Lyngbyvej 32

Today, when you approach Copenhagen on the Lyngby highway, you can sense the diverse and contrasting expressions in the facades, heights, and material buildings. With its dimensions and homogenous architectural expression, EF Lyngbyvej 32 is one of the most notable buildings on Lyngbyvejen. The architecture of the building, along with the shorter neighboring building, creates its own urban space. The façade line is withdrawn from the road and thus gives rise to a space between the high volume of the building and the dynamic of the road.

In Danielsen Architecture’s renovation project for Lyngbyvej 32, the ambition is to create a façade expression, which respects the building’s architectural roots from 1972, with a horizontal band of windows connecting the buildings. The original horizontal division is maintained as a strong aesthetic motive, which effects that the human scale is clearly reflected and that the building adopts the direction of Lyngbyvejen in its façade expression.

The choice of materials and the fabric-like quality of the building are significant for the overall aesthetic. Inspiration is found in the pretty, polished facades on the nearby street Australiensvej, as well as in the polished exterior of the IBM building which rests at the end of the road towards Vibenhus Runddel. There are large black, aluminum frames around the windows and light fiber-reinforced concrete elements on the parapets which appear naturally white and matte. On one side, elements in white fiber-reinforced concrete are also mounted with energy-saving properties.

The juxtaposition of the three fabric-like materials; the shiny black aluminum, the shiny glass facades, and the light, matte fiber-reinforced concrete, clearly reference the 1930s style of light, functionalist buildings, which have a clear idiom and hold significance in Danish architecture. This old building thus has a new façade expression, which accommodates the heritage of the area as well as its vibrations, and which also interprets them in contemporary expression.