Mayor of Copenhagen: There's nothing beautiful about exclusionary architecture
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Under the heading 'From accessibility to universal design', the City of Copenhagen is working to develop the city on the basis of the concept of universal design. To succeed, it is necessary for the authorities to take the lead and make demands, says Technical and Environmental Mayor Line Barfod (EL).
Universal design has been incorporated into the City Plan Strategy of the City of Copenhagen from 2023, and if it is to succeed, a competence boost is needed across the municipality's administrations.
Previous studies in the municipality have shown that there is generally a lack of knowledge about universal design among the administrative staff, which is why the City of Copenhagen and the Bevica Foundation entered into a knowledge partnership in 2024.
The aim is for the Foundation to deliver knowledge into the administration by 2026 with a view to raising the level of knowledge in the municipality — in the first instance in the Technical and Environmental Administration.
It is possible to make something that is really nice and that is for everyone.
- Line Barfod, Mayor of Technology and Environment, Copenhagen
It is the municipality's intention that in the future, it is a requirement, supply, policies and strategies based on universal design, which is thought out from the beginning, rather than something that is subsequently put on as an accessibility measure. And there is a very special reason for this, says Tekink- and Environmental Mayor Line Barfod (EL).
“A building that shuts someone out cannot be beautiful. All things are not beauty in exclusion.”
The Copenhagen Principles
Copenhagen was awarded the title of Capital of Architecture 2023 as part of the international architecture conference held at Bella Center in Copenhagen in the summer2023. At the end of the conference 10 principles for rapid and radical change of the built environment to achieve the UN's 17 World Goals, which Denmark, together with many other countries around the world, ratified in2015.
The first principle of the ten points precisely to the fact that there are no beauties in exclusion, and that is underlines the importance of Copenhagen's work withuniversal design and the examples that ultimately emerge from it.
“Can we make some really good examples so that we can show: It is possible to make something that is really beautiful and that is for everyone, and where you do not think about the fact that this is based on universal design, but that it is just obvious that everyone can come here,” the mayor said.
The interview with Line Barfoed was conducted in the summer of 2024 in connection with her nomination as the Akitektur Mayor of the Year in September 2024, which is awarded by the Association of Architects.
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