In the mid-1980s, a vacant textile factory was converted into an art centre in Odense. Modern visual culture replaced weaving mills and industrial dye in the high-ceilinged rooms, and today Brandts is a showcase for contemporary and classical Danish art. After the Funen Art Academy left the building, Brandts has colonized all floors with big ambitions and tales of a future where Odense welcomes bigger exhibitions and give them the space they deserve. The Media Museum is the only other institution still present in this five storey industrial wonder.

Brandts is a cultural giant, setting the tone for the use of former industrial buildings for shops and cafes in the Latin Quarter. A re-launch of the museum in 2014 provided a new logo as well as a new curatorial direction: Brandts banished the solo shows of contemporary artists, and instead specialises in grand, themed exhibitions addressed to the popular unconscious, with appeal to stomach, hearts and egos. At first the contemporary art was displaced to its little sister, Brandts 13, but after another conceptual tightening Brandts 13 is now also in the past.

Whether exhibitions centered on tattoos, selfies and Disney are expressions of an experimental, post-modern attitude to canon, or rather signs of the institution nursing consumer-guests on their conditions is up for debate. For us, part of the answer is provided by the fact that the once well-stocked art bookstore now has been replaced by glasses, scarfs and pillars with Kandinsky motives. A bookstore is where an art museum greets its visitors - an opportunity to show that you have something to tell and that you take yourself and your guests seriously.

In any case, it surely is healthy that the museum is still able to piss people off. For the more traditionally-minded guest, there is a permanent collection of Danish painting on display in the attractive modern extension of the museum, including a gorgeous, dark Hammershøi that you really ought to revisit every time you stop by for a special exhibition.

You should always attend receptions at Brandts, even if there is no chance of catching as much as glimpse of what they have put on the walls because of the crowds. Instead, sip your complimentary beverage in the outdoor gallery in good company of (almost) the entire city and enjoy the glorious view over Amfipladsen.

Today people tend to take for granted that fine arts belong in industrial settings, but the biggest art centre on Funen was a pioneer in the field of developing outdated industrial building complexes into cultural hotspots. In 1988, the museum received the European Museum of the Year Award; the first of any Scandinavian museum to do so. A quality often taken for granted, but something that should still be applauded for respectful transformation of the built heritage. Let's hope it continues to raise the bar for museum practices and doesn't retreat into the comforts of easy choices.

Admission is free on Thursdays from 5-9 p.m. and your grandmother and your maybe-date will both appreciate an invitation (but seperately).

• Mon: -
• Tue - Wed: 10.00 - 17.00
• Thu: 10.00 - 21.00
• Fri - Sun: 10.00 - 17.00

The Odense City Hall, as we know it today, was established in 1883 in the city’s old midpoint Flakhaven, and consists of an older part and a newer part. It is therefore a good bit of Odense’s history. Its history is about powerful, almost paternalistic functionaries and power-hungry politicians that stick around for way too long. Backroom deals, haggling and political reversals. Machinations and welfare billions. Still nowadays, municipalities determine most of our everyday lives, although they say otherwise. Take a peek inside the absolute “center of power” in Denmark’s third biggest city.

Seeing the city council at work is great. It’s boring – but it’s great. Those in power assemble every other Wednesday. Going every time isn’t recommend, but even a single evening in attendance, sitting on that balcony, staring down on these decision-makers who kind of rule you and your city, will let you see their real, human faces, recognizable from  those hapless election posters, hear their voices utter expected, or even unexpected phrases – that’s some quality self-imposed civic inclusion.

At first, you may experience some trouble following the procedures. What kind of game is this? Why is that odd little man giving a principal speech? Why are those guys answering questions, when those other guys aren’t? And why is the left-wing mayor giggle-whispering with that right-of-centre lady? Aren’t they supposed to be on opposing teams? And is everything just collusion between them, anyway?

They are like parents. The responsibility for all that which we take for granted, is theirs. Weeds are controlled, trees planted, roads repaved, sidewalks swept and Vollsmose window glass replaced as needed. Decisions are made on healthy food, childcare, extra tutoring at school; on pedestrian streets, green urban spaces, safety and education; on handicap transportation and on curbside parking. They are always at work, politicians, making tough decisions about the framework for the lives of the rest of us.

You can take these parents for granted, or grimace at their dullness, their fatigue and their worry, the serious voices they use when talking about dull and worrying things. But you must honor thy father and mother; understand that work is hard work and that responsibility weighs heavily on their shoulders.

I urge you to spend a few hours of your Wednesday night sitting in the plush seats on the balcony overlooking the process and gain some insight into (and respect for) the work these politicians are doing. We all know it, and we all repress it: All the fun stuff, the real stuff, takes places when we’ve put to bed and the lights are out. 

Here you can get to know the council: http://www.odense.dk/topmenu/indflydelse%20og%20politik/odense%20byraad/byraadets%20medlemmer   

Here you can see how much they make, making decisions (not a lot): http://www.information.dk/telegram/478497

• Mon - Sun: -

Get up high and take a view of the harbor from “Byens Bro”, Odense’s newest landmark connecting the city and the harbour giving both pedestrians and cyclists a different view of the city.

A few times a year I find myself in a situation where I don’t feel like it is my responsibility to create the city Odense deserves to be; where I can relax and enjoy the city-moment. This happens during the film festival and Phono festival. But it also happened during this year’s harbour culture festival, when I was standing on “Byens Bro” admiring the dramatic thunder lit sky and the sun setting low behind the clouds cutting a brutal silo landscape in the harbor. Dramatic and rich and yet so peaceful.

Something happens when you see a city from up high. Your perspective changes. It is like seeing a landscape from your childhood as an adult for the first time. Your view is different; you notice new gaps and spaces, you are forced to reinterpret what see. The view from “Byens Bro” is an experience.

The bridge is more than just a look-out post and a practical link for pedestrians and cyclist, it’s an experience in its own right. With its 135 swirling organic meters spanning the tracks, it seems to be challenging the functionalism and modernistic mantra that straight ahead is the fastest way forward. On the southern side of the bridge, 40 meters of vertical glistening pylon rises towards the sky. A vulgar manifestat for the city's transformation, crying out to passing jutlanders and copenhageners that here is a good reason to get off the train here.

• Mon - Sun: 0.00 - 24.00

You can’t say you’ve been to New Odense until you’ve made your way to the harbour. Odense Harbour is not only a pretty sweet spot, it is also home to several major attractions of the city. And Nordatlantisk Hus is one of them. From afar it looks dangerously cool and un-Odensian and once inside you’ll find a remarkable restaurant serving up a slice of the North Atlantic at a reasonable price.

Grey cliffs and luminous icebergs have inspired the shape of this architectural gem, where icy blue glass birds circle above your head. This striking building was built in collaboration between Greenland House and Odense Municipality and houses the city’s finest student accommodation on its upper floors. Below, in an unbeatable setting, you’ll find a very special restaurant serving delicacies from Greenland and the Faroe Islands in the spirit of New Nordic cuisine. It may not be Noma, but it is delicious and affordable.

Go there for their abundant brunch with the best home-made Nutella you’ve ever had and a harbour view. Eat inside, on the terrace or take away.

Apart from the restaurant, Nordatlantisk Hus also offers occasional concerts and exhibitions with a North Atlantic twist. Their gift shop is open Thursdays and Fridays 1 pm – 6 pm, Saturdays 11 am - 2 pm.

• Mon - Fri: 11.30 - 23.30
• Sat: 10.00 - 23.30
• Sun: 11.30 - 16.00

The square of power: City Hall and the Cathedral . Kings, priests and merchants. The church doesn’t command the power that it used to, but still intimidates with its physique. City Hall still towera confidently and across the square, the financial world pushes on, backed by Magasin and the rest of the city’s shopkeepers. The sculpture Oceania – the naked woman – is laid out in the middle of the town hall square, her womb facing these masculine dominants.

But you can just leave all those thoughts behind and eat your ice cream from Frellsens Chokolade on the sunny benches in front of city hall while watching the kids playing by sliding down Oceania’s sprawling body.

On the southern side of City Hall you will find Odense City Gardens – www.odensebyhaver.dk – and if you look closely, you will find the most precious old herb garden behind the cathedral, taking you back to the silence of the monasteries and a more devout and sincere life.

Stroll along to Eventyrhaven (Fairy Tale Gardens), away from agents of hard power and down to nature’s poetry.

• Mon - Sun: 00.00 - 24.00

There is an observatory at Munkebjergskolen.

When reading that sentence, people’s reactions fall in two categories. You either think: “An observatory? As in, a place to look at the stars? In Odense? At a school!?”, or you feel a surge of joy of recognition from your own school years, when first you viewed yourself in a cosmic context and first felt the insignificance of your own existence simultaneous with a desire to dream for bigger things.

I belong in the latter category. The observatory is – like many other places in Odense – one of the treasures that we forget to appreciate; one of the riches of our city that we’ve forgotten all about – the only public observatory on Funen. But it is still here.

In 1917, Seligman – a rich, Jewish doctor from the coastal town Middelfart, which back then still a genuine part of Funen – died.  Seligman was an amateur astronomer, and in his will he left his exquisite telescope to the Odense public school system in the hopes of contributing to the foundation of a public observatory to the benefit of school children and other citizens.

It took 17 years of trying to decide where to place the observatory before the telescope was removed from its box in the attic of Odense Katedralskole and installed at the roof of the then-newly built Munkebjergskole. In 1934, the city hadn’t caught up with the school yet and being still surrounded by open fields, it wasn’t much affected by light pollution.

The telescope, then one of the finest in Denmark, is still there. But despite many restorations by its conservator Erik Clausen it no longer measures up to contemporary standards, and the increased light pollution from street lamps make it impossible to view galaxies and nebulas through the telescope. It is, however, one of the most striking and well-preserved pieces of technology from its time still in use, and through it you can gaze at the moon, double stars and star clusters. The moon, especially, is worth a look.

When you lean in and look through the turn-of-the-centery Carl Zeiss optics, you’re not only looking at a the lighst from distant world, long since disappeared, you’re also standing in a spot occupied by thousands before you; thousands who have felt the same as you do.

The Observatory is open on Mondays, regardless of weather conditions, in the following seasons: February 1 - April 1 and September 15 - December 1:

Visitors are let in between 7.50 and 8 pm at the northern main doors in the schoolyard.  

On clear starry nights, a bright white lamp is lit outside the dome, and the observatory keeper will manually open the dome. Admission is 20 kr, and a visit it well worth that price.

If you’re unsure whether the weather warrants a visit or not, you can get in touch with the observatory keeper at info@munkebjergskolensobservatorium.dk or via facebook, where occasional events are also announced.  

• Mon: 19.50 - 23.00
• Tue - Sun: -

In my younger days, I often strolled through the ZOO; potential lover in one hand and a flask of heartening spirits in the other. Now my visits are with my daughter and a self-indulgent ice cream.

But it is no less enjoyable. Because, even though Odense ZOO in 1930 was the tamest ZOO imaginable – a peacock, two monkeys, a deer, a mole, and some guinea pigs were what was on show – the attraction is now truly attractive and in both 2013 and 2015 it won the award for Best European ZOO in its category (with up to 500,000 annual visitors - only awarded every second year).

This is mainly because the ZOO has managed to make cages into more than crates of containment: The enclosures have become narratives. The rocks and roaring waterfall in the lions’ enclave eccho Pride Rock from The Lion King; the ring-tailed lemurs romp in an abandoned vanilla-warehouse; and the noise of wings whistles overhead in the largest aviary in Europe.

Still, the favourite is the manatee, which bobs about in its jungle swamp bassin with the appearance of an inept kid’s drawing – strange proportions and short of details. Yet, I find myself forgetting time and place watching this big, grey beast hovering in the water, chomping on lettuce. It is absolute, peaceful bliss.

Remember that Odense ZOO serves both very bad and very expensive food, so it is worthwhile preparing lunch befoerhand and enjoying it on the savannah with a view of grazing zebras.

• Mon - Fri: 10.00 - 17.00
• Sat - Sun: 10.00 - 18.00

Den Fynske Landsby (Funen Village) is arguably the cultural institution in Odense I have the closest relationship with - I have visited the place uncountable times during my upbringing, under quite different circumstances. Here I have fooled around both during and outside of opening hours when my father worked on the realization of “Svinedrengen” (The Swineherd); here I had the authentic My-Funish-Childhood-experience that time I wore real clogs and all too little sunscreen (thanks Dad); here I was an extra in some play about local hero no. 2, Carl Nielsen. It was also here that I saw for the first time Jeppe på Bjerget in a stunning setup, where you followed the poor protagonist around the village -- from the farmhouse where he was beaten up by his wife with Mester Erik, to the pub, where he would drink all his money up, and over to the manor house, where he would wake up to a new (and unfortunately short-termed) reality.

I COULD be harsh and describe Den Fynske Landsby as Dansk Folkeparti’s dreamland: a seemingly historical time warp, where only people with money and interest in the Danish cultural heritage are allowed. But that’s not (entirely) true: the village just outside the soon-to-be mini-big-city is a fantastic escape destination for families, because here is where grandmom's childhood stories blend with tales from Emil of Lönneberga, talks about animal welfare, agricultural policy and village communities as well as an interest for animals and machines. And if neither you nor your family are equipped with fun facts about the Denmark of the 1800s, there are luckily living stories (link in Danish) and guided tours during opening hours.

So even though there are way too few buttons to press and the whole thing smells a bit old, Den Fynske Landsby is just a crazily cozy place to have a picnic at, and spend a few hours together across generations.

• Mon - Sun: -

Odense Bunkermuseum offers a living picture of how real the Cold War was.

The museum consists of a fully intact, atomic-proof military command center — which operated in secret until 2007 — from which Odense was to be governed in the case of an attack from the Soviet Union. The bunker still holds the original systems from the Cold War, which still work. Original paraphernalia like forms, disaster plans, telephones, radio equipment, warning systems, and a city map can also be seen.

The bunker is divided into an auditorium-like command center, a communications center (where secured phone lines originally made it possible to keep in touch with the city, with Fynen's authorities, and with other atomic bunkers), a kitchen with room for 30 people, and an intact machine room with a functioning back-up power generator.

• Mon - Fri: -
• Sat - Sun: 10.00 - 16.00

"I wish you could swim. like the dolphins, like dolphins can swim"

I think - with the late legend Bowie in mind - that you should go for a swim at Klosterbakken's public baths! Yeah, that's all. Go for a swim in the most beautiful indoor pool in Odense and enjoy the 1930s ambience from its red brick exterior to its grand mural above the waters. And of course the iconic neon sign outside depicting a 90-degree angle "heil" - or is it just a swimmer poised to jump? It is all in the eye of the beholder. Either way, it is a nice building and we don't swim enough.

Swimming is good for you, I hear. Fun, too. Not poetic, though. Looking at swimmers is an ugly activity. It is a awkward discipline. You feel awkward, too, when you're swimming. It is not an aestetically pleasing sport. I don't recall there being many images of swimmers in Leni Riefenstahl's art film on athletes, which otherwise includes lock, stock and barrel of classical and poetic sports. Who among us don't recall the images of a muscular, adroit discus-thrower. But no swimmers. It just isn't poetic.

Consider the American superstar swimmer Michael Phelps. Looking at him is like watching a bicycle pump at full speed in a blizzard. His speed is uncanny, but it has no swing - there is no poetry or elegance in the mechanical thrashing through chlorine water. I don't know if I really see more elegance in the movements of Vladimir Salnikov, Soviet triple gold medalist from 1980, but I like to think I do. I never saw him live, of course, but I have seen recordings of him and there was a certain elegant humanity to his appearance, despite his training under grotesque Soviet conditions. A master of the hostile, wet element.

Even if we aren't able to swim as fast nor look good while doing it, we shouldn't be discouraged from heading to Klosterbakken for a swim. Enjoy it. Enjoy the water and with every stroke feel your body rejoicing. It has saved me from many a hungover shitty morning; going for a dip before work or as a refreshing Sunday actitivity. And if you meet a dolphin in the water, let it swim past you. They're incredibly rare around these parts, and probably protected, too.

The public swimming baths at Klosterbakken date back to 1938 and the building is even older, and it has undergone major modernization several times since then, first in the 1970s, and most recently a general overhaul in 2010-11. The latest addition is a welness area with fitness facilities, spa, steam baths and saunas.

• Mon: 06.00 - 20.30
• Tue: 06.30 - 20.30
• Wed: 06.00 - 20.30
• Thu: 06.30 - 19.00
• Fri: 06,00 - 19.00
• Sat: 07.00 - 14.00
• Sun: 08.00 - 14.00

If the weather ends up warm enough that you begin considering heading off to Odense Friluftsbad (that is never going to happen, you say? Wouldn’t anyone choose the beach over the pool anyday? Not necessarily. There are in fact people out there who dislike getting sand between their toes. My friend Hakon would rather stand up all day than sit down in the sand. When his daughter got a sand box as a present the other day, and he was obligated to touch the expensive Toys”R”Us sand in order to signal enthusiasm, I saw him wipe his hand on his thighs afterwards with a distinct shiver. AND the sunfish is on its way to Denmark, which means that the great white shark is just around the corner, and some people just don’t care for white sharks in their water), you should instead consider Allerup Gamle Have. A bathing institution with heart, soul and gymnastics.

Dating back to 1929, the gardens have been sports- and festival grounds for nearly a century, and in 1934 Odense Amts Gymnastikforening hoped to secure the salvation of Denmark through gymnastics and a “fine and tough-fibered youth”. I wonder when that idea was thrown overboard. Today, Allerup Gamle Have is home to a workshop run by local volunteers and you can dangle your legs over the pool-blue water and suck a Sun Lolly till the paper dissolves on your lips.

I admit I haven’t actually been there since I was much, much younger and correspondingly shorter and smaller, making the scale of its grandeur a questionable thing. But i my memory, the sunny glory of the old gardens is nothing short of grand. A half-timbered farm with a pool where the cobblestone courtyard should have been, dug by 158 fine, tough gymnast in the upright 1930s.

Apart from the pool, there is also a playing field, kongespil, a jungle gym, basket hoops, volley nets and the chance to buy a sticky-sweet Capri Sonne for 8 kr. and a bag of pork rinds for 15. And if you want to dine on rissoles with new potatoes and gravy and peas at the neighbouring inn, you’ll have to bring your own wine as the place has no liquor license.

The old garden has room for those of us who do not enjoy sharks, sand between our toes or summer crowds. The gardens are 12 km south-east of Odense C. A dash for both cyclists and motorists.

• Mon - Fri: 13 - 18:30
• Sat - Sun: 12 - 18:30

The Graabrødre Cloister Church was originally a hospital with a church attached to it. But the original church was dilapidated in the 1800's, and what in the old days was the hospital was turned into the church that we know today. Like a hospital for the soul.

The vaulted hallway that makes up the entrance to the new church is what remains of the old one. It's age-old, way back from the 1200's. It's here, under the beautiful low ceilings, that people drink the real red wine after mass. Here is congregation and community, if you want. If you don't, you're free to go. Mass is at a perfect time, Sunday at 5PM, so if you've had a few, you have time sleep it off.

Priests from the Cathedral take turns at the pulpit, so every Sunday you can get a different variant: the liberal, the bigot, and the reflective.

Around the church is the cloister, which today is inhabited by nuns, but also by regular older ladies. Very nice location for very cheap money. From their privileged position, they often shout at the young skaters hanging out on the other side of the street, in front of Skatehouse. I find it somehow absurd to wish that life don't make noise. Jesus surely wouldn't mind a little noise and fuss — at least if I understood him correctly.

• Mon: 14.00 - 16.00
• Tue: -
• Wed: 14.00 - 16.00
• Thu: -
• Fri: 14.00 - 16.00
• Sat - Sun: -

Odense Harbour is not a harbour, which is why the public pool at Odense harbour is not really pools in the harbour. Odense Harbour is a mudhole, an appendix, a dead end of brackish water at the end of a canal. There is no flow in the water, and you can’t clean it enough to make it palatable swim. And swim is what the citizens of Odense long to do. It’s what citizens always want. Which is why there now is an island with a tub in the harbour; a real pool; a pure and chlorine-delicious pool.

I grew up on the water’s edge on Southern Funen, and sometimes I feel like an idiot to have moved to the centre; I couldn’t be further from the ocean anywhere on this island. The harbour pool helps a little. A dip is in sight. And there is going to be a Polar bear club and a sauna, and the whole thing’s free; that’s the point.   And it looks nice, too: classical bath cabins on one side and classical red-and-white observation tower on the other.

There are hopes and dreams invested in this pool. This pool is going to breathe life into the inanimate desert where no ice cream vendor or pølsemand have hithertho managed to survive. But now – now it’ll happen. The pool will make the harbour happen. I’m almost positive it will. The harbour is coming alive.

Summer and winter opening hours are different, so stop by the homepage to make sure.

• Mon: 06.30 - 09.30
• Tue: 18.00 - 21.00
• Wed: 06.30 - 09.30
• Thu: 18.00 - 21.00
• Fri: 06.30 - 09.30
• Sat - Sun: 08.00 - 11.00

Run, dammit, run! I myself never run for the sake of running, but I know that a lot of people do. So why not do it on a prize-winning track?!

The University of Southern Denmark's athletics facility are the best in the world. The International Olympic Committee has, together with the Association for Sports and Leisure Facilities, nominated the facility as world's best outdoors sports center.

Boom. We can't help but recommend something so big. It's also really cool to run on it. It's not as you imagine/fear. It's a track for both competitions and play. And the latter is particularly important. Running should be fun, otherwise there's a whole lot of other disciplines that inspire more fantasy and amusement.

But running is definitely a sport of the people. Unbelievably many people run. Either for health reasons, or to win something — maybe even to win on themselves. It's all good. There is a perfect running track for all this — and it's right in Odense.

So on with your shoes, down to the University of Souther Denmark, take your kids with (if you have any) and run! Run so that you sweat it all off, and your legs rejoice in acid and oxygen!

• Mon - Sun: 00.00 - 24.00

Odense has a sculpture park. Not a lot of people know this, but at Hollufgård there is a park of sculptures for everyone to enjoy under the open sky. Some are made especially for the site while others could not stay where they were before.

During the lockdown I went there a lot. It is really great in the blooming spring. On a grey winter day it might lessen the charm a bit, but the sculptures are as enjoyable as ever. I am epically fond of the plaque by Gunnar Aagaard Andersen, which was earlier situated by Odense Concert Hall, as part of the halls comprehensive decoration, also courtesy of Aagaard Andersen.

“Outside of the hall there will be double sculpture. As two symmetrical chords, that are not facing each other. Each sculpture consists of 4 Bent plaques, that together forms their own vault, the two vaults are almost meeting each other as a gate, a gate that is made up of fragments from different epochs….as if they were there before the buildings or perhaps after them, like the music that is to played here can be old, or new, or not yet written." - Gunnar Aagaard Andersen, 1982

The sculptures are therefore rather specific to the concert hall and no matter how beautiful there is at Hollufgård sculpture park, this is a very different environment from that for which they were originally created. My personal opinion is that they should be brought back to town, where they best serve their purpose, but until then (or perhaps forever) they can be seen in the lovely forest garden at Hollufgård.

• Mon - Sun: 00.00 - 24.00

“All the efforts to control who strolls and how suggest that walking may in some way still be subversive.” Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust 

The rather massive Odense P parking lot is a picture-perfect example of control and space ordering. The horizontal colossus spreads sinuously under the TBT area, occupying ca. 40,000 sqm and housing 1000 cars. There are 22 stairways, 11 equipped with elevators. The massive weight of the world above is (symbolically) present in the low ceiling and the grid of support pillars – resilient, elegant, polished; strolling among them will make you stretch your back and straighten your shoulders.  

Walking has been carefully considered in the design of the parking lot. The yellow sidewalk follows the same path as the (upcoming) tramway above, which functions to create a sense of connection and ease of navigation. A rather poetic design choice, the mirroring of the winding path of the tram above in the movement of the human body below creates a fertile ground for (critically) thinking about our contemporary mode of existing alongside vehicles. 

How many of our pedestrian city routes are designed as extensions of car routes, rather than the other way around? Is the humanity of the human body in movement really taken into consideration here, or is this just another ordering of space meant to ensure body docility, necessary and present everywhere in urbanised spaces? 
What can “subversive walking” look like in this long and winding belly of the city? 

Stop and stare factor: 5/5. Clean and beautiful angles; good lighting, surprising pockets of natural light.   
Dark design factor: 5/5. Music on radio plays continuously, including in the staircases. Lighting - a shade away from fluorescent. 
Panopticon factor: 4/5. Noticeable surveillance cameras. You can run, but hiding is tricky.
Cinematic factor on a scale from zero to Quentin Tarantino: Quentin Tarantino. High potential for Kill Bill posters re-enactments.

• Mon - Sun: -