The Sportsvej Special

On our last evening in Kolding, Lars & Dorte had some other friends over for dinner who stopped in on their way home to Copenhagen, from a farm stay in Jylland. Us girls started the evening in the green house, where we got served with bubbly:

 

We also got a surprise visit from Lukas, who lives in Sønderborg, but came home as he was going to a party the following day. So great to see him - had to send the following photo to our Lucas of course:

Brotherly love between Lukas and Magnus:

Having dinner outside is really one of the best things with Scandinavian summer.

Once the Copenhagen-people had left, we continued with our own little party, playing board games, and having special drinks that Lars mixed up - the Sportsvej Special for example, with gin and rhubarb syrup, om nom nom!

Into the Danish summer night... great evening!

 

Hej Helmut!

Again, with just a days notice, I called my friend Kamilla (who lives not far from Kolding) to see if she was home and wanted to see us. Amazingly - she was home and free too! Gotta love last-minute plans!

I have seen Kamilla over in Copenhagen more recently, but it had been seven years since I last visited over here in Jylland. They had done a lot of work on their house since then, massive renovations all over; so we got to see all the new parts, and got especially wooed by the new kitchen:

Another new addition since I last saw Kamilla (pre-Covid, like most others) was - baby Helmut! Oh yes, a third boy, a baby brother to Hector and Herman! Such a cutie, almost a year old.

As the weather was amazing we took a walk around the estate, to see the changes there too. Kamilla and her husband are already running all the work around the estate, but are also about to renovate the big manor house with the intention of moving in there in about a years time.

Nebbegaard Gods, with the lady of the manor..!

A great visit, which ended with Dorte doing some berry shopping in Herman's kiosk! A little project run by the 9-year old in the family, who had picked all the cherries and berries all by himself, to sell here in the kiosk by the road side! A true entrepreneur in the making!

 

The Arne Jacobsen summer house

In the garden at Trapholt they showcased the Arne Jacobsen summer house. Arne Jacobsen is probably more known for his chair designs, and other interior items; but he actually also designed this so-called system house known as Kubeflex. The idea being you can add modules or change the layout to meet different needs.
Each cube-shaped element measures 10 m2, and that size was determined by what could be transported by a lorry. The intention being making this a simple system, accessible for all.

The Kubeflex house was designed shortly before Jacobsen passed away but never ended up in production. This is the only one of its kind, the prototype, having been used by Jacobsen's family as a summerhouse until 2005. That's when it arrived at Trapholt and is now preserved and accessible to the public where it stands today exactly as Arne Jacobsen envisioned it.

We followed along on the guided tour inside. The interior is incorporating many of Jacobsen's other designs, and it's furnished with his furniture and other items including the Cylinda-line and the VOLA fittings for the bathrooms and the kitchen.
Being a perfectionist, Arne Jacobsen designed everything in this house, from the door handles to the lights and the sinks.

Glass being one of the prominent materials that Jacobsen worked with, the house has large windows and sliding glass doors. This was to flood the house with daylight, and create a link between the exterior, the natural environment and the interior of the house. Just look at this view behind us, and the fabulous Arne Jacobsen Egg chairs (called the most beautiful chairs in the world!).

Trapholt

Dorte and I continued to be cultural and went one day to visit Trapholt, a museum of contemporary art and design that is located in Kolding. It is one of the largest modern art museums in Denmark outside of Copenhagen. We didn't bring anyone else, it was an afternoon just for us, and it was l-o-v-e-l-y!

 

We started by visiting the temporary exhibition by Erik A. Frandsen - The Giotto Method. This artist lived through a 2020 in a self-imposed isolation due to Covid, and ended up being extremely productive during this period. The title of this exhibition The Giotto Method refers to the experiments with perspective conducted by the Italian painter Giotto di Bondone (1267-1337); and how Frandsen's paintings are constructed around the same principles of perspective that Giotto had.

Interesting, thought-provoking and somehow sad paintings... I really felt some of them, too close to home.

Then we took on another temporary exhibition, about Verner Panton, called Colouring a New World. And boy did he colour his world, Panton applied a spectacular use of colour, material and shape in a very unique way!
I LOVED this exhibition!

Verner Panton is one of the most prominent names of Danish design history, and influential since the 1950s and still today. He had a long career, where furniture was at the heart of his creative output. Check out this super cool sofa/chair-module called the Living Tower! You can actually sit on four different levels.

Nothing "light and fresh" here (as in many Scandinavian homes), it's all bright, brash, exotic, vibrant and sensuous at the same time!

The Phantom Chair, one of his more known creations. Can be used as a chair, a bench or even a side-table.

One part of this exhibition consisted of three rooms, each with their own sound, like f.e waves or animal noises. Verner Panton had a desire to develop a theory of feeling good, by living with all our senses, which we could test out here in each room.

There was also a separate part in the museum called Light and Colour, with eight rooms also created by Verner Panton, for Trapholt specifically. Each room had its own colour scheme which really made you aware of the effect each colour had on the mood and feeling.

The museum really enjoys a fabulous setting with lovely views of the Kolding fjord, so of course we had to pause our visit and enjoy a that together with a quick fika, some cake and lemonade.

Finally we ventured down into the basement, thanks to this big spiral set of stairs, inspired by the Guggenheim Museum. Down here we saw the Among the Trees installation, also created during the Covid-winter.

This was a really cool work, created as a project by a total of 740 individuals each creating a specially selected leaf, then being quilted by the textile artist Tina Ratzer and collected into this artifical forest. Each leaf tells each persons story and relationship with their chosen tree.

What a great visit! My heart was singing and my face was smiling all the way through!

Best gift ever

We've known the Petersens since we lived in Horsham. Our two Lucas/Lukas were born only a month apart, and they were both as babies and toddlers dressed in Dortes amazing handmade creations. Often it was something reused and repurposed, and I used to love and cherish the pieces she would gift me (well, Lucas) and I have kept them all, for future use.

Dorte have kept up her passion for creating all her life, and even though she has a full-time job as a teacher, and busy family life she has also started a little side business where she sells bags, hats, lap top covers, glasses cases - any thing you can think of. She mostly uses material from the amazing Liberty, or reused material she finds thrifting. I had long eyed up her Instagram page, and wanted to buy one of her bum bags - but she ended up gifting it to me. Best gift ever! I love handmade things!

As she only creates on order, I first had to choose in which colour and pattern... not easy! Since I didn't have a green bag, I went for a pretty flowery pattern in apple green, with some further "Spring" colours on the inside. It made me so happy!

Here's the final product! I am so pleased, and it has already been heavily used throughout the summer. If you are keen on something similar, or just want to see what else she makes; you can contact her via Instagram on @dortetollestrup

Koldinghus - Mary and the Crown Princesses

The exhibition we came to see at Koldinghus, was the temporary exhibition celebrating the 50th birthday of the Crown Princess Mary of Denmark.

The exhibition is painting a lovely portrait of the Crown Princess, but also of her four predecessors in the Glücksborg dynasty of the Danish royal family. We were actually guided by Crown Princess Mary herself through life-like projections on the walls throughout the different rooms.

The focus of the exhibition is what it means to be a Crown Princess, what is expected of her and how the role have differed throughout time for the different Crown Princesses presented: Louise of Hesse-Kassel, Lovisa of Sweden-Norway, Alexandrine of Mecklenburg-Schwerin and Ingrid of Sweden. Crown Princess Mary is the only one of them not to already come from a royal background.

I truly enjoyed learning more about these Crown Princesses, and I admired the clothes, jewellery and different paraphernalia displayed.

This famous ruby set is very special, as in fact all five crown princesses in this exhibition have at one time or another had the possibility of using it. It did indeed come to Denmark with one of the princesses pictured here in the exhibition - Princess Lovisa. She brought it in 1869, when marrying the then Danish Crown Prince Frederik VIII. Princess Lovisa had in her turn inherited it from her Great-Grandmother Désirée (later Queen of Sweden), who first wore it at Napoleon's coronation in 1804.

The set was apparently Queen Ingrid's favourite, and she left it in her will for Crown Prince Frederik, and it's often seen on Crown Princess Mary on official events.