Topos
  • Menu
  • Currents
  • Projects
  • Reviews
  • Competitions
  • Cities
  • Special Issue
  • Shop
  • E-Paper

Topos

Bicycle Architecture

by Charlie Clemoes
30.08.2019
< Go to blog overview
  • Reviews

The Second Bicycle Architecture Biennale launched in Amsterdam this June, featuring an array of cutting-edge bicycle infrastructural projects from around the world. But how useful are they for citizens not blessed with a bike friendly city?

Xiamen Bicycle Skyway
Xiamen Bicycle Skyway, China (Credits: BYCS)

Last June saw the opening of the Second Bicycle Biennale in Amsterdam, a showcase of various innovative bicycle infrastructural projects from Europe and around the world. Initiated by the BYCS foundation, and curated by NEXT Architecture, this edition was introduced at Amsterdam’s WeMakeThe.City festival, before going on tour across Europe, making stops at several major exhibitions and events, including Velo-City in Ireland, Arena Oslo, as well as events in Rome and Gent.

The biennale featured fifteen projects in total, selected for their success in extending beyond functional design solutions and tackling wider urban problems. While this allows for quite a wide berth, several themes emerge from the entries. To start with, many of the projects are defined by their relationship to pre-existing car and rail infrastructure. For instance, one involves the creative repurposing of an old highway in Auckland and another involves renovation of an old railway in Queens, New York, while a project in Barcelona has successfully overcome the impediment created by a particularly tricky section of the city’s motorway network.

Seeking synergy

In a similar vein, several projects have clearly been selected for their success in binding together previously disparate parts of the city. This goes for the Auckland and Queens projects, as well as a striking bridge in the small Dutch town of Purmerend, and another bridge in Cologne, Germany which has helped to turn its surrounding area into a new city centre.

Nørreport Station  COBE and Gottlieb Paludan Architects Copenhagen Denmark
Nørreport Station by COBE and Gottlieb Paludan Architects Sweco, Copenhagen, Denmark (Credits: BYCS)

Meanwhile, there’s a very obvious focus on projects that seek to synergise with the key nodes of a city’s wider infrastructure, including a skyway that maps onto a bus rapid transit line in the Chinese city of Xiamen, a bike path that follows Berlin’s elevated U1 metro line, as well as projects in Copenhagen, Utrecht and The Hague which all adeptly insert themselves into the rapid passenger flows of these cities’ respective central train stations.

Sensitive, Stealthy, Smooth

If there were a golden thread observable from all these themes, it probably comes from the seeming assumption that the desired bicycle-centred city of the future is best achieved by way of solutions that are sensitive, stealthy and smoothly plugged into the pre-existing urban fabric. This is definitely an uncontroversial and sensible approach, and by no means the wrong one, but it would be great if a future edition also focused on some more bottom-up interventions. Coming as they do from Amsterdam, it cannot have escaped the founders of the Biennale that their own city’s incredibly bike-friendly atmosphere comes thanks to decades of grassroots activism from previous generations, rather than being delivered through top-down urban planning.

Cycling through the trees
Cycling through the trees in Limburg, Belgium. Project by BuroLandschap. (Credits: BYCS)

More grassroots, wider geography

Covering some more grassroots projects ought to also address another issue with the Biennale, that most of its successful entries are located in North and Western Europe, with four projects from The Netherlands, three from Germany, two from Belgium and one from Denmark.

Given these places are at the forefront of the move to a more bicycle-oriented urban environment, this narrow geography is to be expected. But the many cities where conditions aren’t suited to cutting edge infrastructure surely could do with some more practicable inspiration from other places that are similarly hamstrung.

To be fair to the Biennale, it’s beyond their stated scope to intervene in the various complex political situations that prevent bicycle infrastructure from being realised. But avoiding this aspect will necessarily limit its capacity for meaningful change.

Previous
article

Power to the People

next
article

For Whom We Build


You may
also like ...

Show more

  • Travelling through Landscape Architecture

  • Seeing the bigger picture: Atlas of World Landscape Architecture

  • World Bicycle Day 2020: Pedal to the metal


Newsletter jetzt abonnieren
  • facebook
Back to top

by Topos

Follow Us

  • Like

OUR NEWSLETTER

Stay up to date!

Subscribe now
  • Menu
  • Advertise
  • Annual Directory
  • Contact
  • GTC
  • Imprint
  • Privacy policy
DON’T MISS OUT!
Subscribe to our newsletter
Look forward to topical trends, surveys, projects, free-of-charge reading samples and special offers!
Stay Updated
Give it a try, you can unsubscribe anytime.

The sending of the newsletter is effected in accordance with our privacy policy.
close-link
This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish.Accept Read More
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled

Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.

Non-necessary

Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.