Copenhagen Calling: 6 Captivating Projects in 2023’s World Capital of Architecture

The latest edition of “Architizer: The World’s Best Architecture” — a stunning, hardbound book celebrating the most inspiring contemporary architecture from around the globe — is now available. Order your copy today.  

Punctuated by picturesque waterways, colorful 17^th-century townhouses and striking contemporary buildings, the topography of Copenhagen is a rich and varied tapestry. Among the architecturally minded, the Danish capital is renowned for its pioneering approach to the built environment. The city’s pedestrian-led infrastructure has set the agenda for global urban planning, and by 2025, Copenhagen is aiming to become the first carbon-neutral capital.

Fittingly, this forward-thinking metropolis has been crowned the 2023 World Capital of Architecture by UNESCO and the General Assembly of the International Union of Architects (UIA). Over the next three years, Copenhagen will lead the conversation surrounding sustainable development and investigate how architects and planners can respond to the most pressing environmental challenges. The city will host a program of events on the theme: ‘Sustainable Futures — Leave No One Behind’.

To celebrate Copenhagen’s new designation, we’ve brought together a collection of architectural triumphs from across the Danish capital. Ranging from stand-out pavilions and extraordinary urban spaces to solar-powered schools and avant-garde libraries, discover the best of this harborfront design haven…

Tingbjerg Library and Culture House

By Cobe

Jury Winner, 7^th Annual A+Awards, Libraries

This extraordinary public library in Tingbjerg, one of Copenhagen’s housing projects, flies in the face of traditional municipal typologies. Its surprising wedge-shaped form carves out a series of unusual internal spaces. Entry is through an open vaulted foyer overlooked by a network of mezzanines and balconies, evoking the staggered topography of a mountain village.

The glazed face of the library, which looks out onto the street, is modeled on a historic typeset case, which stored the movable type used in letterpress printing. Consequently, irregular apertures across the block façade allow passers-by to read the activity within the building. The center’s material transparency is a portal for the wider community, a beckoning arm inviting participation.

Copenhagen International School Nordhavn

By C.F. Møller Architects

Sited on the waterfront in the city’s Nordhavn district, this ground-breaking new building is a blueprint for the future of educational architecture. The vast 269,000-square-foot scheme resembles a series of intersecting boxes, with graphic protruding volumes defining its dynamic form. The main structure comprises a ground-floor base and four distinct towers, ranging in height from five to seven stories, each designed to meet the needs of different developmental stages.

The building’s faceted skin is one of its most distinctive features. Incredibly, the exterior is covered in 12,000 solar panels, each uniquely angled. Covering a total area of around 65,110 square feet, the array generates more than half of the school’s annual electricity supply, producing over 200 megawatt hours per year. The solar cells are also an invaluable educational tool — students analyze energy production and gather data to use in their physics and mathematics classes.

Karen Blixens Plads

By Cobe

At first glance, this striking public square on the University of Copenhagen’s campus is an otherworldly landscape plucked from the surface of another planet. Its topography is defined by an undulating terrain, pockets of greenery and gaping craters. Positioned between newly constructed university buildings and the scenic nature reserve of Amager Common, the meeting place is a transitional surface between the built and organic worlds.

But there’s just as much going on below ground as there is above. Parking spaces for over 2,000 bicycles are ingeniously concealed beneath the square’s three manmade hills. In 2019, Copenhagen’s city government reported that 62% of its residents commuted to work or school by bike, so it’s perhaps unsurprising to see cycling at the heart of this innovative design.

noma

By BIG – Bjarke Ingels Group

Jury Winner and Popular Choice Winner, 6^th Annual A+Awards, Restaurants

From the great outdoors to the rich inner world conjured up within the walls of this spellbinding hospitality space. Nestled in the off-beat enclave of Christiana, originally a former military base, the restaurant was built on the bones of a Royal Danish Navy ammunition warehouse. In stark contrast to its former life, the space has been reimagined as a garden village through a series of 11 beautifully crafted rooms.

Radiating out from the kitchen, the core of the restaurant, the various zones are conceived as village huts. Each immersive design traces a tactile journey back through traditional Nordic construction techniques and materials. The atmosphere for diners is palpable and intimate, both retrospective in its inspiration and progressive in its spatial organization.

Teahouse Ø

By PAN- PROJECTS

Historically an industrialized area, Copenhagen’s canals have suffered heavy pollution over the centuries. In more recent years, the Danish capital’s strides toward sustainability have seen an acute focus on remediating the waterways. This sculptural pavilion, part of a series of floating structures, was designed to mark the city’s plight by celebrating water in all its diverse forms.

An intimate meeting space, the pavilion is encased in translucent walls of acrylic rods, reminiscent of petrified rainfall. The permeable boundary reflects the hues of the surrounding water — through the rods, the external world is distanced and hazy like mist, yet between the slats, glimpses of clarity are found.

Theodora House

By ADEPT

Situated on the site of the historic Carlsberg Brewery, this residential and commercial development is an elegant fusion of old and new. While sections of the building are recent additions, part of the complex is an ambitious adaptive reuse project utilizing the remnants of an old yeast storage structure that once stood on the plot. The unique brickwork across the front façade is a homage to the area’s historic buildings, yet the material’s unconventional expression looks to the future.

A stark contrast with its street-facing skin, a white-clad exterior frames an enclosed courtyard in the scheme’s hidden center. Between residents’ balconies, wood trellises adorn the external walls, snaking up five stories tall. In the fullness of time, greenery from the garden will forge a new path upward, creating a living, breathing biophilic oasis.

The latest edition of “Architizer: The World’s Best Architecture” — a stunning, hardbound book celebrating the most inspiring contemporary architecture from around the globe — is now available. Order your copy today.