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.