7greeneyes
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url: hMPp://www.vanityfair.com/politics/2013/09/christiana-forty-years-copenhagen
Last June the British lifestyle magazine Monocle called Copenhagen the Worlds Most Livable City. It cited Copenhagens world class design, gastronomy, culture, innovative city planning, and green sustainable lifestyle. There is not much rotten in Denmark these days, and its hard not to love Copenhagen. Bicycles and pedestrians rule the streets, and the human beings mostly look as if they stepped out of a fashion magazine.
But there is another city within Copenhagenthe infamous free town of Christianiaand I couldnt help but wonder how it might rate by Monocles high-minded, modernist criteria. Christiania is the 84-acre anarchic enclave founded in 1971 when a brigade of young squatters and artists took over an abandoned military base on the edge of town and proclaimed it a free zone beyond the reach of Danish law. They christened it Christiania (its in the borough called Christianshaven). Christiania is still in full swing with about 900 residents, some of them third generation, and its perhaps the largest and longest-lasting commune in history. To enter it you pass under a sign that reads, You Are Now Leaving the European Union. The people of Christiania fly their own flag and use their own currency.
I first went to Copenhagen in 1972. The youth movement was in full bloom. Even the soldiers had long hair. When I heard about Christiania, a neighborhood that had just been liberated and was now a commune where you could squat for free and do almost anything you liked, I headed right over.
There was a bit of East Village to it all, but the attitude was more determined. Thousands of young Danesartists, feminists, hippies, anarchistswere turning their back on straight society and had actually conquered a part of town, were holding it, and were living there for free beyond the law. This was heady stuff back then. Christiania even had a mission statement: to be a self-governing society . . . self-sustaining . . . and aspiring to avert psychological and physical destitution. The possession of private property was thought to be immoral.
Back then, a walk through Christiania (no cars, of course) was mesmerizing. Everyone was young. There was a lot of hair. Id seen American hippies, but the ones here were a bit more stylishchic evenespecially the girls, barefoot in their face paint and peasant dresses. People set up stands to sell macrobiotic food and Third World jewelry and beads, but the main attraction was the hashish. If people were not selling it or smoking it, they were bent over busily crumbling it into small pieces, mixing it with tobacco, and rolling joints. Its sweet smell was everywhere.
The free town seemed more a festival to me than a society. I could not imagine it lasting. People would flock there for a while, I knew, but criminal elements, motorcycle gangs, and party people, the usual potpourri of miscreants, would surely soon outnumber the idealists. The locusts would come, as they did in Haight-Ashbury. Inevitably, the government would forcibly close it down. Obviously I didnt know the Danes.
I went back to Copenhagen for a visit this summer. I was curious about Christiania. It was 42 years old now. What had it become? The long, beautiful summer days made it the perfect time to find out.
With up to a million visitors a year, Christiania is the second most popular tourist site in Copenhagen. Even elementary-school groups come to see it.
Christiania has grown up to be a cool, verdant little village in a corner of Copenhagen. I had underestimated the work ethic and the diligence of the Danes. They have built an entire settlement of spare, humble, Hobbit-like homes that surrounds a lake and runs along gravel paths and cobblestone roads that wind through woods to the seaside. Older buildings have been restored and are often covered in murals. There are bars, cafés, grocery shops, a huge building-supply store, a museum, art galleries, a concert hall, a skateboard park, a recycling center, even a recording studio (inside a shipping container). I noticed electric hand dryers in a café bathroom. Buildings had satellite dishes. Children rode around on multicolored bikes and groups of young tourists wandered the streets in short pants, sandals, and black hoodies.
Tracking 40 Years of Christiania, Copenhagen's 85-Acre Free Zone ..."
Last June the British lifestyle magazine Monocle called Copenhagen the Worlds Most Livable City. It cited Copenhagens world class design, gastronomy, culture, innovative city planning, and green sustainable lifestyle. There is not much rotten in Denmark these days, and its hard not to love Copenhagen. Bicycles and pedestrians rule the streets, and the human beings mostly look as if they stepped out of a fashion magazine.
But there is another city within Copenhagenthe infamous free town of Christianiaand I couldnt help but wonder how it might rate by Monocles high-minded, modernist criteria. Christiania is the 84-acre anarchic enclave founded in 1971 when a brigade of young squatters and artists took over an abandoned military base on the edge of town and proclaimed it a free zone beyond the reach of Danish law. They christened it Christiania (its in the borough called Christianshaven). Christiania is still in full swing with about 900 residents, some of them third generation, and its perhaps the largest and longest-lasting commune in history. To enter it you pass under a sign that reads, You Are Now Leaving the European Union. The people of Christiania fly their own flag and use their own currency.
I first went to Copenhagen in 1972. The youth movement was in full bloom. Even the soldiers had long hair. When I heard about Christiania, a neighborhood that had just been liberated and was now a commune where you could squat for free and do almost anything you liked, I headed right over.
There was a bit of East Village to it all, but the attitude was more determined. Thousands of young Danesartists, feminists, hippies, anarchistswere turning their back on straight society and had actually conquered a part of town, were holding it, and were living there for free beyond the law. This was heady stuff back then. Christiania even had a mission statement: to be a self-governing society . . . self-sustaining . . . and aspiring to avert psychological and physical destitution. The possession of private property was thought to be immoral.
Back then, a walk through Christiania (no cars, of course) was mesmerizing. Everyone was young. There was a lot of hair. Id seen American hippies, but the ones here were a bit more stylishchic evenespecially the girls, barefoot in their face paint and peasant dresses. People set up stands to sell macrobiotic food and Third World jewelry and beads, but the main attraction was the hashish. If people were not selling it or smoking it, they were bent over busily crumbling it into small pieces, mixing it with tobacco, and rolling joints. Its sweet smell was everywhere.
The free town seemed more a festival to me than a society. I could not imagine it lasting. People would flock there for a while, I knew, but criminal elements, motorcycle gangs, and party people, the usual potpourri of miscreants, would surely soon outnumber the idealists. The locusts would come, as they did in Haight-Ashbury. Inevitably, the government would forcibly close it down. Obviously I didnt know the Danes.
I went back to Copenhagen for a visit this summer. I was curious about Christiania. It was 42 years old now. What had it become? The long, beautiful summer days made it the perfect time to find out.
With up to a million visitors a year, Christiania is the second most popular tourist site in Copenhagen. Even elementary-school groups come to see it.
Christiania has grown up to be a cool, verdant little village in a corner of Copenhagen. I had underestimated the work ethic and the diligence of the Danes. They have built an entire settlement of spare, humble, Hobbit-like homes that surrounds a lake and runs along gravel paths and cobblestone roads that wind through woods to the seaside. Older buildings have been restored and are often covered in murals. There are bars, cafés, grocery shops, a huge building-supply store, a museum, art galleries, a concert hall, a skateboard park, a recycling center, even a recording studio (inside a shipping container). I noticed electric hand dryers in a café bathroom. Buildings had satellite dishes. Children rode around on multicolored bikes and groups of young tourists wandered the streets in short pants, sandals, and black hoodies.