Seven wonders of Denmark (architecture and engineering)

Here's the first in my series of blogs about design wonders which I've experienced (or plan to experience) in my travels.

When it comes to design, nowhere packs in so much achievement from such a small number of people as Denmark (although we should never forget that the creative energy of the British Isles is up there with the best too).

Danish design spreads far beyond the borders of Denmark herself, so you may need to save up a few more air miles to visit everywhere on this list:

1) Lego factory, Billund

Make no bones about it, it all starts here. Ask any living architect or engineer (well, you can't ask the dead ones), and I am sure that they will tell you that Lego was one of their greatest inspirations. Even just a small handful of these ingenious interlocking bricks enables builders young and old to create an infinite number of combinations. The factory itself combines thousands of different piece designs into the hundreds of sets that make up the more than Lego range.

Of course, I wouldn't suggest travelling all the way over to Denmark just to visit a factory, and that isn't possible anyway. However, the original Legoland is also in Billund, and there you can see how millions of these tiny little bricks make up models representing famous icons of the world over. The town of Billund itself is also a master planned worker's community, and even Billund airport was initially built to serve the needs of the Lego company.

Flights to Billund are available from several different UK airports.

2) Sydney Opera House, Australia (Jorn Utzon)

Can there be any other building in the world which is so iconic not just of a city, but also of a country and an entire continent?

The whole story Sydney Opera House could itself have been developed into a soap opera with as many twists and turns as any episode of Neighbours or Home and Away. Every cliche is there -- a project with endless construction delays, the architect being forced out and then not being invited to the opening ceremony when his magnificent work was completed some 10 years later than planned. Despite all these problems and a budget over-run that made the Scottish Parliament look cheap, following completion, those twisting shells rapidly became the undisputed architectural icon of Australia.

Direct flights to Sydney are available from London, with a stop en route in Bangkok, Hong Kong or Singapore.

3) 8 house, Copenhagen

The eight house in Copenhagen is an ingenious combination of housing and commercial space, which somehow manages to combine the delights of building to make the most of sunlight with a pathway which goes up the slanting exterior, enabling residents to cycle right up to the top stories without even needing to use a lift -- it really doesn't get any greener than that!

Direct flights to Copenhagen are available from most major UK airports.

4) Coventry Cathedral, UK (Ove Arup)

I've picked out Coventry Cathedral because I live in the city, and also because I think the way the roof has been engineered is a real standout feature of the building. To be honest, I'm not a great fan of the exterior, but walk inside and look up, and you can see a wonderful forest like system that supports the roof.

A number of airport terminals seem to have taken their inspiration from this, especially London Stansted, designed by Norman Foster, but also engineered by Arups. Wherever there is a great engineering project, there's a good chance that Arups are involved, from major roads like the M6 toll to high-speed rail projects including the Channel Tunnel rail link, and a whole host of airports including Kansai airport in Japan, which is built on an artificial island and Hong Kong's vast new Chep Lap Kok airport, which was also built on partly reclaimed land.

Sadly, Coventry Airport's tiny passenger terminal lies dormant (see my Coventry lament blog post), but there are plenty of flights to Birmingham from all over Europe.

Trains from Birmingham Airport to Coventry take just 10 minutes. Trains from London Euston to Coventry take around an hour.

5) Oresund Crossing, Denmark and Sweden

Following on from above, this combined road and rail crossing was also engineered by Arups. As a result of its proximity to Copenhagen airport, and because of the need to allow shipping to pass through the busy Oresund straight unencumbered, the Oresund crossing uses a unique combination of undersea tunnel and cable stayed bridge.

This crossing is enabled the creation of what is effectively a two city, two country region encompassing the Danish capital Copenhagen and the Swedish city of Malmo.

Flights to Malmo are available from London Stansted and Edinburgh

6) Copenhagen Metro

The Copenhagen Metro is another minimalist Danish design classic with simple no-nonsense stations and really clean signage and branding.

For those who think tube drivers are overpaid whingers who just press stop and go all day (they do a bit more than that, but they are still a lot better paid than most of us travel writers), then the Copenhagen Metro offers the perfect answer -- all the trains are driverless. However, it doesn't seem to made much difference to the Tube fares, Copenhagen is just as expensive as London in that respect!

What it does do though is lets you sit at the front and have a fantastic view ahead, just like the Docklands light Railway. And of course, the Copenhagen Metro isn't all tunnels -- there is plenty to see on the rapidly developing Amager island on the way out towards the airport. There are even plans to extend the Metro out across the Oresund and into the centre of Malmo in neighbouring Sweden, creating the first truly international metro system (there are quite a few metros that link two cities, for example the Tyne and Wear Metro extends from Newcastle to Sunderland, and the Guangzhou Metro in China connects with the neighbouring city of Foshan).

7) Copenhagen Green Wave Cycle Lanes

Forget about Boris and his tins of blue paint that he uses to create London's so-called superhighways, when it comes to developing a network of cycle ways which is both safe and widely used, Copenhagen, Amsterdam and the smaller Dutch city of Groningen lead the way.

Whilst there are numerous measures which Copenhagen has adopted to ensure that over one third of all journeys in the city are made by bike, the simplest and cleverest is a network of sequenced traffic lights which ensure that cyclists can continue through the city without having to stop. This is done by phasing the lights around the average speed of cyclists in the city, which is about 15 km/h.

Please see our flights to Denmark page for more information on the best way of getting to and around Denmark. We also have a unique map showing flight routes to Denmark from the Uk & Ireland.