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The Copenhagen Landscape Lectures is a public lecture series for everyone who is interested in how we shape our physical environment, across cities and landscapes, education and practice.

Spring 2019

Public parks, their heritage and futures

Public lecture by Prof. Catharina Nolin, Stockholm University

March 11 at 16:00, IGN, Rolighedsvej 23, Frederiksberg C, Auditorium Landskab


Park expert Catharina Nolin will give an introduction to Scandinavian urban public parks in an international perspective. Her lecture shows that parks are key to the history of landscape architecture and important heritage to be used by future generations.

The lecture discusses what role the public park plays in today's cities. In particular, it shows how existing, historical parks reflect changing urban living conditions, ways of child-minding and socializing, changing approaches to design and environmental planning. The lecture spans from the heydays of public parks in the second half of the 19th century to today's new parks and a discussion of the renewal of existing public parks.

Catharina Nolin is professor of Art History at the Department of Culture and Aesthetics, Stockholm University. She has a wide experience of research on urban public parks in the 19th and 20th centuries, women landscape architects and heritage.

After the lecture, Svava Riesto and Ellen Braae will present ongoing work from the landscape architecture master course 'Public park futures between heritage, urban nature and climate change'. Students in the course consider historical public parks affected by Copenhagen’s Cloud Burst Plan and urban nature strategy from a heritage perspective. A small exhibition will show how heritage perspectives with the example of Hans Tavsen's Park.

Short introduction to the exposed student's work and not least: informal reception with drinks and snacks.
Looking forward to seeing you!

We thank the European Erasmus+ programme for economic support for this lecture.

Autumn 2018

Integrated futures, Urban imaginaries

Copenhagen Landscape Lecture Series focus for fall 2018 is Integrated futures, Urban imaginaries. This theme brings focus to the ideas and ideologies behind integrated solutions (social, ecological, and digital) for climate resilience and overall urban sustainability.

Urban Imaginaries – Drone Imagery and Data Modulation as New Affective Actions?

November 27 at 16.00 – 18.30, Rolighedsvej 23, Frederiksberg C, aud. Landskab


Join us for the second event in the COPENHAGEN LANDSCAPE LECTURE SERIES FALL 2018 – Integrated Futures, Urban Imaginaries

A film, two lectures and an exciting discussion regarding the role of data, drones, ground experiences and ownership of land are featuring:

  • Ignacio Acosta, Artist and researcher, ignacioacosta.com (UK)
  • Pia Fricker, Researcher, Department of Architecture, Aalto University (FIN)

The artistic exploration and effects of data and media mediation, and humans impact on urban landscape changes, opens up new perspectives on what digitization can mean physically, socially and politically for new urban imaginaries, landscape practice and education.  Hence we seek to discuss artistic work approaches in relation to natural science approaches needed for future perceptions and actions.

Ignacio Acosta will give a lecture on ‘human rights, drone film and the relation to ground experiences’ together with a screening of his film ’Litte ja Goabddá’ [Drones and Drums].

Pia Fricker will speak about experimental integration of emerging computational methods in the span of large-scale landscape architecture and urban design, and thus discuss aspects of Data-driven Design in the Realm of Mixed Realities.

Associate Professor, Rikke Munck Petersen will facilitate a conversation between the speakers with questions from the audience.
We will end with a wine reception supported by the Scan Design Foundation.

For more information see under Programme 2018

Climate Justice in the City: learning from Copenhagen and beyond

September 4 at 16.30 – 18.00, Rolighedsvej 23, Frederiksberg C, aud. von Langen


Join us for an exciting panel discussion regarding the role of landscape and climate justice in Copenhagen and beyond featuring:

  • Associate Professor Stefan Gaarsmand Jacobsen, RUC
  • Simon Kjær Hansen, Director of Regions C40
  • Oliver Maxwell, Founder and Director of Bybi

Each speaker will give their perspective on the role(s) of cities, specifically Copenhagen, in climate justice with landscapes in focus. Following these three perspectives, Professor Jens Friis Lund and Assistant Professor, Natalie M. Gulsrud will facilitate a conversation between the speakers with questions from the audience. We will end with a wine reception supported by the Scan Design Foundation.

For more information contact Natalie Marie Gulsrud nagu@ign.ku.dk


Summer 2018

June 13 at 10-11 am, Auditorium Landskab, 2nd Floor, Rolighedsvej 23, Frederiksberg C

Gareth Doherty

Roberto Burle Marx: Landscape, and Chromatic Relationships Roberto Burle Marx (1909-1994) remains one of the most important landscape architects in the history of the field. This talk is based on a collection of Burle Marx’s lectures that paint a picture of Burle Marx not just as a gardener, artist and botanist — as he is generally known — but as a landscape architect whose ambition was to bring radical change to cities and society.

Gareth Doherty is Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design where he is Director of the Master in Landscape Architecture.

All are welcome. We would like to encourage scholars, students, practitioners and anyone interested in landscape architecture to attend.

Spring 2018

”Outside the Garden” is the title of two events in the Copenhagen Landscape Lectures arranged by Department of Geosciences and Naturel Resource Management. These lectures feature four artists that all relate to different landscapes in their works, and there will be two artists in dialogue at each lecture; Maria Finn & Camilla Berner 26.2, and Pia Rönicke & Nanna Debois Buhl 23.4.

The methods and tools by which we document our interaction with certain landscapes, be it urban nature in Copenhagen, man made sand dunes in Køge or rare plants in Mexico, are an integral part of the works developed by these artists. But what these works also have in common is an awareness of how the interplay between developers, users, as well as explorers, defines how we label these places.

The lectures are in English, will take place at Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management (IGN), Rolighedsvej 23, 1958 Frederiksberg C, and are open for everyone. The lectures are followed by an informal reception.

Participation is free of charge and you do not need to register
Contact: Maria Finn, post doc, mmf@ign.ku.dk

More information will follow on www.landscapelectures.dk

Copenhagen Landscape Lecture committee:
Natalie M. Gulsrud, Rikke Munck Petersen og Svava Riesto

April 23 at 16:00, Auditorium von Langen, Rolighedsvej 23, Frederiksberg: Pia Rönicke & Nanna Debois Buhl


About the artists:

Pia Rönicke

Rönicke presented in her exhibition “The Cloud Document” at Overgaden in 2017 the result of her research about the Danish botanist Frederik Liebmann’s journey to Mexico 1841 – 43, where he collected over 50.000 plants. To update his research and the tools that he used, Rönicke her self travelled to Mexico, where she, together with two Mexican botanists, collected the same kind of plants that Liebmann had found, as well as additional species. These were gathered in a similar manner as Liebmann used, with visual DNA registrations of the plants as an addition to the dried examples. Furthermore Rönicke documented the trip into this landscape in a dual projected video, and presented together, the different forms of documentation raise questions concerning representation, authenticity and memory.

Nanna Debois Buhl

Debois Buhl has in her work “intervals and forms of stones of stars” mapped the environment in Køge Bay Beach Park, a large man-made beach landscape, with tools that were used in the early stages of photography. William Henry Fox Talbot used cameraless photographic methods to depict objects such as plants, and August Strindberg experimented with “celestograms” with which he hoped to capture the stars. Debois Buhl uses these cameraless techniques to capture plants, insects, and particles in the landscape in Køge Bay Beach Park today, and in this pro­cess opens up for thoughts on the human intervention in this area. The historic photographic methods make us rediscover the content of the landscape and question how it came to appear the way it does today. Through photographs, field notes, and conversations, her artist’s book “intervals and forms of stones of stars” further unfolds the reflections on this anthropocene biotope, its botany, and its cultural context.

April 12 at 16:00, Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management, Rolighedsvej 23, 1958 Frederiksberg C, Auditorium von Langen

Global Real Estate and Community Resistance: How Class and Race Shape Urban Politics and Planning

As the storied “Real Estate Capital of the World,” New York City has long promoted the myth of the harmonic “melting pot” of immigrants from across the world. Data, daily life and real politics suggest, however, that it is one of the most segregated cities, with huge economic and social inequalities. The most recent invasions by real estate investors are threatening long-ignored communities of color with gentrification and displacement, stimulating calls for genuine community-based planning and affordable housing. City government has instead used public relations schemes and public-private partnerships that make almost all new housing unaffordable to those who need it most. A community resistance intensifies, new possibilities for political change are emerging.
Tom Angotti is Professor Emeritus of Urban Policy and Planning at Hunter College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York. He edited the recent book, Zoned Out: Race, Displacement and City Planning in New York City and the prize-winning New York For Sale: Community Planning Confronts Global Real Estate. He founded and directed the Hunter College Center for Community Planning and remains active in debates about housing, planning and community development in New York City and around the nation. He founded and edited the quarterly Progressive Planning Magazine and is an editor of progressivecity.net.

The lectures take place at Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management, Rolighedsvej 23, 1958 Frederiksberg C and is cohosted by Plan, By & Process, RUC.
The event is open for all and followed by an informal reception.

February 26 at 16:00, Auditorium Landskab, Rolighedsvej 23, Frederiksberg: Camilla Berner & Maria Finn


About the artists:

Camilla Berner

Berner takes an interest in plants growing in particular urban settings, which she collects and then presents in carefully orchestrated works. In 2014 she developed her project “Unnoticed News” where she registered the plants growing on the temporary building site at Kongens Nytorv in central Copenhagen. The formal and historical garden at the center of the square with a knight statue of Christian V in its centre was at the time temporarily closed off and covered with unruly plants. Short reports in a newspaper format about developments at the site which could be read in boxes specially produced for the purpose and to be found at Kongens Nytorv, as well as at the Museum of Copenhagen and Den Frie – Centre for Contemporary Art. Part of the newspaper Berner created flower bouquets out of these plants, which she depicted in photographs. Presented in this manner the images not only displayed the actual variety of species that had arrived by it self, but also made clear the conflict in interests that was at stake in the view on nature at this particular site.

Maria Finn

Finn, in her project “Forgetful Nature,” investigates two vacant lots, the Beauvais Lot in Copenhagen and the Ellstorp Lot in Malmö, that both have been in use for recreational purposes, without much interference. This has resulted in a rich diversity of plants growing high, while simultaneously offering a less organized place for recreation. These two vacant lots offer a unique environment that challenges our usual conception of nature in a city. But simultaneously they also trigger our imagination since they offer a possibility to imagine the unseen and unexpected. They thus add to a cities vocabulary in an unexpected manner by presenting the disorganized as a possibility.

The spring lectures have been made possible thanks to donations from
Novo Nordisk Fonden