I arrived a little bit too early to see the park in action. In fact, if I had arrived to any public park at 7:00 am, I probably wouldn’t have seen much activity. But yesterday morning at Superkilen in Nørrebro, Copenhagen was very different in that there were plenty of things to see, even if they may have been non-human in nature. In general, a public park has many standard characteristics. One might find some well-maintained trees, some grass, a nice fountain, nicely paved running paths and a sense of escape from the immediate surroundings. But my untimely arrival at Superkilen revealed none of these things explicitly. The Superkilen is in no way a park in the traditional sense, but it questions the notion of what a park is for and who it caters to. The Superkilen creates an inclusive cultural experience through art, design architecture and community in a city known for its overwhelming homogeneity.
In 2011, urban design firm Superflex, with BIG and Topotek1, realized a public park in the extremely diverse community of Nørrebro in northern Copenhagen. The community is largely of foreign descent with nearly 30% of the community population consisting of first generation immigrants. Because of this, the recent decades have seen a conflicting and retarded social development among its inhabitants. The design team worked collaboratively with the local residents to materialize one of the most interesting public spaces in the city. The park sports over 100 everyday items from over 50 different countries/nationalities from around the globe in an attempt to represent the growing diversity and community amongst all of the different Danes, new and old, living in Nørrebro. There are manholes from Zanzibar, pieces of workout equipment from America, lamp posts from Italy and swings from Iraq, creating a lack of reason or symmetry. The point of the park in short is that no part is outfitted with standard Copenhagen park accessories. The collection of items are assembled in three completely different, but equally eclectic (for their own reasons) sections of the park: The Red Square, dedicated to modern living and entertainment; The Black Market, the centerpiece and meeting place; and The Green Park, the more traditional sort of leisure park.
Aesthetically, the park is one of a kind. The Red Square pops out of the map on Google Earth view and makes the park-goer feel like they have entered unfamiliar territory. This is not only because of the plethora of Chinese and Qatari neon signs, but also from the feeling of having just stepped onto a Jackson Pollock painting. The different sets of jungle gyms for children mix in seamlessly with the Late Night Cafe & Bar and 35 foot graffiti murals of Latin American political figures.
The Black Market is the most artistically inclined part of the park, with beautifully placed square stone tables with a variety of table games etched into the granite design. A peculiar assortment of backgammon, chess, checkers and a few other games litter the table tops in no particular order, much like the nationalities of those who sit on the spherical chairs that complete the table-chair combination. It is worth noting that the least colorful part of the park (The Black Market) was the one designed to attract the largest crowds. The Black Market is home to the most amount of furniture and play equipment for children, all of which are showcased by the white accent lines that decorate the floor. The lines run north to south and do not make contact with any of the pieces of furniture, perhaps alluding to the importance of the national artifacts outfitting the grounds. But splitting the park into three distinct sections brings up more inconsistencies in Superflex’s intentions than artistic statements. The concept of bringing the diverse community together in a common space is hindered by the fact that it is inherently split up, even if for a design intention. These three different parts of park attract different people for different reasons and showcase different objects as a result.
The public space also departs from the traditional park for its inherent location and the design around it. The Superkilen blends in seamlessly with the neighborhood it caters. The walls of the buildings around it create the boundaries of the park and the grass of the Green Park bleeds into the backyards of some of the condominiums that share its border. This sharing of the residences and the Superkilen creates an intimate relationship between the private and public spaces. There truly are no places to hide in the Superkilen - it is completely exposed. Your traditional park may be sought out as a way to find tree cover and an isolated place to read a book, but the Superkilen offers no such escape. It simply offers integration between its participating people.
Most importantly, the theme sharing of private and public space brings up the most important question regarding public spaces and public art such as the Superkilen and it is this: What is the true and best utility for a park? If it is for recreation, build a jungle gym and a running trail. If it is for art, build a gallery within. If it is for fellowship, create a chapel on the premises. But Superkilen responds to all of these by posing the question of why it can’t be all of these reasons - plus more? In fact, Superkilen completely questions what the concept of a park is in the best way possible. Superkilen presents the public space as an art piece first and foremost by framing the things within the park as legitimate pieces of art. And not like the statues one might find in a standard park, but the benches, trees and perhaps even the soil (of which some was brought in from Palestine) each have their own plaque. Superkilen presents everyday objects in the park as art pieces and thus begins to frame each member of the neighborhood and their nationality as a piece of art as well. Superkilen was not designed to celebrate escape, nature, or even art itself, but rather it was designed to celebrate the people that built the community there.
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