WHICH PUBLIC SQUARE AND FOR WHOM?
Analyzing users, producers and features in three parks in Copenhagen
What kind of space is a wedge?
By Claire Griffith
Superkilen literally means “super wedge:” a strange description for a public square that is supposed to “connect neighborhoods on both sides of [the park]” (“Superkilen” n.d.). What does it mean to be a wedge (let alone a super wedge)? Is a wedge a tapered shape? Is it a space, a void that can be filled with something new? Or an object used to cleft an object in two?
Wedge as Shape:
Taken from above, Superkilen is wedge-shaped: a narrow ribbon of red, black and green that runs parallel to a railroad corridor. It stretches from Tagensvej to Nørrebrogade. The park consists of three distinct zones: The Red Square, the Black Market and the Green Zone, and users we spoke to referred to the park by the distinct zones, not as a cohesive whole.
Like many, I knew about Superkilen well before coming to Copenhagen this September. It featured in our first gathering for our graduate program. I had encountered images of the octopus playground of the Black Market and the skateboarders on the Red Square on design websites like ArchDaily or City Lab. The vibrant colors, the undulating white lines, the textures of the park (from street level and from above) captivated my eyes and imagination. A photograph of the Black Market was the first picture of Copenhagen I posted on my instagram: I too had fallen under the spell of this space. I too uncritically consumed it, my gaze foregrounding the park, relegating its users to the background.
Wedge as Space:
What made this space even more intriguing was the story of the park: an eclectic collection of global objects which referenced the diversity of the neighborhood. In our lectures on economic and social geography in Brussels, we grappled with the real implications of gentrification and the creation of public space. At first blush, Superkilen seemed to offer, as Tom Nielson writes, "a solution for how an urban public space in a globalised, multicultural context can function as a common point of identification - not in spite of, but by virtue of, the existing differences.”
Superkilen and her sister-park, Mimersparken were developed as part of the same neighborhood redevelopment plan, at the same time, with the same funding mechanisms. They are both long, tapered wedges of green in the urban fabric. However, the two parks couldn’t feel more different. Seeing the parks as siblings, Superkilen would be the extrovert, full of bold colors that say “all eyes on me,” and Mimersparken would be the introvert, offering you a place to sit, a cup of tea and a chat. The playground in Mimersparken consists of five hand-shaped structures; on each hand is mapped the streets of the neighborhood; Sjallandsgade, Arresøgade, Fensmarkgade, Stevensgaed, Nørrebrogade…
Thinking beyond their wedge-shapes, Superkilen and Mimersparken represent two approaches to fixing meaning in the built environment, to filling space: Superkilen looks outward to find itself, drawing upon items curated from around the world (post-modern, neo-colonialism at its best?) for identity. Mimersparken looks to the immediate neighborhood, literally, to find a sense of place.
Superkilen feels like a “world within a park,” but in bringing the world into the park, I wonder what of the world just outside the park is lost or overlooked.
Wedge as Cleft:
The design team describes Superkilen as a “participatory park extreme,” a top-down model for producing public spaces which provides sufficient space for “the people” to co-create. This, argues Bloom, is part of the urban design brand of Copenhagen: the People and the City. But remembering Shelly Arnstein’s Ladder of Public Participation, asking the community if they want this bench or that manhole cover still falls well within “tokenism” participation. Furthermore, through (re)branding what is essentially “tokenism” participation as a new, innovative model of “extreme” public participation, I fear that the idea of participatory co-design is itself degraded.
Reading about Superkilen, I could not help but remember reading George Orwell’s 1984 with my 11th grade students in Tetovo, Macedonia. In Orwell’s depiction of a totalitarian dystopian England, he introduces two concepts that are unfortunately pertinent for today’s conversation about the production of urban space. Newspeak: control thoughts through controlling language, and Doublethink: accepting false statements as truth, what Orwell describes as, “The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them” (Orwell, 1949, p.220). Through branding Superkilen as “participation extreme!” how is this seductive narrative eroding the meaning of participation?
Bibliography:
Arnstein, S. (1969). “A ladder of citizen participation.” Journal of the American Planning
Association vol 36 (4). pp. 216-224).
Bloom, B. (2013). “Superkilen: Participatory Park Extreme!” Mythological Quarter [blog].
accessed from http://www.mythologicalquarter.net/s/SUPERKILEN_Brett_Bloom_2013.pdf
Nielsen, T. (2019). The Making of Democratic Urban Public Space in Denmark. In Public
Space Design and Social Cohesion (pp. 37–57). Routledge.
Orwell, G., Macmillan, D. and Icke, R. 1984 (Nineteen Eighty-Four). London: Oberon Books
Ltd, 2013. Print.
Realdania (n.d.). “Superkilen.” Accessed on 22 September 2020
How to praise diversity in public squares: bringing palm trees from the other side of the world or giving free meals to homeless immigrants?
By Vivi Herrera
From the distance, Superkilen might seem an artistic, colorful, Instagrammable and trendy space. Completed in 2012, it has been promoted as a ‘good urban practice’ and a strategy of ‘extreme participation’ by its creators: the starchitecture firm Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), Topotek1 and Superflex. A Moroccan fountain, a slide in the shape of an octopus from Japan, a black bull's iconic figure to advertise a Spanish sherry… Due to the featuring of over 100 objects from all over the world to ––supposedly–– represent Nørrebro residents, it communicates a narrative of diversity, inclusion and citizen participation.
In situ, this park seems to be more than an ‘artsy’ place, but also a backdrop for the daily like of skateboarders, grandmas, young people working with their laptops. However, as Danish-based artist Brett Bloom shows in his essay “Superkilen: Participatory Park Extreme!” (2013), underneath this park, are hidden neoliberal logics of real estate development. These became visible when in 2013, a year after its opening, The City of Copenhagen placed signs to warn cyclists about the slippery surface when wet in the area of the park known as the Red Square. Taking advantage of the opportunity of currently living and studying here, Claire and I went observing Superkilen and the other two Copenhagen parks ––Mimersparken and Folkets Parken–– to open a discussion around some questions emerging from the issue of public squares: Who shapes the city? And through what processes? Who uses the city?
It was a warm morning on September 16 2020 at almost 11:00 in the morning. On Superkilen’s Red Square, there was a group of people outside Nørrebro Library waiting for it to be opened. They all were standing up, since there are no benches in this area, despite the fact this is the largest zone in comparison with the one in front. On the contrary, the other zone, which is the smaller one, is full of urban equipment: benches, double swings from Afghanistan, a boxing ring from Thailand, and an elephant slide from Pripyat, Ukraine. Both areas are divided by a bike lane, which forces people to stop and look both ways before crossing, such as a young woman with blond hair that was walking with a trolley. This suggests whether Superkilen really honors its name: super wedge ––a place that divides, rather than a place to stay––.
“I never stay here, it is only for going through. We are only here because we were cycling back home, my grandson saw the swings and told me to stop”, said Jørgen, from Copenhagen. Besides this, when experiencing Superkilen in detail, other problems arise. As Bloom mentions, it is evident that the materials selected were not the most suitable for a public square: the red paint is worn and two of the round swinging benches from Afghanistan are broken. Walking northwards, the park disappears abruptly and is replaced by a parking lot.
In the Black Market, probably the area that appears the most on Instagram photographs for its undulating powerful white lines, two women were sitting back to back on a round white metal bench from Brussels. One had blonde hair and a laptop on her legs, the other one wore a black hijab and had a shopping cart in front. Besides, sitting on the concrete tables from Bulgaria, there was Alex, 13 years old, born in Denmark and of Somali descent. “I like sitting here, enjoying the weather, everything.” Superkilen might seem to have a diversity of users, also reflected by Jørgen: “The best thing about the park, for me, is that it is a meeting place for ethnic groups: Muslims celebrate Eid here.”
What is this black octopus looming over my shoulder? Is it really a playground from Japan or is it the dark monster of capitalism trying to eat me while I sit in the Mexican chair?
