Herman K

Herman K shows Bremerholm a grid of horizontal metal blades, dark as old bronze, and the grid is protected: it is the face Hans Christian Hansen gave an electrical transformer station in 1963. Between 2016 and 2018 Brøchner Hotels made the station into 31 rooms, and left the cast concrete bare and the original terrazzo stairs where they were. Through the tall doors the lobby rises twelve metres, and a 3D-printed metal sculpture by Pio Diaz hangs free in it, over the bar. Upstairs the concrete is softened rather than hidden, with deep carpet and marble bathrooms shut inside sculptural cubes. One room, with a mezzanine behind glass, still leaves a strip of raw wall showing behind the bed, in case anyone forgets where they are sleeping. The name is Herman A. Kähler's, a ceramicist who died in 1917, and it is not entirely borrowed: the firm that carries it made the basins.

Recommended for grown-ups who want old Copenhagen on foot, and a room with rather more concrete in it than the city's canal houses. Nyhavn's are five minutes' walk away. Immediately behind the hotel stands Nikolaj Kunsthal, a deconsecrated medieval church that now shows contemporary art, so Herman K is not the only building here to have changed jobs. Momenta, the restaurant, is where Patrick Godborg cooks Nordic and Danish ingredients with Japanese precision and French technique, and breakfast is included when the room is booked direct. Families can come: the Junior Suite and the Deluxe Suite each take two adults and two children of twelve or under. The bar keeps a happy hour every day, then a night cap hour when the drinks are complimentary. The building was put up for transformers, and has taken to people rather well.