Christchurch, New Zealand, after the recent earthquake
In 2008-09 Gehl Architects was invited to take a critical view on how the public spaces in Christchurch, New Zealand, were perfoming in terms of public life. Sia Kirknæs and Tom Nielsen of Gehl Architects spent several weeks in Christchurch and in the wake of the recent earthquake, that hit the city, they contributed to the local debate with this perspective on the issue of rebuilding:
Sønder Boulevard, Copenhagen - prizewinner in 2008 European Prize for Urban Public Space
On Friday 11 June, the award-giving ceremony of the European Prize for Urban Public Space also featured the presentation of a catalogue that commemorates the ten years of the Prize.
It gathers together both theoretical issues, to be found in the in-depth articles in the opening pages that discuss the collective nature and political potential of public spaces, and practical cases with the illustration of the 29 winning projects. Each of them is presented with a text written by architects, urban planners, writers, sociologists and political representatives, bringing out, one by one, the common strands of the first decade of the Prize.
Take a look at the publication here.
Lars Gemzøe, senior consultant and architect with Gehl Architects, is featured in the book with an article on the harbour baths in Copenhagen. And Tom Nielsen, senior consultant from Gehl Architects, was on the ‘Board of Experts’ for the award in 2010.
Harbour bath, Copenhagen - special mention in 2004 European Prize for Urban Public Space
The European Prize for Urban Public Space is an initiative of the Centre of Contemporary Culture of Barcelona (CCCB). It was established following the exhibition “The Reconquest of Europe”, which was held in the CCCB in 1999, in order to offer testimony to the process of rehabilitation of public spaces that has been occurring in many European cities.
The aim of the Prize is to recognise and foster the public character of urban spaces and their capacity for fostering social cohesion. While acknowledging the ambiguities inherent in the notion of public space, this Prize – the only one of its kind in Europe – is distinctive in both recognising and promoting a public space that is at once public (open and universally accessible) and urban. The Prize, in highlighting the relational and civic aspects of the typically urban space, thus differs from other initiatives that are focused on the figure of the architect, and from awards given for landscape-centred projects.
Other articles in the book ‘In favour of public space’ by Arnold Bartetzky, Oriol Bohigas, Ole Bouman, David Bravo, Peter Cachola Schmal, Judit Carrera, Zeljka Corak, Luis Francisco Esplá, Luis Fernández-Galiano, Kjartan Fløgstad, Beatrice Galilee, Luis García Montero, Lars Gemzøe, Huib Haye van der Werf, Andreas Huyssen, Hans Ibelings, Sarah Ichioka, José Miguel Iribas, Gabriele Kaiser, Dirk Laucke, Luca Molinari, Rafael Moneo, Joan Nogué, Shane OʼToole, Antoni Puigverd, Francis Rambert, Josep Ramoneda, Xavier Ribas, Marina Romero, Manuel de Solà-Morales, Dietmar Steiner, Elías Torres, Montserrat Tura, Philip Ursprung, Ana Vaz Milheiro, Adam Zagajewski.
