Radisson Collection Hotel, Royal Copenhagen
The Radisson Collection Hotel, Royal Copenhagen (until 2009 SAS Royal Hotel , until 2018 Radisson Blu Royal Hotel ) is a five-star hotel with 261 rooms in the Danish capital, Copenhagen , which is part of the Radisson Collection hotel chain . The Danish architect and designer Arne Jacobsen designed it on behalf of the Scandinavian airline Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS) from 1956 to 1960. The building was designed in an international style , with a curtain wall made of glass and steel. Jacobsen influenced the project down to the smallest detail of the furnishings. Because of the extensive changes since its completion, it is referred to as his lost total work of art . Some of the furniture designs, such as the Swan and Egg armchairs , are considered design classics.
location
The hotel is located opposite the main train station and the Tivoli amusement park on the main Vesterbrogade artery in the Vesterbro district . On the other side, the property is bounded by the streets Hammerichsgade and Vesterport, and in the western area by neighboring buildings. On a traffic island between the hotel and the main train station stands the Freedom Column, which was erected in 1797 and commemorates the abolition of serfdom in Denmark.
history
In 1954, the SAS began planning a scheduled flight connection between Europe and the west coast of the United States via the polar route , which was advertised as the "SAS Polar Short Cut" . The first commercial flight from Copenhagen to Los Angeles took place on November 16, 1954 with a piston engine-powered Douglas DC-6 . Orders for the first jet-powered Douglas DC-8s to be used on the route were placed by the SAS in 1955 and expected delivery from 1958. Therefore, the marketing department expected an increase in tourist traffic in Copenhagen, primarily from the United States, for the one new hotel should be built.
The building was not only intended to serve as a hotel, but also as a terminal for handling SAS passengers. In addition, administrative offices should be provided in order to concentrate the airline's distributed offices within Copenhagen in one place. With the Copenhagen Airport -Kastrup a shuttle bus connection should be established. Planning for the building began in 1955. Per Kampmann, the airline's director at the time, commissioned Arne Jacobsen to plan the hotel and its interior in 1956. In terms of design, the SAS wanted a hotel that represented the jet age and a monument to Danish design.
Planning and reception
When the contract was awarded, the basic dimensions of the building had already been determined by the client and Copenhagen city planning. Jacobsen designed a 20-story skyscraper based on these specifications, which, like almost all modern skyscrapers of the era, was inspired by Gordon Bunshaft 's Lever House, built in 1952 . The curtain wall , the separation of the curtain wall and the load-bearing skeleton, the slender tower above the broad base and the bracing building cores with elevators, technical rooms and ancillary rooms formed a type of building that in the late 1950s almost became a paradigm of modern architecture. In Denmark, the SAS Royal Hotel was the first conception of style in a prominent location, like in the center of the capital.
After the publication of sketches of the building in local newspapers in 1956, there were protests from the population and criticism from the professional world. There were fears that the historic cityscape would be destroyed and that American architecture would move into Denmark. Jacobsen agreed to the comparison of the building with a punched card , because “this is what it really looks like with open windows on hot summer days.” Erik Møller , who previously worked with Jacobsen on several town halls, described the building as a “glass cigar box” . The American Philip Johnson, who shaped the international style, described it as the worst imitation of the Lever House. In a speech to the Architectural Association in London in 1960, he said that the building “... has no scale and looks more like a piece of blotting paper with a bill on it.” The admiration for Mies van der Rohe is recognizable but boring. Jacobsen commented: “At least it won the ugliest building competition in Copenhagen. "
When it was completed, the hotel was the largest hotel in Denmark, with a height of 69.60 m it was the first skyscraper in Copenhagen and until 1969 it was also the tallest building in Denmark. In 2009 it was the seventh tallest skyscraper in Denmark .
Total work of art
The SAS Royal Hotel is considered the last total work of art by Jacobsen and is also described as the lost total work of art by Jacobsen because of the profound changes it has undergone in the following years . The attempt to create a total work of art, i.e. the design of every single aspect of a project, shaped Jacobsen's way of working during this creative period. Even with earlier work, he did not limit himself to the planning and construction of the building alone. He also tried to influence the interior of the building through his own creations such as chairs and fabric samples. In his first major project after graduation, the House of the Future planned in 1929 , he created furniture that was only used there. The SAS Royal Hotel was his most comprehensive work, here he was completely able to do without designs by other designers and architects. After the SAS Royal Hotel, Jacobsen had no other assignment with such extensive freedom of design.
structure
The building consists of two structurally separate building parts that are only functionally connected. The lower part is a two-story low-rise building with two basement floors. The 18-storey hotel tower stands above this on six separate foundation girders.
Horizontal construction
The building part was planned to be divided into two parts, with a hotel part and a terminal part (see red line in the overview). The foyer, a restaurant, bars, a café and shops are located in the southern part under the hotel tower. The northern part was intended for the handling hall of the SAS Terminal, with check-in counters , baggage handling systems, offices and meeting rooms. The counter hall stretched over both floors. The offices on the first floor were accessed via a gallery. Since the terminal was closed 20 years after the hotel opened, the area has been used for other conference rooms, shops, a travel agency and a gym. For this purpose, a false ceiling was drawn into the hall. The roof of the low building was intended as a terrace, but was not used as such. Storage rooms and the underground car park are located in the two basement floors.
On the fully glazed ground floor there is direct access to the individual shops from the street. The first floor protrudes from the ground floor and is clad with gray-green enameled steel panels. A narrow, continuous ribbon of windows underlines the horizontal alignment of the low-rise building.
tower
The tower begins on the third floor. The administration of the hotel is located on this floor. The storey has a smaller footprint than the remaining storeys of the tower. Therefore, the floor cannot be seen from the street, so that the tower appears to float above the low building. The Lever House also exhibits this detail.
The standard floors between the 4th and 18th floors house single and double rooms. Some of the rooms have connecting doors. The service areas on the floors are located between the elevator shafts and the northern outer facade, over which a vertical band of ventilation grilles extends. The 19th floor contains suites. The Alberto K restaurant is on the 20th floor . The guest room is all around the windows and offers a panoramic view of the city. The kitchen and service areas are in the center of the floor.
The reinforced concrete skeleton tower has a curtain wall made of aluminum profiles and transparent and green-gray anodized glass. The windows can be opened inwards on all floors. The horizontal distance between the aluminum profiles is 60 cm. Vertically, 168 cm of green glass followed by 120 cm of windows are mounted alternately. Jacobsen first used the curtain wall construction on the three-story town hall of Rødovre in Denmark in 1955. The facade there differs only in the light green color of the intermediate elements and slightly different proportions.
Above the 20th floor, the facade continues with a blind floor without windows. Here, on both long sides of the building, there is a neon sign with the SAS logo at the time. It remained in its old style after the airline withdrew from the Rezidor Hotel Group , the parent company of the Radisson SAS hotel chain. The logos of the Radisson SAS were only replaced on the low-rise building.
layout
In the foyer, the floor is covered with light gray marble slabs. The ceiling was painted dark green, but was later hung with gray panels. In the vestibule of the four parallel elevators, the walls are clad with black marble. The foyer is connected to the restaurant on the first floor via a spiral staircase . This has steps made of folded steel plates and is suspended on 14 steel cables. Smoke-colored plexiglass fills the spaces between the railing. The green of the foyer ceiling continues in the green carpet. Similar spiral staircases were used by Jacobsen in several of his projects. Jacobsen also used similar spiral staircases prominently in the building in the Aarhus town hall and the Rødovre library.
The two areas of the low-rise building were originally separated by a two-story winter garden (see number 3 in the overview), between the inner and outer windows of which orchids were planted and hung in flower pots. The winter garden was closed at the top by a glass roof. Translucent curtains hung over the outer side walls. In 1963 the winter garden was converted into an exhibition space, closed and dismantled in 1980.
Jacobsen had considered different facade designs, which, in addition to other layouts, also contained other color concepts. One of his ideas was to mount a flower box in front of each window . In his favored design, the sides of the tower were to be clad with granite slabs, as he did with the town hall of Rødovre. This was rejected by the future hotel director, as he saw better marketing opportunities with a glass facade. The room prices were based on the number of windows, starting with the cheapest room with five windows.
green
Green tones dominate the entire construction project. Jacobsen, who also worked as a landscape architect, pursued the motif of the “modern garden” between 1955 and 1960. He implemented his interpretation through green textiles and furniture with organic shapes paired with rigid geometric basic shapes. With the integration of the winter garden in a prominent position in the vertical structure of the SAS Royal Hotel, he tried to integrate nature into modern city life. Already at the town hall of Rødovre he used a similar language of colors and shapes.
Facility
Jacobsen created various furniture, lamps and textile patterns. Some models were later taken into series production and developed into design classics that are exhibited in museums around the world. Others, however, remained unique.
As seating furniture for the foyer and the rooms, the architect designed the sofa series 3300, the chair Drops, as well as the armchair and sofa variants of the Swan and Egg . The Fritz Hansen S / A , which produced all the furniture for the hotel, took the 3300 Series, the egg and the swan velvet sofa in series production. The egg's sofa, on the other hand, was reserved for the SAS Royal Hotel. In the foyer, the egg and swan were arranged in groups of five on deep-pile carpets. For the Alberto K. restaurant he used his designs from 1955, the Series 7 chairs .
All-round, multifunctional panel walls made of pine , rosewood and wenge were installed on the walls of the hotel rooms . These were halfway high and could be equipped with tables, mirrors, shelves and more. The construction made it easy to exchange the elements. Jacobsen had learned such a construction from his teacher Kaare Klint , who was a supporter of functionalism .
The curtains of the restaurant on the first floor were made of a fabric with a gray-green plaid pattern woven into it. Sunlight reflected the fabric golden. Jacobsen also designed the other textiles used. Jacobsen used a cylindrical lampshade made of white fabric, which he mounted on different base supports, as the basic shape for the lighting. The shade was set up as a floor lamp, table lamp and wall lamp both in the rooms and in the public areas of the hotel. A thin, straight aluminum tube was the supporting rod of the floor lamp. All lamps were produced by the Louis Poulsen company.
Further development
Since its completion, the building and its furnishings have undergone several design and construction changes. The management of the hotel had other demands on the building that were inconsistent with Jacobsen's concept and did not appreciate Jacobsen's work. In 1963 the AJ cutlery was removed from the restaurants because it was felt to be too complicated for day-to-day business. The wooden panel walls in the rooms were painted white around 1980 to adapt them to the zeitgeist of that time. The previous textiles had to give way to textiles from the standard range of the SAS hotel chain, as these were cheaper to obtain and replace. The carpets in the foyer were removed and the straight, continuous reception desk was replaced by several round counters.
After the terminal was closed, the hotel set up ten conference rooms in the low-rise building in order to compensate for the missing overnight stays by the passengers with conferences. The restaurant on the first floor has also been converted into a conference room and has up to 200 seats on Series 7 chairs.
Renovations
A profound renovation of the interior took place in the late 1990s. The previous facility had been in operation for 30 years and was in need of repair. Head-high wall paneling made of light wood veneer with backlit, elliptical frosted glass surrounds was installed in the hotel rooms. New beds, bedside tables and lamps replaced the old models. A new color scheme replaced the green tones. The new hotel management was aware of the promotional effects of the Jacobsen name, so they reintroduced some previously removed details, such as the cutlery in the restaurants. The renovation cost the equivalent of 10 million euros. In 2018, the interior was again extensively renovated as part of the renaming to Radisson Collection Hotel, Royal Copenhagen. The designers were the Space Copenhagen team made up of Signe Bindslev Henriksen and Peter Bundgaard Rützou. After extensive research, original furniture was restored and details of the original design were restored, such as the leather handrail of the stairwell in the lobby.
Preservation of the design
Another part of the advertising strategy with Jacobsen's name is the room 606, which, apart from a few details, was retained in the Jacobsen design. It is offered for overnight stays in normal hotel operations. The walls of the room are in the original light green color. The surrounding wooden panels are mounted on them . There are specimens of the egg, swan and drops covered in green fabric in the room. The 3300 series is also included in the sofa and armchair version. In contrast to the original equipment, there is a flat screen TV.
In the Design Museum Danmark on Bredgade, a permanent exhibition room is dedicated to the hotel and Jacobsen's work on it. The hotel's floor lamp, an egg and a swan armchair are on display. In the background there are photos of the hotel and the curtains from the restaurant.
For the 100th birthday of Arne Jacobsen, Zdenek Felix presented the exhibition Arne Jacobsen on behalf of the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art . Absolutely modern together, which was also shown in the Deichtorhallen in Hamburg from May to September 2003 . In addition to the furniture designed for the hotel, it also contained a faithful replica of room 606.
Movie
- Architecture : Hotel Royal SAS. Documentation, France, 2008, 26 min., Director: Richard Copans, production: arte France, German first broadcast: October 11, 2009, synopsis by arte with video excerpt, 3:04 min.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Uwe Herms: The fairytale capital . in Die Zeit , 52/1995
- ↑ 1958 advertisement: Save $ 113.40 on SAS transatlantic or transpolar to north america.
- ^ William Yenne, Bill Yenne 2005: Classic American Airliners. Zenith Imprint, ISBN 0-7603-1931-6 . P. 25 (English)
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k Michael Sheridan 2003: The SAS House: Jacobsen's Lost Gesamtkunstwerk. In: Louisiana Museum of Modern Art: Arne Jacobsen. Absolutely modern. Pp. 44–49 (English)
- ^ Translated and quoted from Jeff Chu: Happy Birthday, Arne Jacobsen ( Memento of October 5, 2002 in the Internet Archive ). In: Time (English): "yes, they call it the punch card, and it's funny, for that is actually what it looks like when the windows are open on a hot summer's day"
- ^ Translated and quoted from Jeff Chu: Happy Birthday, Arne Jacobsen ( Memento of October 5, 2002 in the Internet Archive ) in Time (English). "Class cigarbox"
- ↑ Jens Jessen: Grandfather's Easter Eggs - Copenhagen shows an exhibition for the 100th birthday of the architect Arne Jacobsen . In: Die Zeit , 37/2002
- ^ Translated and quoted from Jeff Chu: Happy Birthday, Arne Jacobsen ( memento of October 5, 2002 in the Internet Archive ) in Time : “At least it came in first, when they held a competition for the ugliest building in Copenhagen. "
- ↑ Emporis : Profile of the Radisson SAS Royal Hotel (English)
- ↑ Emporis: List of the tallest buildings in Copenhagen (including churches and towers)
- ↑ a b c d e Tobias Faber 1968: New Danish Architecture. Publisher Gerd Hatje, Stuttgart. P. 158 ff
- ↑ a b Christian Datz, Christof Kullmann, Martin Nicholas Kunz 2005: Copenhagen Architecture & Design , teNeues, ISBN 3-8327-9077-2 . P. 134
- ↑ Tobias Faber 1968: New Danish Architecture. Publisher Gerd Hatje, Stuttgart. P. 164
- ^ Richard Copans: Architecture: Hotel Royal SAS. Documentation, France, 2008, 26 min.
- ↑ a b Morten Lund: Jacobsen's Light - lighting and architecture by the Danisch architect Arne Jacobsen ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . In: Louis Poulsen: NYT
- ↑ Spiegel Online: Space for Plush ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . May 21, 2001
- ^ Johannes Hüning: SAS Royal Hotel - Update for an Icon . In: Ideat Contemporary Life, 3/2018 (June-July 2018), pp. 72–75
- ↑ Jacobsen's Erbe , Deutsche Bauzeitung from February 15, 2018, accessed on September 20, 2018
- ↑ Michael Sheridan: Room 606. Phaidon, London 2003, ISBN 0-7148-4289-3
- ↑ Arne Jacobsen - Absolutely modern ( Memento of the original from September 1, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Deichtorhallen Hamburg, May 23 to September 14, 2003. (Accessed May 14, 2010.)
- ↑ Michaela Wailzer: Design icon Arne Jacobsen: Suffocating on aesthetics . In: Spiegel Online . May 23, 2003
Coordinates: 55 ° 40 ′ 29 ″ N , 12 ° 33 ′ 48 ″ E
