Sense of Place

Explore the events, film screenings, talks, exhibitions, open houses and guided tours of Copenhagen Architecture Festival 2022—the most sensory exploration of placemaking in Scandinavia.

Copenhagen Architecture Festival is back for the 9th year in a row with a big, loving and critical festival—this time focusing on the theme “Sense of Place”.

October 6–16, the largest architecture festival in Scandinavia is taking over the Danish capital with over 100 events revolving around the cultural, economic and climatic contexts that characterize the city and its architecture; a fierce festival complex that will spread across media, fields of knowledge, institutions and city spaces; a nomadic way of life in an attempt to anchor the conversation about the city in the city’s versatility.

French philosopher Henry Lefebvre defined places as “physical spaces that people naturalize through patterns, behavior and communication”. Indeed, places come into being as we read them, use them, relate to them. Places are phenomenologically experienced and culturally conditioned—we live them, and we have lived them every single day.
Under this year’s theme “Sense of Place”, through a myriad of exhibitions, talks, lectures, film screenings, workshops, guided tours, open houses, electronic music performances and much more, we will explore how we sense, experience and understand places, and how architecture and urban planning help to create them.

October 8–9, Don’t miss the film program curated by one of the most influential architecture theorists of our time, Juhani Pallasmaa! We have invited Pallasmaa to select and introduce four films that encapsulate some of Pallasmaa’s thoughts on the importance of affective architecture in film and of the senses for experiencing architecture. Enjoy Andrei Tarkovsky’s Nostalghia and Pallasmaa’s mini-lecture on the importance of the film medium for architectural communication and understanding; Michelangelo Antonioni’s The Passenger, Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope with introduction and lecture by Pallasmaa and Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window.

October 6–November 18, Copenhange Architecture Festival is excited to host the exhibition New Methods for Big Challenges: Architecture and Extreme Environments about architect David Garcia’s work on creating an architecture that is in balance with both human needs and the planet’s ecosystemic limits. The exhibition is accompanied by a series of events that expand our understanding of extreme weather conditions as an inescapable condition of life and architecture. Here you can meet the artist group Superflex, architect Henry Glogau curator Jacob Lillemose, publishing director Kristoffer Weiss and the design studio SAGA Space Architects.

October 8, 4:30pm, Acclaimed filmmakers Bêka & Lemoine are making their way past Copenhagen with the world premiere of their newest film Big Ears Listen With Feet, a fusion between a road movie and a film diary about one of the most significant architects of our time, Boonserm Premthada—a free cinematic walk through landscapes of chance encounters, events and places that have shaped the identity and sensibility of one of Thailand’s most interesting architects. Join Bêka & Lemoine in Bangkok on a hectic day trip through the chaotic concrete jungle of the South Asian megacity!

We also invite you to this year’s film program about The Street. The street is a very special space, also in the world of film, from the dangerous streets of Scorsese to the joyless streets of Georg Pabst. Through six film screenings, concerts and presentations, we examine the interweaving of film with the street, and you are invited—So fold up the computer, turn off the TV and come to Cinemateket if you want to learn more about the street, film and the conjunction between them. In this series you can experience the following films:

October 6, 4:15pm, Mean Streets I: Mean Streets by Martin Scorcese
October 7, 4:30pm, The erotic street: Friday Night by Claire Denis
October 10, 7pm, Dangerous Street II: Manila in the Claws of Light by Lino Brocka
October 15, 7pm, The social street: Do the Right Thing by Spike Lee
October 16, 4:30pm, The antisocial street: Neighboring Sounds by Kleber Mendonca Filho
October 16, 8:30pm, The dilapidated street: Behind the mask of joy by Georg Pabst with a silent film concert by Vanity Productions.

Urban Interventions - Miniseminar With Raumlabor And Collectif Etc: October 16, 4:30-7:00pm a discussion on place, local networks and methods.
Halmtorvet 27, 1700 København

Domestic Connectedness: October 7, 4:00-8:00pm, an exhibition exploring the home as a place affected by the digital infrastructures. LETH & GORI, Absalonsgade 21B, 1658 København

Wetlands as Coastal-Commons of the Future: October 8, 4:30–6:30pm, a conversation on socially and environmentally sustainable future coastal landscapes.
Akademisk Arkitektforening, Åbenrå 34, 1124 København

Check out all our other events on Copenahgen Architecture Festival’s full program.