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Duńczycy. Patent na szczęście
Co łączy hygge i Larsa von Triera? Carlsberga i Kierkegaarda? A nawet Szekspira i Metallicę? Odpowiedź znajdziemy w Danii, państwie, które ostatnio zawładnęło naszą wyobraźnią. Okrywamy się ich kocami, oglądamy ich seriale i ustawiamy wieże z ich klocków, ale tak naprawdę ile wiemy o samych Duńczykach?
To reportaż, a zarazem książka podróżnicza, która poszerzy naszą wiedzę na temat Danii i jej mieszkańców. Od serialu Dochodzenie do szefów restauracji Noma, Patrick Kingsley zabiera nas w podróż do serca Danii.
To reportaż, a zarazem książka podróżnicza, która poszerzy naszą wiedzę na temat Danii i jej mieszkańców. Od serialu Dochodzenie do szefów restauracji Noma, Patrick Kingsley zabiera nas w podróż do serca Danii.
200 pages, Hardcover
First published October 1, 2012
94 people are currently reading
1968 people want to read
About the author
Patrick Kingsley
11 books56 followersPatrick Kingsley is a foreign correspondent for the New York Times, and was previously the Guardian’s inaugural migration correspondent. An award-winning journalist, he has reported from more than twenty-five countries and is the author of THE NEW ODYSSEY and HOW TO BE DANISH.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 194 reviews
October 4, 2020
Having lived in Denmark for some time, I was very eager to read this book. It was not exactly what I imagined it to be but was enjoyable /educational nonetheless.
I did not agree with everything Kingsley professed; I did have to remind myself I have not lived there for 20 years. Yet, the author’s discussion of hyggelig brought so many happy and cozy memories. Was very glad he mentioned it as Danes do take great pride in creating an atmosphere that is warm, cozy, welcoming, hospitable and filled with contentment. Who couldn’t be happy in such surroundings?
Had to laugh about his comments on the language, the view toward alcohol and the typical Danes ability to hold their own in any political discussion. Believe me, I had many of those types of discussions. The most enlightened was one beautiful spring day while out walking in the local park I sat down on a bench to admire the day. A “bum” came up muttered some things to me and I replied, in Danish (with my most practiced enunciation—sounding as if I had potatoes in my mouth), and continued to inform him that my Danish was not that strong. In perfect English he asked me where I was from and plopped down next to me to discuss everything from American politics (the USA had just had an election and he was appalled at the low voter turnout), the Danish social-welfare system, the town’s planning commission and the state of the international situation. He let it be known that the wonder of Denmark allowed him to choose if he wanted to go to college and earn a degree or be a drunk. He had decided on the later course but assured me that in a year or two he would probably go on to college.
As a Catholic, when I moved there I went to city-hall, filled out paperwork and was assured that my tax dollars would then go to the Catholic parish not the Lutheran. Again, it has been 20 years since I was there so things may have changed--it just surprised me that Kinglsey made a point of stating that other denominations were not supported by tax dollars.
When I first lived there, I took Danish lessons. The make-up of my class was almost all Turks, one Israeli, another American and a Vietnamese woman. The Vietnamese had been in Denmark since the late sixties. She knew English and raised her kids in Vietnamese while they learned Danish and English at school. Now her toddler granddaughter was learning only Danish at the state-run daycare and the immigrant had, for the first time, an incentive to learn Danish. Wild. Kingsley was correct that many immigrant women did not go into the work force and thus fell behind in the skills necessary to integrate.
Kingsley’s report on the welfare state was a bit simplified and he did leave out a vast majority of Scandinavian’s viewpoint about taxes. Yes, 54% of their wages go to taxes – this is why they do not need to save for college, medical coverage, day-care, heating bills, transportation (mostly subsidized) and many other large ticket expenses. Yes the remaining 46% of earnings is all theirs--this is why their homes are so hyggelig-- stocked with dishes and utensils of every sort, Bang and Olufsen sound systems, lovely furniture, etc.; and this is why they can take a holiday to the Continent. Is there any wonder that Denmark is the happiest country to live. Danmark er et dejligt land!
I did not agree with everything Kingsley professed; I did have to remind myself I have not lived there for 20 years. Yet, the author’s discussion of hyggelig brought so many happy and cozy memories. Was very glad he mentioned it as Danes do take great pride in creating an atmosphere that is warm, cozy, welcoming, hospitable and filled with contentment. Who couldn’t be happy in such surroundings?
Had to laugh about his comments on the language, the view toward alcohol and the typical Danes ability to hold their own in any political discussion. Believe me, I had many of those types of discussions. The most enlightened was one beautiful spring day while out walking in the local park I sat down on a bench to admire the day. A “bum” came up muttered some things to me and I replied, in Danish (with my most practiced enunciation—sounding as if I had potatoes in my mouth), and continued to inform him that my Danish was not that strong. In perfect English he asked me where I was from and plopped down next to me to discuss everything from American politics (the USA had just had an election and he was appalled at the low voter turnout), the Danish social-welfare system, the town’s planning commission and the state of the international situation. He let it be known that the wonder of Denmark allowed him to choose if he wanted to go to college and earn a degree or be a drunk. He had decided on the later course but assured me that in a year or two he would probably go on to college.
As a Catholic, when I moved there I went to city-hall, filled out paperwork and was assured that my tax dollars would then go to the Catholic parish not the Lutheran. Again, it has been 20 years since I was there so things may have changed--it just surprised me that Kinglsey made a point of stating that other denominations were not supported by tax dollars.
When I first lived there, I took Danish lessons. The make-up of my class was almost all Turks, one Israeli, another American and a Vietnamese woman. The Vietnamese had been in Denmark since the late sixties. She knew English and raised her kids in Vietnamese while they learned Danish and English at school. Now her toddler granddaughter was learning only Danish at the state-run daycare and the immigrant had, for the first time, an incentive to learn Danish. Wild. Kingsley was correct that many immigrant women did not go into the work force and thus fell behind in the skills necessary to integrate.
Kingsley’s report on the welfare state was a bit simplified and he did leave out a vast majority of Scandinavian’s viewpoint about taxes. Yes, 54% of their wages go to taxes – this is why they do not need to save for college, medical coverage, day-care, heating bills, transportation (mostly subsidized) and many other large ticket expenses. Yes the remaining 46% of earnings is all theirs--this is why their homes are so hyggelig-- stocked with dishes and utensils of every sort, Bang and Olufsen sound systems, lovely furniture, etc.; and this is why they can take a holiday to the Continent. Is there any wonder that Denmark is the happiest country to live. Danmark er et dejligt land!
August 11, 2020
Did this book teach me to be Danish - no, that is just a clickbait title. This book is a gap toothed impression of Denmark today.
Here are some highlights:
“Since 1980, their economy has grown by 70%, while their electricity usage has stayed the same. Copenhagen wants to become the firs carbon-neutral capital...”
“To smooth the way, the state government has introduced a 180% tax on car sales. An integrated public transport system also helps, as does cycling infrastructure.”
“74% of Danish mothers work.”
“According to the Gini index, which measures income disparity, the gap between rich and poor in Denmark is currently the lowest in the world.”
“It’s a different mentality. Students aren’t seen as a burden on the state, but as people whose skills will one day support it. They’re future participants in Danish life, and they’re treated as such.”
“In 1989 it was the first country to legalize same-sex partnership.”
“People from Yugoslavia and Bosnia generally want to integrate. And Danish people like it when they see people trying to integrate. If you’re trying, there’s no problem... Certainly, the attendance at the Danish-Bosnian Community Centre suggests he’s right. It’s bingo night, and it’s not just Bosnians writing down numbers - around a third of the club’s members are ethic Danes.”
“Look at my family. My father’s a Muslim immigrant. My wife, Nadine, is Jewish.” Redzepi (chef of Noma) told the New Yorker. “If the supremacists took over, we’d be out of here.”
What I was shocked was left out about Denmark:
Happiest country in the world 2016-2017 and second happiest thereafter.
- United Nations World Happiness Report
“The King of Denmark told his prime minister that if the Nazis made Jews wear yellow stars then he would wear one too, forcing the occupiers to scrap their plan... Partly as a result of such actions around 1% of the Jews in Denmark fell victim to the Nazis, compared to around 75 percent in the Netherlands.”
- The Dutch Are Different.
The author also tries to make enjoying hanging out with your family and decorating things with your flag seem racist/nationalistic. This is ridiculous. At least in The Almost Nearly Perfect People Booth takes the trouble to mention it doesn’t trouble the Danes if you burn their flag. Burning a flag would get you lynched in the US and not for nothing but British people decorate everything with their pretty symmetrical flag too.
And here is a lie:
“...in Copenhagen [Bjarke Ingels] tried (unsuccessfully) to plonk a large skislope on top of a power station.”
Seems like it worked to me: https://youtu.be/DCw6s_4sfX8
Now for some pure truth:
Oprah ❤️ Denmark: https://youtu.be/NCN8FG2NUIg
July 26, 2016
One of the things I love is hearing people from other countries and cultures talk about Denmark – my small, but lovely country. The different opinions, the general assumptions and the (mainly) nice things people say make me happy, make me laugh and they make me proud. I knew, I had to read Patrick Kingsley’s book – if for no other reason than to see how much I could recognize.
Unfortunately (for me), I know less about Denmark than he does and I actually find that kind of embarrassing. But I don’t watch Danish TV, I know nothing about Danish architecture and my knowledge about Noma? Let’s not even go there! In the end, I actually learned a whole lot about my country by reading a book about it written by a British guy – I would never have guessed that in a million years!
Patrick Kingsley is a great writer and even though the book is short, it contains so much information. It is funny, interesting and it showed me a country that I can (and am) very proud to be living in. If you have any interest in reading about Denmark, this is the book to go for!
Unfortunately (for me), I know less about Denmark than he does and I actually find that kind of embarrassing. But I don’t watch Danish TV, I know nothing about Danish architecture and my knowledge about Noma? Let’s not even go there! In the end, I actually learned a whole lot about my country by reading a book about it written by a British guy – I would never have guessed that in a million years!
Patrick Kingsley is a great writer and even though the book is short, it contains so much information. It is funny, interesting and it showed me a country that I can (and am) very proud to be living in. If you have any interest in reading about Denmark, this is the book to go for!
May 20, 2022
Might renounce my American citizenship idk
December 12, 2013
You should probably just watch Anthony Bourdain's Copenhagen episode of Parts Unknown or read Being Danish.
April 6, 2016
B O R I N G.
June 27, 2018
It was really interesting to read about Denmark and the Danish from the POV of someone from the UK, as previously I’ve read about Denmark from the POV of Danes.
This was a very interesting book covering a variety of topics from the Nordic food revolution to the issues of immigration. I liked that this book showed both the good and the bad sides to the country and attempted to explain both throughout.
I definitely recommend to anyone wanting to learn more about Denmark, I recently got back from a trip there so it was interesting to learn things and see if I noticed them whilst there!
This was a very interesting book covering a variety of topics from the Nordic food revolution to the issues of immigration. I liked that this book showed both the good and the bad sides to the country and attempted to explain both throughout.
I definitely recommend to anyone wanting to learn more about Denmark, I recently got back from a trip there so it was interesting to learn things and see if I noticed them whilst there!
November 30, 2024
Başlığı yanıltıcı olsa da Danimarka toplumu ve kültürü hakkında derli toplu bilgi edinebileceğiniz, gayet iyi yazılmış, somut verilerle desteklenmiş, kolay ve keyifle okunan bir kitap. On yıl önce basılmış olmasına karşın - bazı istatistik veriler dışında - güncelliğini pek yitirmediği de söylenebilir.
December 31, 2013
Breezy, but pithy. Fascinating snapshot of modern Denmark, in all its hygge glory. Good, thought-provoking insights on the travails of community-minded Danes' coming to grips with multiculturalism, being exceptional, and maintaining their core cultural values in this rapidly globalized new era.
November 28, 2012
Fantastic book on Danish history and contemporary issues.
Great for Danes and a perfect quick intro for visitors who want to be in the know.
Great for Danes and a perfect quick intro for visitors who want to be in the know.
September 22, 2025
I really wish I could give this book a 3.5 but alas!
It was an interesting read and I’m obsessed with anything Danish related. However I felt like the enthusiasm just fell a bit flat sometimes and I wanted more excitement!
It was an interesting read and I’m obsessed with anything Danish related. However I felt like the enthusiasm just fell a bit flat sometimes and I wanted more excitement!
August 13, 2016
3.5 stars
This review is based on an ARC received for free from NetGalley. I am not being paid to review this book and what I write here is my own opinion. Below is the scale I use in rating books.
brief
Provides a highly informative and easily read introduction to life in modern Denmark, from the culinary trends and green living to immigration and the welfare state.
full review
Author Patrick Kingsley certainly seems to know what he's talking about when it comes to modern Denmark. In his informal narrative, Kingsley provides a quick read describing many aspects of daily life in the country, focusing on things which will be of genuine interest to people who are curious about Denmark post-Viking Age (because, I assure you, Denmark continued to exist even after its people stopped going a-viking). In fact, Kingsley does not mention those excursions at all, which makes this book fairly unique in that it does not begin by trying to explain the national character as a result of events that occurred more than a thousand years ago (although it does mention events that occurred in the 19th century and how those contributed to the modern Danish attitude). Generally, Kingsley writes with the assumption that most people reading the book will do so because they have watched either The Bridge or The Killing, which is quite possibly true for many readers, but I am not among them, so the book was full of interesting information.
Throughout the text Kingsley makes it clear that he is not merely working from statistics and guidebooks, but from actual interaction with real Danes. There are quotations from students, restauranteurs, immigrants, and many other people from all walks of life, all of which contribute glimpses into what it is actually like to live in Denmark, and sometimes their words are surprising in that they are not always complimentary. The fact that Kingsley does not shy away from portraying the bad with the good is refreshing because it is a realistic look that tourists and potential immigrants alike will find useful.
For example, it is apparently difficult to be an immigrant in Denmark, it appears, for the cultural differences are radical and the nation itself seems somewhat hostile toward integrating outside influences, instead preferring immigrants to conform to the Danish way of life, sometimes even to the extent of imposing legal restrictions on how long an immigrant must have lived in the country before marrying someone else (a piece of legislation drafted to prevent women from being forced into marriage which Muslim immigrants feel is one of many attacks on their religion).
The difficulties of immigration and integration aside, Kingsley makes it clear that Denmark is a conscientious country that is trying to do the best it can by its citizenry as well as be a productive member of the EU and the global community as a whole. The information about the green measures taken throughout the country, from the cycling community to the wind turbines, is just fascinating, as are the optimistic projections of how reduced the carbon footprint might be within the next fifty years. The enthusiasm and hope shown by the Danish people in this respect is encouraging.
Note: There is a typo on page 48 where it reads "decreey" instead of "decree." There are also formatting issues on page 174.
rating scale
1 star - I was barely able to finish it. I didn't like it.
2 stars - It was okay. I didn't dislike it.
3 stars - I liked it. It was interesting.
4 stars - It was excellent. I really liked it.
5 stars - OMG I WANT TO STALK THIS AUTHOR!
This review is based on an ARC received for free from NetGalley. I am not being paid to review this book and what I write here is my own opinion. Below is the scale I use in rating books.
brief
Provides a highly informative and easily read introduction to life in modern Denmark, from the culinary trends and green living to immigration and the welfare state.
full review
Author Patrick Kingsley certainly seems to know what he's talking about when it comes to modern Denmark. In his informal narrative, Kingsley provides a quick read describing many aspects of daily life in the country, focusing on things which will be of genuine interest to people who are curious about Denmark post-Viking Age (because, I assure you, Denmark continued to exist even after its people stopped going a-viking). In fact, Kingsley does not mention those excursions at all, which makes this book fairly unique in that it does not begin by trying to explain the national character as a result of events that occurred more than a thousand years ago (although it does mention events that occurred in the 19th century and how those contributed to the modern Danish attitude). Generally, Kingsley writes with the assumption that most people reading the book will do so because they have watched either The Bridge or The Killing, which is quite possibly true for many readers, but I am not among them, so the book was full of interesting information.
Throughout the text Kingsley makes it clear that he is not merely working from statistics and guidebooks, but from actual interaction with real Danes. There are quotations from students, restauranteurs, immigrants, and many other people from all walks of life, all of which contribute glimpses into what it is actually like to live in Denmark, and sometimes their words are surprising in that they are not always complimentary. The fact that Kingsley does not shy away from portraying the bad with the good is refreshing because it is a realistic look that tourists and potential immigrants alike will find useful.
For example, it is apparently difficult to be an immigrant in Denmark, it appears, for the cultural differences are radical and the nation itself seems somewhat hostile toward integrating outside influences, instead preferring immigrants to conform to the Danish way of life, sometimes even to the extent of imposing legal restrictions on how long an immigrant must have lived in the country before marrying someone else (a piece of legislation drafted to prevent women from being forced into marriage which Muslim immigrants feel is one of many attacks on their religion).
The difficulties of immigration and integration aside, Kingsley makes it clear that Denmark is a conscientious country that is trying to do the best it can by its citizenry as well as be a productive member of the EU and the global community as a whole. The information about the green measures taken throughout the country, from the cycling community to the wind turbines, is just fascinating, as are the optimistic projections of how reduced the carbon footprint might be within the next fifty years. The enthusiasm and hope shown by the Danish people in this respect is encouraging.
Note: There is a typo on page 48 where it reads "decreey" instead of "decree." There are also formatting issues on page 174.
rating scale
1 star - I was barely able to finish it. I didn't like it.
2 stars - It was okay. I didn't dislike it.
3 stars - I liked it. It was interesting.
4 stars - It was excellent. I really liked it.
5 stars - OMG I WANT TO STALK THIS AUTHOR!
February 27, 2019
This is a really short read. It took me about an hour to get through the whole thing. Totally slaying the reading challenge this year.
I had hoped to read a book about each city/ country I'd visit during my trip in Europe so this is my read for Denmark, although I read The Little Book of Hygge: The Danish Way to Live Well not too long ago.
Anyway, there's something about countries and their cultures that strike me as entirely laughable, as fake and made up. Like yeah, as an Israeli, I'll joke about our laid back culture and our sass and sunshine but you know, that's not it. And so books like this always make me roll my eyes a little bit ("but Roni, why would you read a book if you know you're not going to like it?" is a very good question to ask).
There were really solid chapters here. I enjoyed learning more about the welfare state and the issues with migrants. I think the best bit of knowledge from here is this idea that Danish, compared to its Nordic neighbors, is changing faster as a language because children speak it to each other instead of children speaking mostly to adults who raise them in secluded space. What an interesting theory.
I was in Copenhagen for 5 days so I am absolutely an expert. My biggest impression was that it's hard to get to know Danes. That within Israel, people will tell their life story in 10 minutes, that in Germany, if the chemistry is good, people will be friendly and yet, in Copenhagen, the only positive experiences I had were with a Thai woman and a Palestinian (descendant, so idk, she considered herself a Palestinian Dane).
Every non-Danish person I'd spoken to seemed some shade of sad. It was a little heartbreaking that the expat community is so unhappy there.
I didn't bring up the "happiest people in the world" thing at all and yet, at least 4 different people brought it up and made fun of it. Which caught me off guard. They all seemed to say that Danes are content yet not happy. I felt like that made sense, that you can't really judge happiness (although I'm fond of their scale, it does seem to be considerate and well thought out).
I feel like I can continue like this, speaking of my trip and entirely ignoring the book. So this was a nice read. On to finding something nice about London!
What I'm Taking with Me
- I think I'll always have a soft spot for Copenhagen as the first city I traveled to alone, quit my first real job and learned that I got accepted to my dream degree in the university I wanted. Also, I'm still suffering from the cold I got there.
- Denmark is the most majestic country I've ever experienced.
- The cycling culture is awesome and I love how practical the history around it is.
I had hoped to read a book about each city/ country I'd visit during my trip in Europe so this is my read for Denmark, although I read The Little Book of Hygge: The Danish Way to Live Well not too long ago.
Anyway, there's something about countries and their cultures that strike me as entirely laughable, as fake and made up. Like yeah, as an Israeli, I'll joke about our laid back culture and our sass and sunshine but you know, that's not it. And so books like this always make me roll my eyes a little bit ("but Roni, why would you read a book if you know you're not going to like it?" is a very good question to ask).
There were really solid chapters here. I enjoyed learning more about the welfare state and the issues with migrants. I think the best bit of knowledge from here is this idea that Danish, compared to its Nordic neighbors, is changing faster as a language because children speak it to each other instead of children speaking mostly to adults who raise them in secluded space. What an interesting theory.
I was in Copenhagen for 5 days so I am absolutely an expert. My biggest impression was that it's hard to get to know Danes. That within Israel, people will tell their life story in 10 minutes, that in Germany, if the chemistry is good, people will be friendly and yet, in Copenhagen, the only positive experiences I had were with a Thai woman and a Palestinian (descendant, so idk, she considered herself a Palestinian Dane).
Every non-Danish person I'd spoken to seemed some shade of sad. It was a little heartbreaking that the expat community is so unhappy there.
I didn't bring up the "happiest people in the world" thing at all and yet, at least 4 different people brought it up and made fun of it. Which caught me off guard. They all seemed to say that Danes are content yet not happy. I felt like that made sense, that you can't really judge happiness (although I'm fond of their scale, it does seem to be considerate and well thought out).
I feel like I can continue like this, speaking of my trip and entirely ignoring the book. So this was a nice read. On to finding something nice about London!
What I'm Taking with Me
- I think I'll always have a soft spot for Copenhagen as the first city I traveled to alone, quit my first real job and learned that I got accepted to my dream degree in the university I wanted. Also, I'm still suffering from the cold I got there.
- Denmark is the most majestic country I've ever experienced.
- The cycling culture is awesome and I love how practical the history around it is.
December 13, 2016
Kingsley is an international journalist writing this book primarily for a British audience. It's an easy read with 8 chapters which dip into several key aspects of the Danish culture. It's the first book for the young journalist, but it reads like something from a more seasoned writer. It was well-researched, witty, and insightful.
Denmark, like its Nordic siblings, is en vogue. From its bike-centered cities, folk high schools, New Nordic Cuisine, to tv/film exports--and of course, the hoopla about it being the 'Happiest Country on Earth'. Kingsley pops a few bubbles surrounding the mythic utopia of Denmark's welfare state: he cites one Danish researcher who says "the welfare state we have is excellent in most ways...we only have this little problem. We can't afford it." He equally highlights the wonderful things Denmark is doing with green energy, and gender and economic equality.
Kingsley begins the book placing Denmark in the context of the challenges most countries face in a globalizing world: "Most countries are impenetrable to outsiders, but some--like, perhaps, America--have a national identity that is at least semi-permeable to newcomers. Denmark is not yet one of them." Appropriately he finished the book with a challenge for Denmark. "For the last 150 years, Denmark has--with several notable exceptions--hidden itself away. But in the past two decades, the country has increasingly found that this coping mechanism no longer works in a globalised world. Denmark is and can no longer be a monoculture."
Denmark, like its Nordic siblings, is en vogue. From its bike-centered cities, folk high schools, New Nordic Cuisine, to tv/film exports--and of course, the hoopla about it being the 'Happiest Country on Earth'. Kingsley pops a few bubbles surrounding the mythic utopia of Denmark's welfare state: he cites one Danish researcher who says "the welfare state we have is excellent in most ways...we only have this little problem. We can't afford it." He equally highlights the wonderful things Denmark is doing with green energy, and gender and economic equality.
Kingsley begins the book placing Denmark in the context of the challenges most countries face in a globalizing world: "Most countries are impenetrable to outsiders, but some--like, perhaps, America--have a national identity that is at least semi-permeable to newcomers. Denmark is not yet one of them." Appropriately he finished the book with a challenge for Denmark. "For the last 150 years, Denmark has--with several notable exceptions--hidden itself away. But in the past two decades, the country has increasingly found that this coping mechanism no longer works in a globalised world. Denmark is and can no longer be a monoculture."
January 3, 2015
Patrick Kingsley offers up a little for everyone in "How to Be Danish." While Danish architecture and design aren't my milieu, I particularly enjoyed the chapters on education, immigration, energy, and transportation (read: cycling). He also includes all sorts of interesting tidbits; I found his exploration of Danish knitting (by way of Danish television exports) surprisingly engaging.
Kingsley isn't Danish and as such his perspective may be expected to differ in meaningful ways from that of a Dane. However, his background in journalism seems to enable him to effectively draw out information from the the varied individuals he met with while gathering source materials. Kingsley's use of British to Danish reference points may be confusing for non-British readers but if they weren't interested in expanding their horizons, they wouldn't be reading this book. If his focus on Danish television shows seems a bit too much, it builds on the reality that that's where many of his British readers have likely drawn their information on the Danish.
All in all, "How to Be Danish" is brief, highly approachable and entertaining. I appreciated Kingsley's inclusion of a delightful collection of figures on Danish living and a handy index for research purposes.
Kingsley isn't Danish and as such his perspective may be expected to differ in meaningful ways from that of a Dane. However, his background in journalism seems to enable him to effectively draw out information from the the varied individuals he met with while gathering source materials. Kingsley's use of British to Danish reference points may be confusing for non-British readers but if they weren't interested in expanding their horizons, they wouldn't be reading this book. If his focus on Danish television shows seems a bit too much, it builds on the reality that that's where many of his British readers have likely drawn their information on the Danish.
All in all, "How to Be Danish" is brief, highly approachable and entertaining. I appreciated Kingsley's inclusion of a delightful collection of figures on Danish living and a handy index for research purposes.
April 9, 2015
Something is cool in the state of Denmark
[Through my ratings, reviews and edits I'm providing intellectual property and labor to Amazon.com Inc., listed on Nasdaq, which fully owns Goodreads.com and in 2013 posted revenues for $74 billion and $274 million profits. Intellectual property and labor require compensation. Amazon.com Inc. is also requested to provide assurance that its employees and contractors' work conditions meet the highest health and safety standards at all the company's sites].
In Copenhagen last week. Advertising is very limited. For the benefit of the tourist, being in English, there was this Carlsberg sign: "Success is temporary, loyalty is forever". In Denmark, maybe. For our British author, a TV addict, Denmark exists only through its most recent and coolest export products: TV series, star chefs, wind farms, the UN-sanctioned "happiest country in the world" reputation, and - why not - the Mohammed vignettes crisis. The rest is edited out.
If the Lonely Planet guides' style does not make you queasy.
[Through my ratings, reviews and edits I'm providing intellectual property and labor to Amazon.com Inc., listed on Nasdaq, which fully owns Goodreads.com and in 2013 posted revenues for $74 billion and $274 million profits. Intellectual property and labor require compensation. Amazon.com Inc. is also requested to provide assurance that its employees and contractors' work conditions meet the highest health and safety standards at all the company's sites].
In Copenhagen last week. Advertising is very limited. For the benefit of the tourist, being in English, there was this Carlsberg sign: "Success is temporary, loyalty is forever". In Denmark, maybe. For our British author, a TV addict, Denmark exists only through its most recent and coolest export products: TV series, star chefs, wind farms, the UN-sanctioned "happiest country in the world" reputation, and - why not - the Mohammed vignettes crisis. The rest is edited out.
If the Lonely Planet guides' style does not make you queasy.
August 23, 2017
Like other scandinavian countries, Denmark has been seen as a welfare state utopia, with its generous entitlements from cradle to grave. However, Denmark is more than that. With the world become more integrated, Denmark faces many contradictions. While its politics are centrists for most of the time, the third largest political party is a far-right party, which without its support, the ruling party would face a hard time governing. It is remarkably liberal, with legalization of same-sex marriage and marijuana, yet it possessed one of the harshest immigration law in the world. Even the caricature lampooning Prophet Muhammad came from Denmark. Its largely homogenous people is facing the wave of immigrants with an integrationist policy, making the danes tolerant while being intolerant at the same time.
Read
January 6, 2013Patrick Kingsley is a young British journalist whose short study of Danish society today has the advantage of being written by an outsider. He observations about key issues in Denmark today -- immigration, the welfare state's economy, internationally Danish TV shows, New Nordic Cuisine among them -- are well researched and presented in an engaging manner. I'm not sure everyone in Denmark will agree with all of his conclusions, but in typical Danish fashion I'm certain there will be lively discussions about any points that are controversial.
August 29, 2015
well. I slogged through this, then skimmed a bunch. The beginning of the book made me think it was going to a fun quick read, but the chapters on politics and the killing were so slow going for me I ended up skimming. This book was more a highlight of current topics in Denmark than a "how to be danish". Not bad, but not what I expected.
I found it interesting that just like other countries, Denmark has a problem accepting immagrants and has a problem with racism. Although, they don't like to admit it or call it that.
I found it interesting that just like other countries, Denmark has a problem accepting immagrants and has a problem with racism. Although, they don't like to admit it or call it that.
October 4, 2013
Like (I imagine) many of the readers of this book I was inspired to learn more about Denmark by a combination of glowing international reports on its commitment to egalitarianism and the sombre and complex brilliance of 'The Killing'. More a collection of extended magazine articles than a book which must be read from page 1 to page 180, this thoroughly entertaining book is superb for those looking for an introduction to several key aspects of modern Danish society. Highly recommended.
December 25, 2013
A brief overview of what outsiders would consider 'Danish' - design, the welfare state, a closely-held monoculture, dark crime shows - that whets the appetite for more serious reading.
The book doesn't claim to have all the answers, or anywhere near a complete portrait, but it's remarkable to read a little about approaches that seem to have succeeded where our own systems may falter.
The book doesn't claim to have all the answers, or anywhere near a complete portrait, but it's remarkable to read a little about approaches that seem to have succeeded where our own systems may falter.
March 18, 2019
Reading books in preparation for my trip to Denmark. This is eclectic and I have no sense of it as a scholarly book, but the ad box observations (based on the author’s travels and popular culture) gave me fun “hooks” for bits of pop culture knowledge on my own trip.
March 9, 2013
History, travel tips, pop-culture references - This books covers it all.
January 24, 2013
Denmark is the country of the moment. This book explains why and how to be Danish.
January 10, 2014
Really interesting, easy to read, well written. The past and the present of Denmark in less than 200 pages. I totally recommend it!
March 13, 2015
How to be Danish is a fun and interesting read for anyone interested in Denmark's people and culture.
March 4, 2018
A fun short book on various aspects of living in Denmark.
August 12, 2018
A quick overview nothing top special but simple to read and presents the general idea about the Danish mentality and culture
November 15, 2019
Idk why I even gave this 2 stars before looking back this is more of a 1'er
December 24, 2018
Work Well, Play Well: A Scandinavian Education
p.20 – Danish students are in a sense paid to go to university: they receive around £500 a month in living expenses. It’s a different mentality. Students aren’t seen as a burden on the state, but as people whose skills will one day support it. They’re future participant in Danish life, and they’re treated as such. Every effort is made to make them better able to participate. In Denmark, a well-rounded personality is seen as a key component of this ability to participate.
p.23 – This highly democratic approach to education is not a recent Danish phenomenon. It can be seen in the context of a wider drive towards social democracy that began in Denmark around 150 years ago. The roots of Danish educational ideology, like many Danish concepts, can be traced to the mod-1800s, when the country was in the process of losing much of its southern (and historically German) territory to a newly belligerent Prussia. In 1864, Denmark finally surrendered its two southern-most provinces, Schleswig and Holstein, to Prussia, a defeat which saw the country lose 40% of its population. It was a moment of huge national trauma. Until that point, Denmark still rather optimistically saw itself as a relatively powerful, multinational commonwealth, despite having regularly lost large parts of its empire since the 1500s. But in 1864, with the loss of their last significant annex, the Danes had finally to accept that their once-vast medieval empire – a Baltic sprawl that had housed several states and a babble of languages – was in fact now just one single, tiny monoculture. This forced a national identity crisis, and forced Danes to reassess the values that united them.
The debate was heavily influenced by the ideas of Nikolai Grundtvig, who is now considered a Danish national hero. By the late 1840s, Denmark had finally made the transition from absolute monarchy to parliamentary monarchy.
p.25 – Grundtvig’s first practical aim was to give all Danes access to a thorough, humanist education, particularly in isolated areas traditionally ignored by the Copenhagen elite. Thus, Grundtvig set about founding what became known as folk high schools – liberal arts colleges for the rural poor that now survive in the more arts-focussed colleges.
The intent was no less than to transform the inarticulate masses into responsible and articulate citizens in the new democratic society which was slowly taking shape.
The first folk high school was built in 1844 in a village in south Jutland. By 1864, there were 14 – and in 1874 there were 50. Now there are 70.
Danish farmers and dairymen – many of whom went to a folk high school and had consequently been imbued with a sense of both their own worth and their responsibility to society – clubbed together to form agrarian cooperatives that shared expensive materials, machinery and profits. For the fist time in Danish history, there co-ops enabled the farmers to create meat and dairy products that were of a standard consistent enough to be exported.
p.27 – In time, Denmark’s farming community became now only one of the world’s most prolific producers of bacon and butter, but also the foundation stone of the massive welfare state that gradually emerged in Denmark from the late 19th century onwards.
More Than Just Chairs: the Danish Design DNA
p.57 – Arne Jacobsen was not the father of the Danish Modern movement, however: if anything, he was considered something of a rebel. Kaare Klint, the founder of the furniture department at the Danish Royal Academy, was the man who pioneered Danish Modernism in the 20s. Klint and his contemporaries were inspired by the humanist aims of the Bauhaus movement in Germany, but they felt that Bauhaus buildings and Bauhaus furniture designs were in practice not particularly humanistic. Danish Modern was partly an attempt to do what the Bauhaus hadn’t.
p.64 – Most of the Danish Modernists did not just want to make good furniture; they wanted to make good furniture that everyone could enjoy. They aspired to make better homes for the masses – and they could do this only if their furniture was both well-made and affordable.
p.73 – Traditionally, Denmark’s top design school has been at the Royal Academy in Copenhagen – but the one most people are talking about these days is in a small provincial town in Jutland. With no furniture department and a focus on industrial and interactive design, you could argue the rise of Kolding Design school mirrors that of Denmark. Even ten years ago, Kolding was still very focused on what things looked like (aesthetics).
In 2003, the school made its first trip to China – and it was there that he says they realised “that people became better and fuller and happier designers when they understood they were working for others and not just for themselves, and that they were able to provide real value to society.
It sparked a sea change at Kolding, and a decade later they have an international reputation for interaction design. Their approach is not exactly unique, but it is more successful than many. The school and its affiliates have exhibited six times at New York’s Museum of Modern Art – more than any other education institution in Europe.
At Kolding, design is now taught as a social practice; design as a way of organizing the way that we act in societies.
Poor Carina: The Problem with the Welfare State
p.77 – The Swedes and the Norwegians think the Danes are loud, brash and unintelligible – even to each other. The Danes think the Swedes (their medieval rivals) are uptight control freaks. Both joke that the Norwegians are mere provincial bumpkins (Norway was once a colony of both Denmark and Sweden), while everyone thinks the Finns are weird.
p.80 – The state is huge in Denmark. It spends more money, as a percentage of GPD, than any other country in Europe. It employs around 900,000 Danes – about a third of the Danish workforce – and unsurprisingly therefore provides a raft of free services to its citizens. Childcare, healthcare and state education are naturally three of them – but more surprisingly, so is university education and most of its living costs. Over-65s receive a basic state pension worth twice the UK versions. The unemployed receive up to 90% of what they earned when they were last in work.
p.83 – In Denmark, political change did not arrive until 1848, even though the country was subject, like France, to an absolute monarchy: the house of Oldenborg, a line of kings stretching back to the Middle Ages who were almost always called Christian or Frederick. The reason why Denmark did not yet go the way of France was that the Danish king at the end of the 18th century – Christian VII – recognized the need, out of self-preservation if nothing else, to grant his citizens greater freedom. Previously, peasants had been forbidden to leave the farms where they grew up, and instead had to work in a quasi-feudal relationship for the local landowner – a system known as adscription. In the summer of 1788, Christian VII abolished adscription, a move which paved the way for peasants to set up their own smallholdings.
The short-term impact was clear. There was no revolution.
The long-tern impact was larger. First, the state began to be seen as an enabler of freedom – as a social good rather than the authoritarian creature it is considered in many countries, perhaps even in Britain. According to the historian Daniel Levine, but the early 1900s many Danes talked about the state, society, the public and public sector as if they were talking about the same thing. Second: the abolition of adscription turned the rural underclass into a newly aspirational breed of farmers – the very same people whose descendants would be educated in Grundtvig’s folk high schools, and would then go on to found the thousands of farming cooperatives described in earlier chapters. By the late-19th century, this new class of entrepreneurial farmers had even formed a new political party in opposition to the group of conservatives who represented the interests of the larger landowners and urban elites. By the 1890s, this party was not just championing the cooperative movement, but also campaigning for Denmark’s first pieces of social legislation: a primitive pension scheme for labourers that was introduced in 1891; social insurance (1892) and accident insurance (1898).
p.89 – When Denmark initially voted against joining the EU in 1992, it was not simply because of a knee-jerk reaction from right-wingers. A great deal of the Euroscepticism came from Danes who feared that diktats from Brussels could eventually undermine the independence of Denmark’s welfare model.
p.88 – Reality followed fiction in 2011 when – a year after Brigitte Nyborg was first sighted on Danish television screens – Helle Thorning-Schmidt, the leader of the Social Democrats and daughter-in-law of Labour’s Neil Kinnock, was elected as Denmark’s first female prime minister.
Being Danish: The Immigrant’s Dilemma
p.117 – Hygge, however, is double-edged: it is necessarily exclusionary, because there are always boundaries to a magic circle, and it may also be controlling, particularly when it verges on the compulsory. Intolerance, actual or potential, is never too far away.
Wonderful, Wonderful Copenhagen
p.121 – The city is built for cycling. It’s flat, for a start – but it also has the infrastructure. In greater Copenhagen, there are 1000 kilometers of bike lanes, and you get them all over Denmark.
p.127 – the 1973 oil crisis, the year that the petrol producers in the Arab world stopped exporting oil in protest at the West’s support of Israel during the Yom Kippur War. Denmark was particularly badly hit, and even though they later found oil in the North Sea, it made Danes fearful of ever being so reliant on fossil fuel, and, by extension, cars. It helps explain why Denmark now makes just under half of the world’s wind turbines, and why Copenhagen turned, once again, to cycling.
p.129 – Twenty-five years ago, Copenhagen was nearly bankrupt. It was an old industrial harbour city that had lost most of its industry to Jutland and China. Unemployment was high, infrastructure was failing, the housing system was in crisis, and welfare costs had spiralled. Urban renewal was urgently needed – and there was a consensus at government level that if it was to be done at all, it needed to be done properly. So, the state bailed out the city – and it was then, in the late 80s and early 90s, that Copenhagen really got going. This change from an old industrial city to an efficient, knowledge-based city with new housing development and a suitable infrastructure.
The beginnings of a subway system were set in motion. New neighbourhoods to the north and south of the city were planned – and they’re now reaching completion.
p.130 – Further investment was put into cycling lanes, and more green spaces were created.
Bigger living spaces were created, and three new architectural jewels were built at strategic intervals along the waterfront – a new opera house, a national library and a theatre. And to pay for all this, the city sold off large tracts of land to the south of the city at Orestad, in a Faustian pact that has seen the emergence of very un-Danish development on the city’s southern fringes.
p.133 – Christiania, the military base turned semi-autonomous anarchist commune, home to 850 Christianites, as well as several bars, shops and meditation rooms. It has long housed an open drug trade to which the authorities turn a blind eye. It’s a place of great symbolic importance to the hippies of Europe. If the government ever did seriously try to smash it, one local claims, every stoner on the continent would come to defend it.
p.136 – Danish self-confidence is improving, says Soren Sveistrup, the man who created The Killing.
No one represents this newfound swagger better than the architect Bjarke Ingels. In the space of six years, the 38-year-old and his firm BIG have become the most talked about young architects in the world. In New York, he’s building a pyramid-shaped skyscraper, while in Copenhagen he tried (unsuccessfully) to plonk a large ski-slope on top of a power station. He’s building a new museum in Mexico, a national library in Kazakhstan, a new city hall for the for the capital of Estonia, and at some point, Ingels has found the time to draw a comic book about his architectural ideas.
p.138 – In the late 90s, Ingels worked for Rem Koolhaas, an enormously influential Dutch architect who believes in concept rather than context; how buildings look, rather than how they fit into their surroundings.
After the Killing…
p.155 – The Sarah Lund sweater was designed by the small fashion house Gudrun and Gudrun, and Susan Johansen is the middle-aged Faroese woman who first knit it.
In the mid-2000s, homespun knitwear was out of fashion. In the Faroes, local wool was burnt as a waste product when the island’s sheep were sent to slaughter. Horrified, Gudrun Rogvadottir, a former consultant, joined forces with Gudrun Ludvig, a local designer, and the pair set out to revitalise the dying art of the Faroese fisherman’s jumper.
p.177 – There are around 6000 wind turbines in Denmark (nearly double the number in Britain, a country 6 times its size) and around 75% of them are co-owned by around 150,000 Danes. It’s these people, not the large energy companies, who most profit from the lowered energy bills, and from the sales of excess energy back to the national grind. As a result, even the most conservative locals have invested, both financially and emotionally, in the turbines.
The Great Danes
1000 – number of people on the waiting list at Noma most nights
3% – percentage of Danes who are Muslim
4% – percentage of Danes called Larsen
1901 – last time any party won an overall majority
54,000 kroner – average lawyer’s salary
34,000 kroner – average binman’s salary
20% – percentage of electricity powered by wind
36% – percentage of Copenhageners who commute by bike
14 – total number of Michelin stars in Denmark
9% – percentage of Danish residents who are of an immigrant background
26 – years in which an immigrant must have lived in Denmark in order for them to marry a non-EU citizen
406 – number of Danish islands
2025 – year by which Copenhagen hopes to be the world’s first carbon-neutral capital
p.20 – Danish students are in a sense paid to go to university: they receive around £500 a month in living expenses. It’s a different mentality. Students aren’t seen as a burden on the state, but as people whose skills will one day support it. They’re future participant in Danish life, and they’re treated as such. Every effort is made to make them better able to participate. In Denmark, a well-rounded personality is seen as a key component of this ability to participate.
p.23 – This highly democratic approach to education is not a recent Danish phenomenon. It can be seen in the context of a wider drive towards social democracy that began in Denmark around 150 years ago. The roots of Danish educational ideology, like many Danish concepts, can be traced to the mod-1800s, when the country was in the process of losing much of its southern (and historically German) territory to a newly belligerent Prussia. In 1864, Denmark finally surrendered its two southern-most provinces, Schleswig and Holstein, to Prussia, a defeat which saw the country lose 40% of its population. It was a moment of huge national trauma. Until that point, Denmark still rather optimistically saw itself as a relatively powerful, multinational commonwealth, despite having regularly lost large parts of its empire since the 1500s. But in 1864, with the loss of their last significant annex, the Danes had finally to accept that their once-vast medieval empire – a Baltic sprawl that had housed several states and a babble of languages – was in fact now just one single, tiny monoculture. This forced a national identity crisis, and forced Danes to reassess the values that united them.
The debate was heavily influenced by the ideas of Nikolai Grundtvig, who is now considered a Danish national hero. By the late 1840s, Denmark had finally made the transition from absolute monarchy to parliamentary monarchy.
p.25 – Grundtvig’s first practical aim was to give all Danes access to a thorough, humanist education, particularly in isolated areas traditionally ignored by the Copenhagen elite. Thus, Grundtvig set about founding what became known as folk high schools – liberal arts colleges for the rural poor that now survive in the more arts-focussed colleges.
The intent was no less than to transform the inarticulate masses into responsible and articulate citizens in the new democratic society which was slowly taking shape.
The first folk high school was built in 1844 in a village in south Jutland. By 1864, there were 14 – and in 1874 there were 50. Now there are 70.
Danish farmers and dairymen – many of whom went to a folk high school and had consequently been imbued with a sense of both their own worth and their responsibility to society – clubbed together to form agrarian cooperatives that shared expensive materials, machinery and profits. For the fist time in Danish history, there co-ops enabled the farmers to create meat and dairy products that were of a standard consistent enough to be exported.
p.27 – In time, Denmark’s farming community became now only one of the world’s most prolific producers of bacon and butter, but also the foundation stone of the massive welfare state that gradually emerged in Denmark from the late 19th century onwards.
More Than Just Chairs: the Danish Design DNA
p.57 – Arne Jacobsen was not the father of the Danish Modern movement, however: if anything, he was considered something of a rebel. Kaare Klint, the founder of the furniture department at the Danish Royal Academy, was the man who pioneered Danish Modernism in the 20s. Klint and his contemporaries were inspired by the humanist aims of the Bauhaus movement in Germany, but they felt that Bauhaus buildings and Bauhaus furniture designs were in practice not particularly humanistic. Danish Modern was partly an attempt to do what the Bauhaus hadn’t.
p.64 – Most of the Danish Modernists did not just want to make good furniture; they wanted to make good furniture that everyone could enjoy. They aspired to make better homes for the masses – and they could do this only if their furniture was both well-made and affordable.
p.73 – Traditionally, Denmark’s top design school has been at the Royal Academy in Copenhagen – but the one most people are talking about these days is in a small provincial town in Jutland. With no furniture department and a focus on industrial and interactive design, you could argue the rise of Kolding Design school mirrors that of Denmark. Even ten years ago, Kolding was still very focused on what things looked like (aesthetics).
In 2003, the school made its first trip to China – and it was there that he says they realised “that people became better and fuller and happier designers when they understood they were working for others and not just for themselves, and that they were able to provide real value to society.
It sparked a sea change at Kolding, and a decade later they have an international reputation for interaction design. Their approach is not exactly unique, but it is more successful than many. The school and its affiliates have exhibited six times at New York’s Museum of Modern Art – more than any other education institution in Europe.
At Kolding, design is now taught as a social practice; design as a way of organizing the way that we act in societies.
Poor Carina: The Problem with the Welfare State
p.77 – The Swedes and the Norwegians think the Danes are loud, brash and unintelligible – even to each other. The Danes think the Swedes (their medieval rivals) are uptight control freaks. Both joke that the Norwegians are mere provincial bumpkins (Norway was once a colony of both Denmark and Sweden), while everyone thinks the Finns are weird.
p.80 – The state is huge in Denmark. It spends more money, as a percentage of GPD, than any other country in Europe. It employs around 900,000 Danes – about a third of the Danish workforce – and unsurprisingly therefore provides a raft of free services to its citizens. Childcare, healthcare and state education are naturally three of them – but more surprisingly, so is university education and most of its living costs. Over-65s receive a basic state pension worth twice the UK versions. The unemployed receive up to 90% of what they earned when they were last in work.
p.83 – In Denmark, political change did not arrive until 1848, even though the country was subject, like France, to an absolute monarchy: the house of Oldenborg, a line of kings stretching back to the Middle Ages who were almost always called Christian or Frederick. The reason why Denmark did not yet go the way of France was that the Danish king at the end of the 18th century – Christian VII – recognized the need, out of self-preservation if nothing else, to grant his citizens greater freedom. Previously, peasants had been forbidden to leave the farms where they grew up, and instead had to work in a quasi-feudal relationship for the local landowner – a system known as adscription. In the summer of 1788, Christian VII abolished adscription, a move which paved the way for peasants to set up their own smallholdings.
The short-term impact was clear. There was no revolution.
The long-tern impact was larger. First, the state began to be seen as an enabler of freedom – as a social good rather than the authoritarian creature it is considered in many countries, perhaps even in Britain. According to the historian Daniel Levine, but the early 1900s many Danes talked about the state, society, the public and public sector as if they were talking about the same thing. Second: the abolition of adscription turned the rural underclass into a newly aspirational breed of farmers – the very same people whose descendants would be educated in Grundtvig’s folk high schools, and would then go on to found the thousands of farming cooperatives described in earlier chapters. By the late-19th century, this new class of entrepreneurial farmers had even formed a new political party in opposition to the group of conservatives who represented the interests of the larger landowners and urban elites. By the 1890s, this party was not just championing the cooperative movement, but also campaigning for Denmark’s first pieces of social legislation: a primitive pension scheme for labourers that was introduced in 1891; social insurance (1892) and accident insurance (1898).
p.89 – When Denmark initially voted against joining the EU in 1992, it was not simply because of a knee-jerk reaction from right-wingers. A great deal of the Euroscepticism came from Danes who feared that diktats from Brussels could eventually undermine the independence of Denmark’s welfare model.
p.88 – Reality followed fiction in 2011 when – a year after Brigitte Nyborg was first sighted on Danish television screens – Helle Thorning-Schmidt, the leader of the Social Democrats and daughter-in-law of Labour’s Neil Kinnock, was elected as Denmark’s first female prime minister.
Being Danish: The Immigrant’s Dilemma
p.117 – Hygge, however, is double-edged: it is necessarily exclusionary, because there are always boundaries to a magic circle, and it may also be controlling, particularly when it verges on the compulsory. Intolerance, actual or potential, is never too far away.
Wonderful, Wonderful Copenhagen
p.121 – The city is built for cycling. It’s flat, for a start – but it also has the infrastructure. In greater Copenhagen, there are 1000 kilometers of bike lanes, and you get them all over Denmark.
p.127 – the 1973 oil crisis, the year that the petrol producers in the Arab world stopped exporting oil in protest at the West’s support of Israel during the Yom Kippur War. Denmark was particularly badly hit, and even though they later found oil in the North Sea, it made Danes fearful of ever being so reliant on fossil fuel, and, by extension, cars. It helps explain why Denmark now makes just under half of the world’s wind turbines, and why Copenhagen turned, once again, to cycling.
p.129 – Twenty-five years ago, Copenhagen was nearly bankrupt. It was an old industrial harbour city that had lost most of its industry to Jutland and China. Unemployment was high, infrastructure was failing, the housing system was in crisis, and welfare costs had spiralled. Urban renewal was urgently needed – and there was a consensus at government level that if it was to be done at all, it needed to be done properly. So, the state bailed out the city – and it was then, in the late 80s and early 90s, that Copenhagen really got going. This change from an old industrial city to an efficient, knowledge-based city with new housing development and a suitable infrastructure.
The beginnings of a subway system were set in motion. New neighbourhoods to the north and south of the city were planned – and they’re now reaching completion.
p.130 – Further investment was put into cycling lanes, and more green spaces were created.
Bigger living spaces were created, and three new architectural jewels were built at strategic intervals along the waterfront – a new opera house, a national library and a theatre. And to pay for all this, the city sold off large tracts of land to the south of the city at Orestad, in a Faustian pact that has seen the emergence of very un-Danish development on the city’s southern fringes.
p.133 – Christiania, the military base turned semi-autonomous anarchist commune, home to 850 Christianites, as well as several bars, shops and meditation rooms. It has long housed an open drug trade to which the authorities turn a blind eye. It’s a place of great symbolic importance to the hippies of Europe. If the government ever did seriously try to smash it, one local claims, every stoner on the continent would come to defend it.
p.136 – Danish self-confidence is improving, says Soren Sveistrup, the man who created The Killing.
No one represents this newfound swagger better than the architect Bjarke Ingels. In the space of six years, the 38-year-old and his firm BIG have become the most talked about young architects in the world. In New York, he’s building a pyramid-shaped skyscraper, while in Copenhagen he tried (unsuccessfully) to plonk a large ski-slope on top of a power station. He’s building a new museum in Mexico, a national library in Kazakhstan, a new city hall for the for the capital of Estonia, and at some point, Ingels has found the time to draw a comic book about his architectural ideas.
p.138 – In the late 90s, Ingels worked for Rem Koolhaas, an enormously influential Dutch architect who believes in concept rather than context; how buildings look, rather than how they fit into their surroundings.
After the Killing…
p.155 – The Sarah Lund sweater was designed by the small fashion house Gudrun and Gudrun, and Susan Johansen is the middle-aged Faroese woman who first knit it.
In the mid-2000s, homespun knitwear was out of fashion. In the Faroes, local wool was burnt as a waste product when the island’s sheep were sent to slaughter. Horrified, Gudrun Rogvadottir, a former consultant, joined forces with Gudrun Ludvig, a local designer, and the pair set out to revitalise the dying art of the Faroese fisherman’s jumper.
p.177 – There are around 6000 wind turbines in Denmark (nearly double the number in Britain, a country 6 times its size) and around 75% of them are co-owned by around 150,000 Danes. It’s these people, not the large energy companies, who most profit from the lowered energy bills, and from the sales of excess energy back to the national grind. As a result, even the most conservative locals have invested, both financially and emotionally, in the turbines.
The Great Danes
1000 – number of people on the waiting list at Noma most nights
3% – percentage of Danes who are Muslim
4% – percentage of Danes called Larsen
1901 – last time any party won an overall majority
54,000 kroner – average lawyer’s salary
34,000 kroner – average binman’s salary
20% – percentage of electricity powered by wind
36% – percentage of Copenhageners who commute by bike
14 – total number of Michelin stars in Denmark
9% – percentage of Danish residents who are of an immigrant background
26 – years in which an immigrant must have lived in Denmark in order for them to marry a non-EU citizen
406 – number of Danish islands
2025 – year by which Copenhagen hopes to be the world’s first carbon-neutral capital
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