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Andreas Bruun: 50 years of professional practice, p. 174 Andreas Bruun (b. 1936) has had his own office since 1961, which is now 50 years, and he is still works there actively, now as senior advisor. In various periods he has been associated with the schools in Copenhagen and Århus as a teacher and censor, and he has also been involved in the profession both as a member of DL’s board and on the editorial committee in the 1960’s and as IFLA delegate in the 1970’s. Andreas Bruun’s interest for private garden architecture and especially the well-kept, well-composed and richly varied garden is legendary. The private gardens in Lyngby, Bagsværd, Lund and Køge bear witness to this. Furthermore, his knowledge of plants and his ability to combine them is evident in projects like the renovation of the Historical Botanical Gardens in Vordingborg (1995-96), the establishment of the central flower gardens at Copenhagen’s Zoo (1980), the cutting garden at the Karen Blixen Museum (198796), and part of the cemetery expansion projects at Greve (1984) and Jyllinge (1987) as well as long term consultant work for Køge and Vordingborg Municipalities. During the latest generation of his work, Andreas Bruun has shown how much one can create through the use of traditional, welltried and classical horticultural methods. In this article, he is asked about his attitudes and opinions on landscape architecture before and now. Monument at Kastellet Finn Reinbothe, p. 178 To show respect for those who have been dispatched to conflict and catastrophe sites, those who are out now, those who will be sent out in the future and for those who have perished during their work period, the government in 2009 decided to establish a monument for Denmark’s International Efforts since 1948. Based on five submissions to a closed design competition the jury selected artist Finn Reinbothe to realize the new monument. It is located on Prinsessen’s Bastion at the old Kastellet defense complex in Copenhagen. Henrik Jørgensen Landskab was responsible for the project work and building supervision. The monument has no real center, but is organized as three spaces each with their own focus and function. The first and largest space provides a setting for large official cer-
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emonies. The backdrop for these events is the brickwork piece – ’the sloping wall’ that carries the inscription “A time – A place – A person.” The second space is accessible through an opening in the same brickwork and is dedicated to those who are abroad at the moment. Here one can find the names of the areas of effort from 1948 up until today, and here there is an eternal flame for those who are away. The third space is for contemplation – a memorial for the bereaved families. Here on can find the names of those who perished and a space to place flowers. In the center there is a well that reflects the sky. The well serves as a recurrent motif throughout the entire scheme. As a metaphor, the well represents a common human point of departure: the life-giving place where people meet, converse, exchange ideas and values, find a sense of togetherness and security and develop cultures. Aalborg Waterfront, p. 182 Vibeke Rønnow Aalborg has always provided a link between Vendsyssel and Himmerland, and the fjord previously served as an important transport route, which is still evident from the coast’s distinctive profile of factories and smokestacks. The industrial society’s phasing out offered the opportunity for an alternative usage of the city’s central harbor. The municipality purchased all the important harbor areas and in 2004 arranged a closed design competition for the area between Limfjord’s bridge and Nordkraft. The birth of the new harborfront has thus taken place over the last eight years and in 2011 the entire competition area was completed. The harborfront consists of five main elements, The promenade and The boulevard, Jomfru Ane Park, The Slotsplads square and Utzon Park, the three large urban spaces are surrounded by the boulevard toward south and the promenade toward north, and they are divided by wide wooden decks, which also extend and mark the city’s street space across the harbor area. Two warehouses in the area were preserved, while four harbor buildings were replaced by the new Utzon museum, two youth housing towers and a restaurant building. The conversion of the Boulevard to an urban boulevard with a median strip gives the opportunity to cross the road, which on the stretch opposite the palace has been moved toward south. This has created a more beautiful road course and a greater and more dis-
tinctive palace square. The Promenade connects the urban spaces along the waterfront and the recessed stairs and observation platforms offer new access possibilities and views over the fjord. Utzon Park is a multi-usage park with winding paths, lawns and cherry trees that form a green setting for the new exhibition and research center for Jørn Utzon’s architecture. On the opposite side of the Boulevard the park’s tree rows are extended over a paved city square. The Slotsplads with its open green forms a connecting link between the harbor areas and the medieval city center, manifested by the Aalborghus palace and the historical ramparts. Jomfru Ane Park at the foot of the dense, original city area contains a number of urban parks with varying themes, where the individual garden spaces are recessed to offer shelter from the wind. Kaj Franck’s gardens, p. 188 Tom Simons Not many are aware that Kaj Franck also designed and realized gardens. He was de facto an enthusiastic gardening amateur, who loved to work with his hands in the soil, but also undertook the job of creating a public garden. The garden and nature’s forms and colors that he could work with there formed a kind of basis and experimental workshop for his entire creative universe. In Kaj Franck we find a significant artist with an interest sphere that covered man’s entire environment from the knife and bowl to the open landscape. He primarily concentrated his artistic efforts on consumer products and domestic glassware, but he also had many other irons in the fire. Among other things, he was the artistic leader of Industrial Arts school in the 1960’s. Later he continued his teaching efforts with numerous lectures in Finland and abroad. Furthermore he designed and realized many exhibitions about Finnish glass and ceramics. And he established and cared for his gardens. What did this mean to him as an artist? The garden offered not just a leisure activity, it was also a workplace, which in Kaj’s case could be likened to a glassworks. To Kaj Franck, the garden was an aesthetic field experiment. There he could carry out compositional experiments and reflect on the nature of form and color. It was here that he sought the origins of form. Pete Avondoglio LANDSKAB 7 2011