Da byen flyttede på landet Det danske plansystem & arkitekternes utopier

Abstract

This article explores the issue of urban planning of Danish cities more specifically how cities are delineated. The article explores the issue with a historical, architectural and legislative approach as well as an architectural reading of several Danish reference projects from the mid- to late 1960s. Including projects by Peter Bredsdorff as well as very early works by Henning Larsen, Vandkunsten and Friis & Moltke.

The Danish urban planning system was to a large degree born in the 1970s through a series of legislative reforms. The main purpose of these reforms was to set the framework for the planning for urban development, as well as setting a ban on the non-planned development. A key outcome of this system of legislation and administration has since then had a significant effect on the urban morphology of Danish cities; they are to be held together. Newer, smaller cities are, as separate entities, precluded from being planned and thus developed urban development is seen only as incremental expansions of existing cities.

I suggest that there is, maybe not a deliberate cause-and-effect, but an interesting correlation at play here; parts of Danish urban planning discourse seem too experimental and almost avant-garde with regards to urban morphology in the mid-late 1960s. However, this avant-garde approach is nowhere to be seen after the planning reform of the 1970s.