KOLONIHAVEN
INSTALLATION
COPENHAGUEN
DENMARK, 1996
EXHIBITION
PR–107
Kolonihaven is an architectural installation created to mark Copenhagen’s designation as European Capital of Culture in 1996.
PROGRAM
Situation
Copenhaguen, Denmark
Year
1996
Status
Open call
Site area
6m²
Project management
Kolonihaven Foundation and the City of Copenhaguen
Project implementation
Dominique Perrault and Gaëlle Lauriot-Prévost
DESCRIPTION
The project began in 1994, when publisher and curator Kirsten Kiser, in collaboration with architect Christian Lund, launched an international call for proposals to reinterpret Kolonihavehus. These “garden houses” are part of a tradition that emerged in Denmark in the late 19th century, offering newly urbanized rural populations small plots of land on which to build a pavilion and cultivate a garden or vegetable patch. Over time, these plots have become a true Danish cultural symbol and are the starting point for a reflection on the appropriation of land and the relationship between habitat and nature.
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The ambition of the project was to create, in the long term, an architectural park based on a specifically Danish theme. Sixteen major international agencies were invited to participate, including Mario Botta, Frank Gehry, Richard Rogers, Aldo Rossi, Álvaro Siza, Arata Isozaki, Henning Larsen, Enric Miralles & Benedetta Tagliabue, Dominique Perrault, and Gaëlle Lauriot-Prévost. Each team had only 6 m² of space to design their project.
Six installations were created, including Kolonihaven: a transparent house in the form of a glass fence surrounding a tree, as a way of asserting ownership of the place and creating a “personal” natural environment. The drawings and model of Kolonihaven, along with those of the other projects, were presented in the exhibition Kolonihaven – The International Challenge at the ARKEN Museum of Modern Art (Denmark) in 1996, then at the Stockholm Architecture Museum in 1998 and the Reykjavik Art Museum in 2000.
In 1999, all of the drawings, models, and installations were acquired by the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, where the works have since been on permanent display in the museum’s garden.
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