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Architecture

Architecture in Copenhagen

Copenhagen has spent two decades testing whether a building can carry a public programme it has no obligation to carry. The answers here tend to be unusually literal.

• CopenHill

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  Completed 2019

  BIG

  A waste-to-energy plant in Amager with a public roof. Bjarke Ingels sloped that roof to follow the height of the machinery inside, then surfaced the slope as a dry ski run and hung a climbing wall on the end elevation. The aluminium facade is stacked as oversized bricks with windows set between them. The plant's function is unchanged, and the roof is the argument that infrastructure should give something back.

• BLOX

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  Completed 2018

  Rem Koolhaas

  A cultural and office building on the harbour front, built over a road. Rem Koolhaas stacked the programme as interlocking glass boxes so a museum, offices, apartments, a car park and a public route share one volume. The building bridges the traffic rather than avoiding it. It was criticised for its bulk on a low waterfront, which is the tension the stacking creates.

• 8 House

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  Completed 2010

  BIG

  A housing block in Ørestad laid out as a figure eight. Bjarke Ingels ran a continuous ramp from the street to the tenth floor along the outside of the block, so upper flats are reached on foot from ground level. The block is pinched in the middle to form two courtyards of different character. It puts a street on the outside of a building instead of a corridor inside it.

• Copenhagen Opera House

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  Completed 2005

  Henning Larsen

  An opera house on the island of Holmen, set on the axis of the royal palace. Henning Larsen laid a flat cantilevered roof over a glass foyer, with the maple-clad auditorium standing inside it as a separate object. The alignment with the palace was a condition of the private gift that paid for the building. The architect later published his disagreements with the donor over the facade, which is unusual for a finished building.

• Bagsværd Church

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  Completed 1976

  Jørn Utzon

  A church in a suburb north of the city, plain outside and shaped within. Jørn Utzon wrapped the nave in curved concrete vaults that fold like cloud forms and take daylight from hidden side openings. The exterior is a rectangular shed in precast panels and glazed tile with no ecclesiastical sign at all. The entire design is one interior kept behind an industrial box.