Paper short abstract:

Based on Jernbanebyen in Copenhagen as an empirical example of urban transformation, this paper explores the involvement of “objects of the past” as design drivers for the development of future cityscapes.

Paper long abstract:

In 2021, the Danish architect firm Cobe won a competition for the urban renewal of Jernbanebyen (the Railway City), a 365.000 m2 area in central Copenhagen consisting of large-scale workshops and maintaining facilities for diesel locomotives and train sets. The purpose of the competition was to design a master plan for transforming the area into a new sustainable and welcoming neighborhood.

My role on the Cobe team was to develop principles for preserving the legacy of a location that from 1900 to this day has been devoted to the maintenance of large machinery and to which public access was highly restricted. In my paper, I will present the cultural analysis involved in fulfilling this task.

When recognized as reminiscences of the past objects become what Jacques Derrida has conceptualized as “traces” and “tracks”. As objects of the past, they not only confirm the past as being different from the present, they also have the potential to become containers for the past enabling it to travel into the future (in Danish, the dual quality is captured in the word “spor”).

Through empirical examples from our competition material, I will present how this approach was incorporated as a design parameter in the winning proposal.