how can i tell i'm not in san francisco?
how can i tell if i'm in America?
how can i tell if i'm in America?
how can i tell where on god's earth i might be?
i like to leave language out of the picture (Danish signs,
for instance, are dead give-aways. too easy with the Ø's and å's and Æ's). instead, i concentrate on roof
lines, building materials and ornaments, the way the streets are made or laid out, what kinds
of shops predominate, the look of the horizons, light fixtures, the
clothes people wear, etc.
it can start simply like:
there are no lakes in the middle of the city of san francisco.
københavn søerne (5 lakes)
large brick face
cobblestones (in danish "brosten" which translates to "bridge stones")
orange house leans on grey
orange house, yellow stripe
close up of aging burnt orange
there are no lakes in the middle of the city of san francisco.
københavn søerne (5 lakes)
and
we don't do turrets much.
turreted corner building
plus we use very little brick or stone.
on buildings or on streets
brick detail
large brick face
cobblestones (in danish "brosten" which translates to "bridge stones")
but the biggest difference is we don't have many houses that were built before1600 and we almost never paint them orange or yellow!
orange house leans on grey
orange house, red shutters
burnt orange building
orange house, yellow stripe 
close up of aging burnt orange 
george dubuffet certainly culled among sources such as your "close up of aging burnt orange" ---- omg, lb .... keep these coming! so delectable, so tactile, tastier than a travelogue....viva la orange! xoxoxo
ReplyDeleteHow would you differentiate Denmark from, say, the Netherlands? I am afraid the similarities overwhelm the differences for me. Love the pics. It all feels very right brained to me.
ReplyDeleteaccording to Martin Kløft, my danish correspondent, you can tell you are in Netherlands when all the people are wearing little tiny round glasses. obviously anecdotal but i've never actually been there myself so cannot report.
Deleteand
Gene
had you not noticed til now how DANGEROUSLY right-brained i really am?
and this just in from a South African living in HOLLAND - WINDMILLS will tell you absolutely whether you are in Netherlands. (of course, we have some windmills in southern california so we might suddenly get confused barreling down 101 and think we should be speaking Dutch?)
DeleteI absolutely love this series of photos, Lori. When I was in Denmark last year, I was also struck by how similar the architecture is to the Netherlands. But in walking around Copenhagen, I also thought there were a lot of buildings that looked like they would fit in perfectly in Moscow or Saint Petersburg. One look at a map tells you why - they are so close together - it stands to reason that there would be similarities.
ReplyDeleteLove it sis. Period.
ReplyDelete