The fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen are full of inanimate objects that come to life. “It often seems to me,” he wrote, “as if every hoarding, every little flower is saying, ‘Look at me, just for a moment, and then my story will go right through you.’ ” He might have enjoyed Copenhagen’s newest attraction, realized by architect Gottlieb Paludan and lighting designer Speirs Major, across the harbor from the Danish writer’s former home. At night, the giant BIO4 power plant becomes an enchanted forest, transformed by animated illuminations.
Light is an integral part of a facade design that wraps the biomass-fueled facility in a veil of eucalyptus trunks, celebrating wood as its source of green energy. (Though some scientists question the sustainability of this renewable technology, the wood chips burned at BIO4 are said to be from certified sources.) On three sides of the exterior, the debarked timbers are applied in a single layer, but on the 575-foot-long by 150-foot-high north facade, visible from the city center, they form a dense “forest,” 20 feet deep, suspended from a steel frame. A public staircase rises through dangling logs to a rooftop observation deck.
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