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Archive on 4: The Christiania Effect

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The Christiania Effect

24/09/2011

BBC Radio 4 - Archive on 4, The Christiania Effect

David Goldblatt visits Christiania in Denmark known for drugs, anarchy and now turning 40.

David Goldblatt looks at the Christiania phenomenon as he visits the 40-year-old commune in the heart of Copenhagen and one of the world's boldest experiments in free living.

Christiania celebrates its 40th birthday this year - quite an achievement for a place where an abrasive attitude to the Danish Government has meant it's always been about two weeks away from being shut down. The BBC has visited Christiania regularly over the past four decades and, in The Christiania Effect, writer and broadcaster David Goldblatt goes to the commune and examines some of those reports to tell the history of this bold experiment in free living. He has also gained access to a unique oral history of Christiania where long time members of the commune tell their own personal and sometimes surprising version of events.

In the programme David hears how an abandoned barracks in the heart of Copenhagen became a centre for liberal drugs laws, hands-off parenting and free-form architecture. He learns how it evolved from a dark and dangerous area for social drop-outs to being a focus of Copenhagen's tourist industry and a place that many of the city's residents would fight hard to defend. And he hears how it became a magnet for promoters and performers like Bob Dylan, Beck and the Arctic Monkeys. 
As well as looking back at its history David assesses the future of this unique community and asks what mainstream society can learn from this unique counter-cultural experiment.

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