Curatorial Statement
For the seventh year in a row, we are opening the doors to the Copenhagen Architecture Festival (CAFx) in Copenhagen. Together with our sister festivals, Odense Architecture Festival in Odense (OAF) and Aarhus Architecture Festival in Aarhus (AAF), we illuminate a nationwide exploration and celebration of architecture in all its scales and expressions, as a framework for our everyday lives and highlights.
The theme of this year's festival is 'The Welfare City in Transition'. Drawing on the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II and the extensive debate and transformation that post-war welfare architecture and urbanism currently undergo, we will use the festival as a prism to examine how architecture, design, and urban planning from approximately 1945 to 1975 contributed to the construction and development of the welfare state and city, and where we stand today. In the pursuit of the good life and the common good, architecture and urban planning played a key role. The welfare city was expanded as the physical framework of the welfare state with new democratic housing architecture, new infrastructures, green recreational areas, new suburbs, and new welfare institutions, which liberated and framed citizens' everyday lives from cradle to grave. But much has changed, and ideals, interests, and needs shift.
In short, we explore how our urban and housing development over the last 75 years since the end of World War II has shifted from ideals of 'the good life' and the common good towards a more marketable and branding-oriented 'liveability' in the age of globalization, characterized by a competitive state among the world's cities and a neoliberal turn with increasing inequality and housing prices as a result. A movement that urbanist Kristoffer Weiss has called "from welfare city to prosperity city". We can observe many of the crises that challenged architects and politicians in the post-war period repeating themselves in new ways: housing shortages, urbanization, migration, populism, economic crisis, etc. Thus, it is interesting to see what we can learn from the past to tackle today's problems. In a time when many of the period's ideal cities like Tingbjerg and Gellerup are facing major transformations, as a consequence of the politically dictated parallel society package, it is particularly worth looking at what the original ideas behind the welfare city were. Perhaps some of its social visions can inspire the present?
During the festival, we have an ambition to examine the intersection between architecture/urban planning and the welfare state both historically and in relation to the radical urban development we are currently in the midst of. To what extent is contemporary urban development regulated, and does social engineering continue on 'new bottles'? How do 'top-down' and 'bottom-up' interact? How is the right to the city negotiated then and now, and who are the many new neighborhoods and homes planned for?
We explore aspects of this process of change through five sub-themes: 'Cities on Bare Ground', 'Myths, Markets, Diversity', 'Cultural Heritage – Who What Where', 'Human, Nature, and the Anthropocene', and 'On the Edge'. In addition, the program includes the regular features, namely 'Portraits' and 'Open House'.
This year, we have spread further out into the Capital Region along the S-train network in the fingers of the Finger Plan with events in suburbs and 'New Towns', which embody the ideal of cradle-to-grave welfare city. The festival offers, among other things, an opportunity to visit Farum Midtpunkt, Albertslund, and Gadehavegaard in Høje-Taastrup along with Tingbjerg and Kay Fisker's Voldparken in the outskirts of Copenhagen.
But we will not just unfold the theme as an uncritical celebration of welfare and a narrative of decline. In about 75 years, the welfare state and the welfare city have lifted most Danes up the social ladder and out of the third backyard with an outhouse, but the flip side of the coin is evident today. The growth paradigm with its infinite resource consumption – including a mighty building fervor – has created an overwhelming climate crisis. In 2020, five years before Copenhagen is supposed to be CO2-neutral and the social democratic government has launched an ambitious climate plan, we have entered the climate battle.
Together with the newspaper Politiken, we have asked the environmentally damaging construction industry, with its many different professions/hats, to write personal letters to Frank Jensen with good advice for the Lord Mayor on how to achieve the goal. This has resulted in an exhibition at Politiken's gallery and a publication that frames debates about urban development and sustainability. How can climate initiatives be linked to social justice and welfare in a time of increasing inequality? (The Yellow Vests in France, for example, originated from people's dissatisfaction with rising gasoline prices, just as physical measures in vulnerable social housing have resulted in protests like Common Resistance.)
The legacy of the ideals of the welfare city with the common good, equality, and the good life at its core, and the crises we must tackle in the future, is also the theme of this year's conference 'The Welfare City becoming an Urban Utopia'. The climate crisis has arrived, but other crises like a financial crisis, a migration crisis, a housing crisis, and a democracy crisis are repeating. We can learn from past experiences, but the path forward must be greener. At the same time, urban and housing development must take into account that demographics and needs are different and more heterogeneous today, where even Statistics Denmark works with 37 different family types. The good life must be written in the plural.
In collaboration with the Architect's Publishing House, we are also publishing a 'bookazine', The Welfare City – A Critical Reader, a hybrid between a book and a magazine that examines aspects of the welfare city in the past, present, and future through historical and contemporary texts, images, and visual culture.
A shotgun blast of anniversaries (the 80th anniversary of Denmark's occupation, the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II, the 100th anniversary of Denmark's reunification with Schleswig, and the 30th anniversary of German reunification) has also motivated an exhibition at the KADK School of Architecture's library. Here we present the exhibition 'Watch more TV!' by the renowned German architect Arno Brandlhuber and the filmmaker Christopher Roth. The exhibition examines the role of architecture in society in film format with local cases, produced in collaboration with KADK and a sneak peek at this year's Venice Biennale, whose German pavilion Brandlhuber+ is curating. Debates and talks with international and Danish voices will take place in the exhibition and be transmitted to various digital channels.
The program offers spiritual and physical nourishment for every taste – over 150 events such as city walks, seminars, film screenings, workshops, readings, exhibitions, conferences, open houses, debates, etc. The events take place in a cornucopia of spatial typologies, where one can find comfort or criticize. It is certain and true: architecture touches us all as the framework of our lives.
