Danish Pavilion: Christopher Bramsen On Bikes, Little Mermaid

This is the start of a series on getting-to-know the Shanghai World Expo 2010 pavilions on a personal level. The first on our agenda is the Danish Pavilion.

Remember, our 12 Must-See Pavilions? Well, I wrote that days before the Expo. Actually 3 days. Heh. But I did go to the preview, so give me a little credit.

However, after how many days of going to the Expo Park by myself or with friends (basically, a lot of times), I also discover other pavilions on my own which I think are must-sees in their own right too!

Must-see is a very relative description. For me, a must-see is if it adds value to whatever my perspectives are after viewing the pavilion. It can be because it’s geeky. Or it amazed me with its application of technology (still geeky). Or it just has a lot of meaning to it in relation to Shanghai World Expo’s theme of “Better City, Better Life”. One such example is the Danish Pavilion.

Danish Pavilion

Ok, the design is actually very basic or “primitive” if you dare say it out loud. It’s basically a steel structure that spirals all the way to the top. And that’s it.

Before anyone of you concludes that I’m this hyper-critical Expo-nian . I’m not. I like the Danish Pavilion. And since the Danes could better describe their pavilion, I’ll leave that to them–

The Danish Pavilion is wrapped around the Harbour Pool. The building itself is a monolithic steel structure designed as a double spiral with pedestrian and cycling lanes taking you from the ground and through two curves up to a level of 12 metres and down again.

So scratch that. The Danish Pavilion is more than primitive actually. Simple, yes; but that’s exactly one of the many reasons why it’s on my list.

Christopher Bo Bramsen

I had the wonderful opportunity to chat with the Commissioner General of Denmark Christopher Bo Bramsen. (Thank you Aidi!) He is also a Former Ambassador to China. Funny, light-hearted older uncle.

When I arrived at the Danish Pavilion, the lines were pretty long (surprise, surprise). It’s a shock really that the Chinese would still want to bike at the Expo given that they do this all the time. On the other hand, the Danish Pavilion offers a different kind of interactive experience; and I guess everyone loves an exhibit where you can tinker with something in it (This was an exception for me as I don’t bike. Boo.).

Here are snippets of our exchange–

CNReviews: Please tell me more about the theme of the Danish Pavilion.

Christopher: When we look at Denmark and the cities of Denmark, the concept of the pavilion controlled by the architect is a play on 2 words–welfare and fairy tales.  So you call it welfairytales. It doesn’t make sense but that’s what we are. We’ll interpret that here. A good city is a good city where it has all the technical, scientific developments. But we’re presenting something else. If you want happy life, better life, it should also have some cultural aspects like experiences or activities. That’s where The Little Mermaid comes in.

So what we have here–our building, it’s round because our theme is connected to bicycles. And if you want to bike around, you can’t do it in a square building. *laughs*

So the building is round. It goes up and down in a spiral. On the other hand, the building has a hole in the middle; and therefore we put The Little Mermaid in the middle as an example of what we call the fairy tale part of the cultural experiences.  So together this is our concept of how to get a happy city, a good city welfare by combining these elements.

We have the bike as I’ve mentioned. It’s very important to Danish cities that you don’t cover up the streets with cars and you know, you can’t park anywhere. So we tend to give our bicycles a good chance in the cities. That’s one aspect. Not only is it good for the traffic, it’s also good for the CO₂ emissions; and it’s also good for your health. So the bicycle is a good thing. All Danes like that. That’s one thing. Another thing is water.

Water because we believe that…Copenhagen has now a harbor where you can swim in. And we believe that it’s important if you go to a big city that you have water there where you can actually jump in to enjoy during the summer, because it could be too far to the beach. So I think you will see when I was a little boy I could not swim in our home, because it was too dirty. But today, I can.

CNR: In Copenhagen.

Christopher: And in other cities. So water is very important. The water in this pavilion, you will see that around The Little Mermaid, is so symbolic.

And then we have…we don’t have a fancy restaurant here. But we have picnics. And we have an open, very open pavilion. So all-in-all it gives you a feeling of informality and openness. And picnics and green areas and sustainability for a happy city.

CNR: China is also a bicycle country.

Christopher: Yes. But I’ve been in China for many years, because I started here as a consul-general in 1994. And I’ve seen the number of cars growing tremendously. Now that’s good in one way, because it shows the wealth of the people. But it’s also dangerous, because you will end up getting everything stuck in traffic. And that’s why I sometimes…I know it’s funny to bring a bicycle to China, but we have been through the experience where we’ve seen that if you have too many cars in the city, you can’t move; so all-in-all we believe that for close transport, the bicycle is a good thing.

CNR: What is the ratio of people and bicycles in Denmark?

Christopher: Well, I saw the number here in the pavilion. It is something like 86%. And it’s much higher than China.

CNR: Oh! Really?!

Christopher: Yes, I can show you the numbers. We can check. *laughs* [CNR: The actual figure is 0.83 number of bicycles per capita. China is 0.32. Christopher gave a close estimate.]

But the fact is everyday, people ride the bicycle. And I go to work in a bicycle. You should see the traffic in my country. Of course if you want to go long distance, people live outside, they can take the train, they can take the car too of course but we’re talking about in a city, inner traffic.

CNR: Another thing–I’m curious about The Little Mermaid. My friend was telling me–it’s sort of a negative comment. How come you had to bring The Little Mermaid over here, and like is there nothing you can show besides The Little Mermaid? Because The Little Mermaid is an attraction in Denmark, and you take that away from Denmark. And so, there’s none over there right now.

Christopher: Well, first of all, we wanted to show China our friendship by bringing over the real thing. It would be a wrong move to send a copy to China. That’s for sure. And yes some people are saying, why should she go to China? She belongs here. But an interesting concept was developed. If you look at The Little Mermaid from out here. Straight on you will see there’s a video camera. And if you went to Copenhagen and look at the place where she normally seats, there’s a big screen. You can see her.

CNR: So it’s like she’s still there!

Christopher: She’s still there in a way. You can actually see the show. We can go down and wave to our friends in Copenhagen–live. So you could say that’s a cultural concept of our exchange. So all-in-all, I think it’s a good solution. And I don’t think one should be too critical, because we’ve seen so many people who are so happy to see the real thing. But there will always be somebody who has an opinion

CNR: Yeah, I’m also thinking–some people don’t have the chance to go to Denmark.

Christopher: That’s right. And she’s going to be there for a while. This is a unique experience. She has been sitting there [in Denmark] for 97 years. And now she comes out. It’s really her first time to leave the place–ever.

CNR: I’m sure some Danes were against it.

Christopher: Yes. There was a vote in Copenhagen. 32 in favor. 12 against. 2 abstained. *laughs* So there you have it. And of course some people would say why send off the best that we have? But others of course say, she’s a good ambassador for Denmark, why not? And interestingly enough, she is more known in China than in many other countries. Because the Chinese somehow adopted the story in schools and so on. And that’s quite a unique situation that China knows so much about Hans Christian Anderson.

The design of the pavilion was decided in a a contest among 8 architectural companies. It was up to the architect to decide on the design, but it was important that the values of the people can be seen in the pavilion.

Denmark is into energy conservation. And the energy consumption in the pavilion is relatively low. They have air conditioning in the office, but that’s about it. Their walls even have holes in it for natural air conditioning!

What can we learn from the Danish Pavilion? Modern cities and modern life doesn’t have to be complicated.

CNR: What’s the experience like? First, you ride the bicycle to the top…

Christopher: Or you could also ride it down.

CNR: Then…I don’t know, could you swim in the water?

Christopher: The idea was that it should be open for swimming. You can, but we have not allowed it; because we don’t want any accidents. And with 30,000 people walking through, there’s always a risk if we start opening up. So we have been reluctant there.

And then he shared a “secret”. Actually, it’s not really a secret; but it’s not yet official. However, he gave CNReviews the permission to spread the word about it.

Christopher: I have a special idea to celebrate her [The Little Mermaid] birthday. Because normally her birthday is celebrated in Copenhagen. People jump into the water. And they form a 96 [figure-shape, in the water], because she was 96 last summer; and she’ll be 97 this summer.

CNR: When is this?

Christopher: On the 23rd of August. We want to make a picture of this. And I’m sure we’ll see people swimming that day. So if you want to come…*laughs*

A part of the pool is very deep. And that faces a big VIP room. From there, it’s like you’re looking at a big aquarium. We’ll make it a big day for the children.

CNR: One last question, let’s say it’s my first time to come to the Danish Pavilion. What’s your advice?

Christopher: Well, you should go around. Feel the atmosphere, happiness. And on the way, you can see some pictures. It’s very informal. You won’t be stuck looking at the wall for 30 minutes. Denmark is a small country. Only 5 million people. But we’ve been a country for 1000 years. Very homogenic. Happy country. Fun place to be in.

Received autographed copy of book written by Christopher Bo Bramsen. He can speak Chinese.

Some pictures of happiness at the Danish Pavilion–

Let's go biking!

Jump in the fountain and make the water go up. Ironically, this is not allowed by the management. Saw a poster mentioning that first time I was there.

Wee!!!

What can we do for you?

Loved the shirt!