Six Things to Do at Copenhagen Architecture Festival 2020

Copenhagen Architecture Festival, delayed for COVID-19, runs from 1 – 11th October. There’s a huge variety of events, from exhibitions to films to tours, held across Denmark at Odense, Arhus, and specifically Copenhagen.

This festival celebrates both the rich history of Danish and Scandinavian architecture as well as the better-known contemporary architecture from the likes of Bjarke Ingels Group, COBE, Henning Larsen, and many more.

These are our recommendations for Copenhagen Architecture Festival October 2020:

Pandemic Resilient Cities

This conference is the second phase of a collaboration between EAHR, Copenhagen Architecture Festival, and Think-Fast.

The current pandemic has pushed us to rethink the future of our cities and how we can create resilient spaces for future threats. In a world with growing inequalities, crises not only create new obstacles but deepens existing gaps.

COVID-19 has forced many to reconsider of the way we think our cities, from balconies to meeting locales, new restrictions and emerging needs – like access to green space – have defied our previous understanding, finding us on many occasions unprepared for this scenario.

Experts, professionals, and academics will come together in this talks series to debate and learn how, by focusing on the possibilities triggered by the crisis, we can progress towards resilient, socially inclusive, and green communities where equality, access, and participation are ensured to all. Tickets cost 40DKK.

Union

Nørre Allé 7
2200 København N

Thursday 8th October
4:00 pm

Tyrannosaur

How much is our perception of things shaped by the way it is presented in the media? This has, in recent times, been a problem in particular for social housing across Europe. Brutalist tower blocks have suffered from an image problem that directly threatens the needs behind its creation.

After the Second World War, the most respected architects and urban planners of the day experimented with new materials and modernist designs in order to create homes that would improve the lives of the working-classes.

Now, these developments are increasingly facing demolition due to their reputation, their design considered ‘ugly’ or undesirable, and often dated. Around the time they were built, British cinema established a tradition of using these buildings as the setting for films with violence and hardship as primary themes – take Clockwork Orange or Harry Brown as examples.

Tyrannosaur traces the depictions of brutalist post-war social housing and estates in film in order to provoke a discussion as to how and if these representations have impacted public perception of social housing, and to what extent are these depictions accurate?

Cinemateket

Gothergade 55
1123 København K

Saturday 4th October
9:45 pm

MAGISK BYVANDRING I DET HEMMELIGE SYDHAVN – MAGICAL CITY WALK IN THE SECRET SYDHAVN

Join architect and activist Rikke Rohr for a tour of Sydhavn, a rapidly developing area in southwest Copenhagen.

The walk starts at Kulturhuset Karens Minde, going on to lead you past the self-built houses in Frederikshøj, the affordable housing of Ritt Bjerregaard’s “Vildrosen”, through Sydhavnstippen’s wild nature with sheep and alpacas, past the new recycling center and the sailing clubs, to the newly protected nature area “Stejlepladsen”. The tour will end up in Fiskerhavnen, the last authentic harbor environment in Copenhagen with its unique mix of business, self-built housing, and active fishing. Learn all about these developments, how communities are displaced by them, and equally how many have learned to build new universes, while admiring different architectural styles.

Alpacas in Copenhagen? That’s a big green tick in our book.

Karens Minde Kulturhus

Wagnersvej 19
2450 København

Saturday 1st October
4 pm

These are our recommendations for Odense Architecture Festival, the sister festival to Copenhagen’s CAFx and Aarhus’ AAFx:

Architecture & Comics

A pop-up museum on a shelf; discover architectural history like never before with Pharaoh’s Cigars bookstore.

Architecture is an important component of comic book universes: Tintin’s creator Hergé made an effort to draw as realistically as possible, producing iconic cityscapes and buildings; Francois Schuiten, who created Secret Cities, is called The Architectural Designer – fans of Brussels and Copenhagen in particular will recognize the buildings in his series; in The Knights of Heliopolis, Jérémy depicts swollen Renaissance palaces and French city streets; while Gotham City as a setting is as defining for the Batman series as the black suit, with its mix of neo-Gothic and art-deco.

Faraos Cigarer is a small publisher and Copenhagen’s specialized comic book mecca. For the festival, they have filled a shelf in their bookstore with comics and booklets filled with drawn buildings. A whole new way to discover architecture!

Faraos Cigarer

Klostervej 3
5000 Odense C

Friday 2nd October
10:00 am

Les Fleurs du Mal – Graffiti City Walk

Silas Eriksen, architect and BA in literature and philosophy, takes you on a graffiti walk of Osense to view the works of LSO, Sport, Slock, and KERM, to name a few.

Explore Odense’s dingy backyards, forgotten garages, and abandoned buildings. Here, the “flowers of sin” will be found.

The tour starts at Netto behind the Odeon, it lasts an hour on foot.

Mødested: ved Netto i Odeon

Hans Mules Gade 16
5000 Odense

Saturday 3rd October
5:30 pm

Architecture quiz

Cafe Biografens’s legendary quiz night presents a special edition in the spirit of architecture.

Three rounds and two bonus questions makes for an intense quiz game! Perfect for the architecture idolizers, aesthetic admirers, and construction buffs. To get your hands on a quiz board, you must book a table for dinner from 5 pm. The quiz starts at 7 pm.