A DAY IN NØRREBRO WITH WOOD WOOD
A DAY IN NØRREBRO WITH WOOD WOOD
AHEAD OF THE WOOD WOOD X END. CAPSULE, WE SPENT A DAY AT WOOD WOOD HQ WITH CO-FOUNDER AND CREATIVE DIRECTOR KARL-OSKAR OLSEN.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY SARAH STENFELDT.
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As a relatively frequent flyer – often travelling alone – I prefer to sit for as long as possible, full of self-satisfied pity for my travelling companions who feel the need to start queuing aeons before the gate is scheduled to open. Having long-since resigned myself to the fact that flying is pretty uncomfortable no matter where you’re sitting, I relish the additional leg room in the departure lounge for as long as I can and take whatever seat is left vacant when I get on board.
Flying out to Copenhagen, however, I was adamant on landing a window seat. A Scandi-virgin, I wanted to take in the Western world’s idyll for contemporary living from above, as if watching the patchwork of colour gradually come into focus would send me into a state of perpetual hygge; a cultural hypnosis cast as the Danish landscape came up to meet me. Sadly, the mid-April mist was so dense that the plane battled through cloud and turbulence directly onto the tarmac and my hopes of absorbing the fabled Scandinavian zen from the sky were left unrealised.
Outside the airport, I jump in a taxi to Wood Wood’s base in Nørrebro. Arthur – a native Dane in his mid-fifties – asks me if it’s my first time in Copenhagen. I nod and he tells me not to worry about the weather. “It’s morning,” he says. “The sun will be out by noon.” Looking out across the ashen landscape – where anything more than 50 metres away seems to exist only in silhouette – I’m not convinced.
But Arthur is right. Even during the course of the 25-minute car ride from the airport, Copenhagen seems to emerge from behind the fog into a welcoming springtime glow. I comment on the number of bikes which noticeably outnumber the cars and decorate every pavement, pavilion, and storefront we pass. “Copenhagen wasn’t built for cars,” Arthur says. “After the war, city planners wanted to redesign Copenhagen to help economic growth. They wanted to put motorways and tunnels everywhere, but that’s not Copenhagen. We are a city built for people, not profit.”