At the height of Islamic civilisation, Muslim academies of higher learning reached from Spain to India and from North Africa to Afghanistan. Muslim scholars reached pinnacles of achievement in astronomy, geography, physics, philosophy, mathematics and medicine. It is no exaggeration to say that the original Christian Universities of the Latin West, at Paris, Bologna and Oxford, indeed the whole European Renaissance, received a vital influx of new knowledge from the Islamic world: an influx from which later Western Colleges and Universities were to benefit in turn, including those of North America. Along with this civilisation came a magnificent flowering of the arts and architecture: the buildings created by the great Islamic Empires rank among the finest monuments of civilisation in any part of the globe.
Shortlisted Project – 2014-2016 Award Cycle: Superkilen, Copenhagen, Denmark
Superkilen is a public park in the Nørrebro district of Copenhagen, Denmark.
A public space promoting integration across lines of ethnicity, religion and culture.
A meeting place for residents of Denmark’s most ethnically diverse neighbourhood and an attraction for the rest of the city, this project was approached as a giant exhibition of global urban best practice.
In the spring of 2006 the street outside the architects’ Copenhagen office erupted in vandalism and violence. Having just gone through the design of a Danish mosque in downtown Copenhagen, BIG chose to focus on those initiatives and activities in urban spaces that work as promoters for integration across ethnicity, religion, culture and languages.
Taking their point of departure as Superkilen’s location in the heart of outer Nørrebro district, the architects decided they would approach the project as an exercise in extreme public participation. Rather than a public outreach process geared towards the lowest common denominator or a politically correct post rationalisation of preconceived ideas navigated around any potential public resistance, BIG proposed public participation as the driving force of the design.
An extensive public consultation process garnered suggestions for objects representing the over 60 nationalities present locally to be placed in the area.
The750-metre-long scheme comprises three main zones: a red square for sports; a green park as a grassy children’s playground; and a black market as a food market and picnic area.
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A public space promoting integration across lines of ethnicity, religion and culture.
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Researched & Compiled by Arif Ali
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