The National Gallery of Denmark has announced Polyform as winners for it’s new garden design.
“SMK Back into the Park”. Polyform
Polyform, a rapidly rising star on the Danish architectural scene, will be in charge of the design for a new Museum Garden in front of the National Gallery of Denmark. That is the final verdict of a project competition launched by the Gallery and the City of Copenhagen on the basis of a donation from the Annie and Otto Johs. Detlefs’ Foundations – OJD. The Foundations will also fund the physica creation of the new Museum Garden and a thorough modernisation of the Gallery’s entrance area.
With their winning project “SMK Back into the Park” the Polyform office will be behind the revitalisation of the 7,500m² area in front of the National Gallery of Denmark. The winning project was presented by the Gallery and the City of Copenhagen earlier today at a reception held at the Gallery. On that occasion the architectural office SLA was awarded second prize for their design proposal. Polyform’s winning design and seven other proposals will be exhibited at the Gallery until 15 January 2012. The inauguration of the new Museum Garden is projected for 2013.
SMK Back into the Park
In June of this year the National Gallery of Denmark and the City of Copenhagen launched a competition inviting proposals for a new design to reinvigorate and reinvent the Museum Garden. After a preliminary pre-qualification round, a total of eight enterprises from Denmark and abroad were invited to submit their proposals. Now, the judges have unanimously pointed to Polyform as the winner. With the project “SMK Back in the Park” Polyform solved the task by letting the green spaces provided by the Østre Anlæg park reach all the way around the Gallery. The stringent, Baroque-infused layout of the present-day garden design will disappear and be replaced by e.g. grass-clad hillocks, large trees, and serpentine pathways that lead around and envelop the Gallery building and the green bastions.
The judges’ comments include the following statement about the winning proposal: ”The proposal is particularly commended for its simple underlying approach, which demonstrates respect for and understanding of the link between building, park, and city, thereby creating a precisely articulated and compelling architectural whole that brings out the full authority of the building.”
Polyform was first established in 2006 and is owned and managed by the architects Jonas Sangberg and Thomas Kock. In very little time Polyform has successfully realised a number of award-winning projects, and the office is behind major projects such as the design of the new Købmagergade pedestrian street in Copenhagen. It is also part of the team developing the urban planning for the new Nordhavn district in Copenhagen. The new Museum Garden will be realised in cooperation with the Dutch landscape architects Karres en Brands, Oluf Jørgensen engineers, Via Trafik and art historian Svava Riesto.
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