Rørholm Street in the Round Tower
Artists and craftsmen from the interesting artistic environment at the heart of Copenhagen exhibit in the Library Hall 17 April-23 May 2004.
I walk across Sølv Street and head for the Botanical Garden. It is Sunday morning and the town is quiet. I turn right down Rørholm Street and I catch sight of the inner city lakes appearing at the end of the street. Once the drysalter, the cigar shop owner, the baker, the florist, the plumber and the tuckshop woman occupied the many small shops in the street. There used to be pavilions and summerhouses by the lakes, and it is said that H. C. Andersen often had a cup of tea in one of the pavilions during his strolls in the area. Today you find workshops, studios and galleries in the old shops, where people from far and near come to buy and look at art.
A young man crosses the street and disappears into one of the shops, and an elderly couple is looking at the pictures through a show window. I have been invited inside for coffee and croissants in a small gallery, where all the walls are hung with big paintings of fighting bulls. The animals are snorting angrily with dilated nostrils, and the colours in the paintings are like a hot late summer in the South. In contrast, the palette of the abstract paintings hanging in the studio across the street has been found further to the north—at cold waters and starry frosty nights.
Ding-dong! There is a bell on the door, and a small white dog runs to meet the customers. Drawings and paintings of faces are hanging on the walls, and over by the table the portrait painter is ready with pen and paper. Rørholm Street also houses both an ivory cutter who works up narwhal and mammoth teeth and a glass artist who melts wire nettings into big plates of recycled glass. Here you also find textile designers, ceramists, decorators and architects as well as a great number of painters.
Rørholm Street is a gem in Danish cultural life, offering an interesting artistic environment in the abolished shops in the street. It is a treat to go from shop to shop, where anybody can have a word with the artists and watch them work or sell their works to customers--to either the great art expert or the young bloke looking for a present for his girlfriend.
Rørholm Street is regularly open between 1-4 p.m. on the first Sunday of each month, and 3-4 times a year they keep open house all weekend. For further information, check out: www.roerholmsgade.com
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