Copenhagen Architecture Festival x 2021
October 7–17, 2021
The full program of the largest architecture festival in Scandinavia is out and can be discovered on the festival’s official website. From October 7–17, 2021, Copenhagen and Aarhus will be flooded with events, film screenings, debates, exhibitions, art performances, lectures and guided tours addressing the theme Landscapes of Care.
In response to the most pressing global issues of our times, Copenhagen Architecture Festival x 2021 explores the notion of care in architecture and urban planning, in particular with regards to health in the built environment, to equity and diversity in urban communities, and to the ongoing climate crisis by asking: How can spatial practitioners contribute to solving present and future health, social and environmental challenges?
As the work of designers, architects and urban planners mutates to address socio-political issues of identity, togetherness and urban change, Landscapes of Care contributes to a shift towards greater sensitivity to matters of interconnection, association and interdependence.
“Health and Architecture”
With the arrival of a pandemic that turned our everyday lives upside down, the classic relationship between hygiene and health, and architecture and urban planning, has taken on new relevance. Among the many events, films and seminars unfolding the subject of ‘Health and Architecture’, you can look forward to the symposium New Landscapes of Care in the Post-Pandemic City, to the guided tours to mentally soothing places around Copenhagen or through the pandemic history of the city, or to Forugh Farrokzhad’s film The House is Black.
“Diversity and Community”
The last years have seen an upsurge of debates about the commons: while marginalization increases, the intersectional fight for equal rights is revealing that structural inequalities are built into architecture and urban space. In “Diversity and Community,” the festival examines the social future of cities through debates, film screenings and city walks. Among others, check out the exhibition and debate program Almen omsorg on the public housing area Tingbjerg, the full-day program at Louisiana Museum about gender and architecture, or films from the L.A. Rebellion movement, main oeuvres in American film history, to gain insight into where research, discourse and practice stand today.
“From Climate Sinner to Climate Care Agent”
We have pushed our planet beyond the limits of environmental sustainability. The construction industry is responsible for some of the worst CO2 emissions globally, but together with planners and architects it holds the potential and responsibility to radically change the way we design and build. Through a range of public film screenings and debates, CAFx 2021 invites you to join the discussion about the environmental footprint of urbanization and the future of cities in the face of climate change. Among others, the festival will host six afternoons within Space10’s exhibition Climate Layers, dedicated to different debates about climate solutions in the built environment, and screen the Berlinale-winner The Works and Days, and films by one of India’s leading art film makers, Amit Dutta.
“Portraits, Projects and Practices”
This year, the recurring portrait category embraces film portraits of architects and their work, artistic performances by Bob Kil, Nina Beier and Ying-Hsueh Chen at Thorvaldsens Museum, a focus on David Lynch’s filmic universe through film screenings, an exhibition and a dinner performance, revolutionary films from Black Wave Yugoslav Cinema, and this year’s special guest: speculative architect and film director Liam Young.
“Open House”
Another recurring format of the festival is the Open House, where the audience is invited into the private domains of leading architect studios, to look around construction sites, to hear more about their methods and practices and to participate in exciting debates about Copenhagen’s future urban landscape.
About Copenhagen Architecture Festival
Born in 2014, Copenhagen Architecture Festival engages a wide public in the discussion on the impact of architecture on our everyday lives. The festival aims at creating new meetings between disciplines, people and ideas to broaden our understanding of what architecture is.
Join the conversation and find more info on all on- and offline activities at cafx.dk.
