valle scholarship to study the architecture of Christiania. Christiania is a very complex place and I think you have a very good handle on what is happening there, which requires that you both love it and criticize it (which is much the way that many in Christiania itself approach their relationship with it). As one of our interview subjects said, "you ask 100 different people and you’ll get 100 different answers", but Christiania honestly attempts to chart their destiny through full consensus, so it makes for a maddeningly slow, yet dynamic, process.
Your composite of three pictures is very well done, and very appropriate for the building and for Christiania itself, all the more impressive for standing on a raft with a baby at your hip!
—————
Just saw your latest post. Thank you. Actually, the description on the Audience Without a Box site is quite out of date. We wrote that prior to going to Christiania in September 2006 for a two week shoot and, of course, once we got there we realized that everything we thought we understood about Christiania was not what was actually important to the people there. We really need to update that! (and I’m sure we still won’t get it quite right).
this may be an annoying question but when – where – how will we see your christiania documentary?
well, we saw it and we loved it. loved the way you expose the (many) issues through local voices. we will definitely be following your work.
the mother simply haunts me. christinia parents sending their kids to school through pusher street has become, I suppose, one of the cliches of the debate, yet it existed…
thanks for the link!
Sorry to see your reply so late. Thanks for the comments. Actually, there is more of the mother who describes how she was a pusher for a short time when anyone in Christiania could sell if they needed some extra money to build an addition to their home, or take a vacation. She tells about how her relationship with the pushers now is such that they will call her and report on what her girls are up to, if they’ve sold hash to them or not.
I think a larger issue right now is the children of Christiania constantly being exposed to the police occupation. The police park their vans near one of the entrances off of Long Street, right where there is a center for pre-teen kids to hang out (you see this area in the video with the girls dancing in the street) and it is quite disturbing, I think, for them to witness the violent arrests on a daily basis.
please don’t apologize, there is no such thing as a late answer here.
I am afraid my view on drugs is closer to that of the police and their employers than that upheld by christiania having had an architect boss who would occasionally become very paranoid from smoking…and for a number of other reasons of a lesser anecdotal quality.
if a pusher were to report that he had sold hash to my daughter, I fear I would spontaneously combust, hopefully managing to call the cops somewhere in the process.
the romanticizing of substance abuse and the demonizing of the police force are two of the most embarrasing things about the left wing, which I might add I belong to myself.
these are subjects it is hard not to be passionate about which is exactly why your 5 minute sample is so good: the collage of local voices precludes any overtly judgemental angle from your side, pro or con, leaving the viewer more open to the complexity of the issues facing this group of people.
Yep, Christiania is a place of contradictions, and the whole hash issue is very complex. One of our subjects, the wonderful French woman in the 5 minute piece, says at one point, "Pusher Street has been like a difficult child for us", and also refers to it as the "black hole in the universe", but also acknowledges the complexity of its influence on Christiania’s culture. It is by no means black and white.
Our own personal take on it is somewhat ambiguous, which is a good thing since we are not passionate on either side of the issue. It has been very important to us that our documentary not be overwhelmed by the hash story. It can’t be avoided, certainly, but it is the one thing that many people think about first when thinking of Christiania, and that’s a huge disservice to the beauty, culture and inventiveness of the place.
I liked the french woman very much! I am glad she has more clever things to say.
I was reminded of a good friend of mine who insists that christiania is not a mere reflection of society but a cruel parody with the inuit sleeping in hallways and architects and lawyers living along the water front. it seems your french woman can offer a more nuanced view of things.
I agree with not letting the hash story get the upper hand in your documentary (even if it has been in real life). there are so many other stories to tell. but there is no way you can escape it entirely…have you spoken to any of the pushers? the police out there?
it seems to me – viewing fragments of information from a great distance – that you could be facing some of the problems related to embedded journalism.
…and, I might add, that you are dealing with them beautifully.
Seier – are you in Copenhagen? The 40 minute work in progress of our documentary will be screening on Sunday, 16 December at 7:00pm in Byens Lys in the Fabriken building in Christiania. Would love to see you there if you’re in the area.
thanks, I would very much like to be there. I don’t usually go out before my daugther is in bed but maybe it is time for an exception to that rule.
Great, hope to see you!
Robert
I have been to some hippie houses like this around Bisbee, Arizona. an old mining town, filled now with artists.
robert: thanks for inviting me, I had a really good time. what a great place byens lys is, perfect place for a screening of your work. and yes, I am glad you are finally going to the police
I just remembered another pusher street related experience from a couple of years back. it’s about the guards that the pushers used to warn against the police turning up. these guards would sit in parked cars near the entrances to christiania, 24-7.
I work at an office very close to christiania, old house on the corner, ground floor. we were waiting for movers to deliver a truck load of stuff, they were very late. suddenly we heard the noise of a traffic accident. the noise didn’t stop, it just grew and grew. as I looked out the window, I saw a truck racing down the street – it was the movers, we had been waiting for.
I don’t know if you have ever seen a truck going full speed down a street with coppled stones. the rear of the truck dances around like in a badly animated movie, crashing into parked cars – hence the noise.
as the truck turned the corner it got stuck between a parked car and the on-coming traffic. I ran to the door. the first thing I saw in the street was the two movers, bleeding from their heads, trying to threaten the on-coming drivers to reverse. next thing, two guys getting out of a parked car behind the truck. I thought their car might have been hit by the truck and I walked towards them, hoping to defuse the situation. then I saw the big iron rods they were carrying. I disappeared into the office.
we later found out that our movers had made a wrong turn and ended up near christiania. there, they had manouvered their truck around in a way which annoyed the drug dealers’ guards. the guards had beaten the movers up with iron rods. I was later told they had also fired a gun into the truck, but I doubt that. I am sure that would have made the news.
when they passed by the office, the movers were trying to escape. you can’t really escape anything in a truck. later in the day, we heard that the drug dealers’ guards had caught up with them just north of copenhagen. the two movers were in hospital but alive.
I wonder if anyone in christiania realizes what a destructive force they had become to the surrounding neighbourhood and how peaceful things became after police cleared pusher street. have you come across anything in your research?
thanks for the invitations, ben and daugaard, but we have stopped posting to groups.
Really. Very interesting. Thanks for it all.
Wish I had time to read all of this and digest properly.
thanks for the interest, a.s.o.m.f.s.
Beautiful photo, interesting discussion. Many commune-type places seem to have dilemmas like this.
I agree with some of the more insightful comments you shared regarding "the time has past" of this little architectural community. It is sad that squatter’s use it in the way you describe – a common trait around the world with many causes – and I certainly hope that 1) the city retains the cultural value of this marvelous area, and 2) that the squatters are replaced with more suited application even if it is more tourist in nature.
just stumbled across this discussion. interesting points of views, and it’s really nice to hear a fellow dane’s take on the subject. as i am right now in california, i am often asked about the fate of christiania by my friends over here, and it’s difficult to give them a quick response.
just wanted to commend you for putting up this photo and for initiating a thought-provoking discussion. god weekend!
leedman: thanks for commenting. the issues regarding this place are extremely complex, not least owing to the fact that after 35 years of squatting, the inhabitants of christiania have won right of use. naturally, their rights must be protected.
svanes: thanks! and good luck with explaining denmark to the californians
thanks for your comment and for using the photo. interesting web site too.
not too interested in the whole posting to groups thing though but thank you for the invitation.
thanks chris lawrence but we have ceased to post to groups.
cool house
agreed, tb
if i begged you – would you please add it to my sustainable architecture group? there is an innovation and simplicity in this photo that young architects overlook and I hope to build my library full with photos that inpire architects to just ‘think’ a little more…
fantastic! Love it!
thanks, superka.
fascinating! i would love to build myself a house like that
agreed!
I appreciated the text and I am sympathetic of your cause. I hope so very good days arrive.
i stayed in christiania a couple of times when i studied abroad in copenhagen and all i can say is that it is a wonderful place. i haven’t been to any other place in the world that even comes close. i hope the government there realizes this and lets it continue to exist. great photo and commentary. this shot really displays the beauty and history that can be found there.
thanks geonando and a.l.
from what I gather, negotiations are successful so far. a lot of new squaremeters will be built in christiania but they will be experimental housing, bringing young families into the area.
even hippies – or maybe especially hippies – need rejuvenation…
cool, thanks for showing your work
really good, very old….. give some ideas for renovation
they are clearly related. there is a nostalgia to brodsky’s work which I don’t find in the anonymous christiania building, though.
great photos, by the way.
Wow, seier, this conversation is still going on! Your photo has really generated a lot of thought and discussion. Hope you are well.
Robert
hi robert, good to hear from you. and yes, this photo has taken on something of a life of its own. it is even in books now
how is your work progressing? the story of christiania is not getting any simpler these days…
Hey, seier,
The doc is progressing. We have a 50 minute piece now and just had work-in-progress sceenings here in Seattle and in Portland, Oregon. It seems to go over well and always generates a lot of discussion. We are returning to Copenhagen for a final round of shooting for the entire month of May and will likely have a screening in Christiania at that time. We’ll let you know!
Best, Robert
I look forward to that!
kristian
am loving this exchange, very fascinating!
thanks, pixelviz.
robert: great clip. you know I like the french woman
ah, very nice comparison. fine tree house.
I just saw that one of the neighbouring houses where I live in copenhagen was having new windows installed. the old ones were thrown from the scaffolding into an open container on the ground. you can imagine the sound.
when you know houses like this, you can’t help thinking it is a missed opportunity.
Cool photo!!
thanks
hey, thanks for adding me as a contact, I wanted to tell you that this photo is so inspiring! I want to start my own collection of used windows/building materials and start my own project! Which will certainly be difficult as I’ve NO construction experience! but at least I’ll start re-using / recycling more! My first passion is photography and I’ve started a little website jennysphotos17.blogspot.com, soon I’ll be uploading my photos here too. (I use blogger because of google, I get paid when people click on the ads, and it helps support my work) AGAIN AMAZING! such an inspiration.
thanks jenn – and good luck with your projects!
what a brilliant building!!!!
agreed. new photos of it coming soon.
whow, this house has been through it
superbe !
this is great – thanks for sharing it!
hmmm, in architecture, we need to get rid of the patricide performed by each new generation which seems so automatic and hence, meaningless.
there is a general campaign in england against the smithsons who are really hated. they must have been truly obnoxious but it tends to make the english blind to the fact that they made good architecture. and when they didn’t make good architecture, they at least failed in interesting ways.
you can tear all the bad copies down. but you keep the original. its dead simple
in a business that is creative in any sense of the word (as all businesses must be), you should be allowed to fail – maybe not every time, but sometimes
but it must be done with a certain ambition, imagination, spirit…
frankly, if they are not using your creativity, they are not using you right. and that is a leadership issue. however, holding on to a less than perfect job these days is something I understand only too well.
you are welcome – or was that spam?
I am guessing you didn’t try the link…
Kingrpg FAIL
ben, I like that you think
This is wonderful. I’m in the UK but remember hearing about Christiana back in the 1970s. I had no idea it was still in existence in any form. I worked in a bookshop at the time and we had a large format booklet in the shop about it. I didn’t buy one at the time and afterwards regretted it as they all disappeared pretty quickly.
Robert, is your film likely to be shown in the UK? I should love to see it.
That looks great. I shall check it out. Thank you
Hmm.. one used copy on Amazon – £135. I will see if my library has access to one.
there is a second edition out now, so the price should drop to about £ 25 very soon
Oh good. I shall keep an eye out, thanks!
you are welcome
The Christiania Interiors book is great, BTW. We have the first edition (well, my ex has it) Beautiful photographs.
Robert – many thanks. I’ll keep an eye out.
great story, thanks
I love this place!
does it really say "young today, rich tomorrow"?
makes me sad.
good news from christiania: the Danish state and the freetown have agreed on the sale of christiania to its inhabitants. the area will be collectively owned to safeguard it from speculation.
thats great!
Yes, indeed. Great news!