1 october 2009 – 29 january 2010




Danish Architecture Centre focuses on new urban space tendencies in Denmark together with young documentary film makers, photographers, the Danish artist HuskMitNavn and a number of distinct personalities within urban space research.

26 urban spaces, 200 photos and 5 films
The exhibition “New Urban Spaces” shows a number of tendencies that characterise the development today. Through five short documentary films and more than 200 photos, we see a snapshot of the many urban spaces and the life unfolding in 2009.

The audience can experience 26 chosen urban spaces seen through the lenses of photographers Jakob Galtt, Mads Emil Hilmer, Nicolai Perjesi and Lene Sørensen Rose. Moreover, five new documentary film directors from the National Film School of Denmark have each created a thematic film on one of the new five tendencies.

The artist HuskMitNavn has developed five figures commenting on the meeting between the individual and the urban space, while Henrik Oxvig reflects on the relations between people, places and architecture.

Knowledge and works
In the exhibition, the audience can explore how Danish researchers work with urban development and which Danish and international tendencies that will influence the future.

Among other things, you can see what consequences the rising water level due to climate changes will have to urban planning and public life, and the audience can se the results of a project where young people are provided with a GPS to follow their activities. You can also explore how planners work strategically with the development of urban spaces in large development projects.

CURATORS STATEMENT

By the beginning of the 21st Century Denmark is no longer an agricultural country – Denmark is an urbanised country!

Almost 90% of all Danes have chosen the city as a setting for their homes, their work and their free time. The knowledge society today is also an urban society. This development is neither a new one nor typically Danish. It started 100 years ago with the emergence of new, modern metropoles, which ever since have grown and spread into large connected urban areas.

Everything indicates that this development will continue, so that in less than 30 years from now, the rest of the world will find itself in the same situation as Denmark. Cities – large and small – frame human lives in the 21st Century – on a local and global scale.

This is also why Danish Architecture Centre with this exhibition, has chosen to focus on urban environment – because urban spaces in particular, and increasingly, contribute to framing our lives. We simply use urban spaces much more than before.

The urban environment in Denmark is developing as never seen before. We are in the midst of a rapid evolvement with the emergence of surprisingly different and completely new types of urban spaces. Whereas traditional squares emerged for trade and later became a meeting place where you could see and be seen, the new urban spaces today are much more about relations. About interpersonal relations and about relations between people, spaces and activities.

To a great extent, lives are now lived in cities. We do sports, relax, eat, play, learn and are more and more entertained in the urban environment. Urban spaces thus play a role in sustaining our different lifestyles. They provide us with the opportunity for a healthy lifestyle, for equal meetings, for security, for safety and for integration between different cultures. Urban spaces create the possibility and the foundation of a social and coherent sustainable city.

The urban environment and our use of new urban spaces are about experiencing ourselves and each other in new and ever-changing relations. The spaces carrying these traits thereby also emphasise the dynamics and changeability of life, and thus confirm life itself. The new urban spaces are, at their best, life-affirming.


AROUND THE CORNER –NEW URBAN SPACES

The exhibition presents a layout of what is happening right now in Danish urban spaces through identification of five tendencies:

Exploration Perception Connection Experience Participation

The five tendencies will be displayed in the first part of Level 1. Partly through photography reflecting, documenting and showing how urban spaces are formed, how they are used and how they inflict on citizens, users and visitors. Partly through five cinematic portraits, made by newly graduated documentary film directors from the National Film School of Denmark. Focusing on each of the five tendencies and chosen urban spaces, the films show interpretations of the atmospheres and relations taking place in the urban spaces.

Artist HuskMitNavn has created five figures that comment on the meeting between the individual and the urban space. Finally, lecturer Henrik Oxvig reflects on the relations between places, people and architecture.

The second part of the exhibition ’knowledge and works’ is presented on Level 2. Here there are school education facilities integrated with research positions within urban spaces, international know-how, strategic considerations, technological mappings and concrete visions for urban spaces in the melting pot, which show in what direction we are headed.

The exhibition invites you to explore, settle down, to be looked at, to engage in – and so on. Just like the urban spaces we experience in the city – around the corner!

Welcome

Kent Martinussen
CEO, DAC

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Danish Architecture Centre
Strandgade 27B
DK 1401 Copenhagen K

T: + 4532 57 1930 (9am - 5pm)
Fax: +45 3254 5010

www.dac.dk/