elefancentric copenhagen

Oddly, elephant sightings are more frequent than you would think in the cool nordic climes of Copenhagen!

There are moving, breathing ones in their own "healthy, stimulating environment" (but still an enclosure!) designed by Foster + Partners. This apparently more enlightened and innovative example of zoo architecture has been home to a few Asian elephants since 2008 at the Copenhagen Zoo... but I'm sure they would rather be free where they can roam and frolic to their hearts' content!

we sense your sadness and boredom...

But perhaps more well-known than the sad live ones at the zoo are the 4 life-size stone elephants bearing an imposing tower at the gateway to the former Carlsberg Brewery complex, which is now being urbanized and integrated as a new district of the city. Some of the old brewery buildings are re-purposed into residential and commercial ventures, including a cool new hotel, Hotel Ottilia (where we stayed one weekend).

The four elephants with the much too heavy load were dedicated to four of the children of Carl Jacobsen, the son of the founder of the brewery, Jacob Christian Jacobsen, who named his company Carlsberg after his son. 
(Carl's wife Ottilia is now commemorated by the hip and happening hotel!)

the elephants are barely protected from the construction work around them

*****

As I walked around Copenhagen the next few days with visions of trapped elephants and dusty elephant statues in my head, I encountered a variety of elephant imagery in random spots...

 swimming in an underwater scene painted on a hoarding in the construction zone of the brewery district...

 as a coveted door-knocker on the door of a modest rowhouse on an Osterbro street...

holding up the ends of a carved ornamental garland below an elegant stone window frame on a building near Amalienborg...

even worked into an Escher-like design on a man-hole cover, and this was spotted right outside the gates of the Danish Designmuseum!

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As I became curiouser and curiouser about this state of elefancentricity in a place where it was never a natural habitat for elephants, I found out that there exists a royal Order of the Elephant dating back to the 15th century that is "Denmark's oldest and most distinguished royal order of chivalry"

http://kongehuset.dk/en/menu/news/the-history-behind-the-order-of-the-elephant

Which explains somewhat the appreciation and affinity that the Danes have for this most immense and powerful and stoic of creatures...

but never too powerful even for a little dog to relieve itself upon!