Historic vs. Contemporary Public Parks in Copenhagen

Question 3:

Compare and contrast one of Copenhagen's contemporary public parks with one of its historic ones

Superkilen

Opened in 2012, Superkilen was conceived by Superflex (an artist group) along with Bjarke Ingels Group and Topotek1 (a landscape architecture firm). The intention of the group was to bring a sense of community to the neighboring areas, which are inhabited by over 50 nationalities. The park is broken up into three areas: Red, Black, and Green. Inhabitants were asked to suggest an object from their country of origin that they had seen during their travels (some of these objects are pictured on the left here).

                                                             

Ørstedsparken

Ørstedsparken is a fortification park that was created in the last half of the 17th century. It has one large lake in the center of the park and is in keeping with a lot of the original topography. It features several statues, one of which bears the park's name.

Contemporary vs. Historic

Superkilen was conceived to create community in a non-exclusively Danish environment, meaning that it was designed to be welcoming enough for a broad audience to use. Another striking difference is the color selection -- it is not just greenspace. Rather, the red space doesn't have any greenspace at all. The black space has green trees in it and the green part is green because of the grass. It is not a traditional park in any sense of the word. It also is a response to a current trend in the city: this part of the city so happens to have a lot of immigrant families.  This park was conceived because of trends in housing, as opposed to the fortification parks where the city was trying to do something else with the area that were formally ramparts. Ørstedsparken tries to mask the city while Superkilen incorporates the urban asphalt. Thus the open-air atmospheres are very different. Ørstedsparken is more calm: visitors are either leisurely strolling around the lake or laying on the grass. Superkilen is much more interactive: children play on the swings, visitors enjoy recreational activities and bikers zoom by.

Copenhagen's Urban Public Greenspace

Question 2: Urban Public Greenspace
What functions does public urban greenspace perform in a city in general, and specifically in Copenhagen?

Ørstedsparken

Public greenspace in urban cities are associated with the intent of recreation and leisure, as well as an escape from the urban hustle and bustle. Public urban greenspaces are usually in the form of public parks situated in the middle of a metropolis. They act as an oasis to conceal and escape the urban environment.  Like many other major cities around the world, Copenhagen has a fair amount of public greenspace. 

Greenhouses of Botanisk Have

Some of Copenhagen's greenspaces manifest themselves as pocket parks -- small parks of greenery tending to be close or surrounded by concrete or urban path ways. These parks incorporate greenery as a woven component of the "asphalt jungle." They become plazas with greenery making the environment more desirable to stay. Other parks, such as Østre Anlaeg or the Botanisk Have, act more as escapes, mostly concealing the built environment surrounding it. They tend to be larger and it is easy to forget that you are in a city while in the space.

Amaliehaven

Two distinctive factors of Copenhagen greenspace are accessibility and frequency of parks. Copenhagen is also characterized by its green belt, a string of parks, which were formerly ramparts used for defense. Unlike cities such as New York with one large park, Copenhagen has many smaller parks scattered throughout it, which makes greenspace more accessible to the public because residents have only a short distance to travel from their homes. This means that they are more likely not to just use the parks but to frequent them. The effect is that it creates more of a community because same memories of the community show up at the same place. These parks also become a place for schools to take students to play, such as in the case of Østre Anlaeg. Thus a feeling of neighborhood is created from the public urban greenspace.

Sagnlandet Lejre: Historic Greenspace

Question 1:Historic Greenspace 

Based on your visit today to Lejre, summarise the impact that the Danish landscape has and on the Danish as a people, and vice versa.

Sagnlandet Lejre Landscape

Sagnlandet Lejre, known as Land of Legends, is a historic greenspace and archeological site of reconstructions of ancient living environments. Living quarters and gardens present a bygone era in Danish history as the way everyday life was conducted in ancient times of Denmark. The preservation of some ancient corpses on the land create a type of "time vault."  Bodies preserved in bogs of Sagnlandet Lejre or, in one case, in a wooden coffin bridge the gap and create a learning lens of how Denmark’s land has been an historic incubator for citizens, tourists, historians and archeologists. Through exhibitions and archeological artifacts, this space lends an identity to the Danes as an historic site of ancestral roots, social foundations and prehistoric civilizations. 

Following the Bronze Age, Danish people turned to iron as their main metal source. This advancement came from the convenience of the fact that Denmark’s land is filled with iron-rich soil. Indigenous materials assisted the Danish in defining their lifestyle on the land. Specifically, iron was used to make weapons; thus, the land and the way it was cultivated shaped the Danish lifestyle and the development of their culture and war weapons.

Sagnlandet Lejre's interpretation of what Blacksmith's work place probably looked like during the Iron Age. This is where iron was distilled from dirt and molded into weapons and tools.

One of the major effects that Danish people have had on the Danish landscape is deforestation. Since farming emerged around 3,000 BCE, the shift from hunter-gather drastically changed the ways the Danes interacted with the land. Through the cultivation of agricultural parts of forests, fields were cleared for material use. This method not only became a way in how the Danes gathered food but also their interaction with the land. Now, the Danes shaped the land, as opposed to natural elements such as ice and water shaping the landscape up on which the Danish lived and farmed.