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

Premium Top

Topos

Superkilen, Copenhagen

by Robert Schäfer
15.05.201422.05.2014
< Go to blog overview
  • Reviews

The Superkilen neighbourhood park in Nørrebro, Copenhagen, was realized from 2010 to 2012 after the architects, landscape architects, and artists from the offices of BIG, Superflex, and TOPOTEK 1 had won the competition held in 2008. The park quickly gained international attention and was awarded a number of recognitions and prizes.

2892_Superkilen_COVER

Since its inception, Superkilen has evoked wide-ranging debate. This book welcomes the challenges raised by the park and examines the implications emanating from it with regard to changes in the conception of public space and to the increasing expectations nowadays associated with public investments.

2893_Superkilen_COVER_front_and_back

Superkilen is a one-kilometer-long, wedge-shapedopen space cutting through one of the most ethnically diverse and socially challenged neighbourhoods in Denmark. The striking design concept usesabout hundred objects and 11 tree species from all over the worldto transform this urban open space in a unique way. Three parts make up the park: the Red Square, the Black Market, and the Green Park. The objects installed – ranging from litter bins and benches to street lighting, playground devices,and a fountain – were selected by the inhabitants of Nørrebro themselves and reflect the variety of their cultural and ethnic backgrounds.

Advertorial Artikel

Parallax Article

2898_Superkilen_PRESS_IMAGE_3

According to Barbara Steiner, the editor of the book, Superkilen is the expression of a society that is becoming more and more heterogeneous and fragmented:“Superkilen deliberately complicates a consumerist as well as an analytical or discursive understanding of public art projects and sets them in relation to one another. Rivalling ideas about parks, its function and uses, are literally exposed and stimulate debate.“

2899_Superkilen_PRESS_IMAGE_4

Titled “Beyond being nice”, Steiner’s essay is comprised of six interviews, or conversations to be more precise, with the planners, designers, and other project contributors that offer insight into the complicated planning process characterized by “extreme participation”. The conversations also explain the typology and urban development aspects of the project. A further chapter is dedicated to the area development, providing relevant plans and maps. The conversation on “extreme participation” elaborates on five particular items of the park and gives a forum to those who provided theideas for them. The index of objects lists all installations in the park and the stories connected to them.

2900_Superkilen_PRESS_IMAGE_5

The book’s purposes are essentially twofold. It presents and advertises the work of all those who contributed to this much-debated project, and it tells the story of how it became possible, against all social and political odds and against the obstacles presented by the terrain itself, to realize a highly unusual public space.

Barbara Steiner (Ed.): Superkilen. A Project by BIG, TOPOTEK 1, SUPERFLEX. Stockholm 2013. ISBN 978-91-87543-02-09

Previous
article

Travelling through Landscape Architecture

next
article

Landscape Architecture in India

Medium Rectangle

Skyscrapper

Mobile Position 2


You may
also like ...

Show more

  • cloudburst management plan copenhagen city park

    A new Cloudburst Management Plan for Copenhagen

  • The Landscapes of Kongjian Yu

  • Successful Art – With a Twinkle in the Eye


Mobile Position 3

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