Venice Biennale « making cities for people …

The Danish Pavillon at the Venice Biennale 2010

The official Danish contribution to the 12th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia features the city of Copenhagen with the exhibition “Q&A: Urban Questions _ Copenhagen Answers.” The audience is invited to visit the living lab of Copenhagen and explore how Copenhagen offers hundreds of architectural answers to the all-important question: what makes a livable city?

Visit the exhibition website here.

The Danish Pavillon at the Venice Biennale 2010

The exhibition includes interviews with a series of professionals working with urban questions and projects.

Among them is professor Jan Gehl, who is interviewed about the question: HOW CAN WE USE ARCHITECTURE TO ADD VALUE TO PUBLIC SPACE? You can find the interview here – click on ‘Professionals’ and the interview with Jan is made available.

Also Culture & Communications Manager at Gehl Architects, Henning Thomsen, contributes, in an interview about the question: HOW CAN WE STIMULATE THE USE OF BICYCLES AS AN ALTERNATIVE TO CARS? Find the interview here – click on ‘Professionals’ and the interview with Henning is made available.

In the course of the past twenty years, Copenhagen has been a living lab of sustainable urban development. Danish and international architects, urban planners, investors, politicians, and the general public have explored the city’s potential with determination, courage and curiosity to experiment with different strategies.

As a result Copenhagen has changed radically – not only in its architecture but also in the way we use and live in the city. New connections with the Metro and bicycle routes have been implemented, new urban spaces and new public buildings created, and new ways of living, working, going to school and spending leisure time emerged. Each of these provides new suggestions in regard to how the urban challenges of cities can be met with architectural answers.

The Venice Biennale opened to the public yesterday, Sunday 29th August and is open until 21st November 2010.

All images courtesy of Danish Architecture Centre.

Picture from the Sustainable Cities Talk at the Danish Pavillon at the 2008 Venice Biennale

With the exhibition ”Q&A: Urban Questions _ Copenhagen Answers”, the Danish Architecture Centre wishes to give the audience – architects, urban planners, investors, politicians and the audience of the Biennale – an insight into one of the most interesting city labs for modern sustainable urban development: the city of Copenhagen.

Copenhagen Answers
In the Danish pavilion the audience is invited to join the Copenhagen city lab, and explore questions and answers about how a livable city is created. In four sections, the exhibition ”Q&A: Urban Questions _ Co-penhagen Answers” explores the different aspects of this distinctive Danish model of sustainable urban development:

Catwalk: The presentation of a number of prestigious projects that Danish and international star archi-tects have created in Copenhagen over the last decade.

Copenhagen 1947-2047: From Fingerplan City to Ring City Project – 100 Years of Visions: The story of how greater Copenhagen in modern times has developed, taking its starting point in the famous Fingerplan of 1947, and continues to develop visions for the future.

Three Sustainable Urban Labs: The presentation of three large scale urban development areas in Co-penhagen, each with very different terms and conditions: Ørestad, Carlsberg and Nordhavnen.

Copenhagen Answers: An interactive presentation of the experiences gained in Copenhagen in the last 10 years, which will also give the audience the opportunity to create their own e-magazines with digital catalogues of Copenhagen.

Picture from the Polish Pavillon at the 2008 Venice Architecture Biennale, winner of best pavillon

Kent Martinussen, CEO at the Danish Architecture Centre, and Danish commisioner for the Venice Biennale contribution, says:

“The official Danish contribution to the 12th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia promotes the concept of the “thinking city,” posing urban questions and presenting the answers reached in Copenhagen. It’s not that the answers to crucial urban questions presented in Copenhagen are necessarily brilliant, or even entirely new. But Copenhagen is a thinking city, a city that insists on responding to the new urban questions. In the course of the past twenty years, the capital of Denmark has been a living lab of sustainable urban development. Architects, urban planners, investors, politicians, and the general public have explored the city’s potential with determination, courage and curiosity to experiment with different strategies.”

Read the full commisioners statement here.

Visit the Venice Biennale website here.

Read more about this years director, japanese architect, Kazuyo Sejima.

The 2010 Venice Architecture Biennale is open from 29th August to 21st November.