Today the winners of the competition for a new Natural History Museum was announced. We were pleased to obtain a small price in our effort to challenge the program and question the decisions made concerning important issues such as placement, infrastructure and sustainability.
Extract from the jury report :
This entry incorporates the Botanical Gardens and the museum buildings in a larger urban plan that covers the green belt of the former ramparts and focuses on the connections between the many museums on the green museum island near the ramparts. It is one of very few entries in both Trail A and Trail B that suggests that, while a number of the already existing entrances should be retained, the main entrance to the Botanical Gardens should be immediately opposite Rosenborg Castle, located close to Nørreport Station, at the Observatory in the wide Øster Voldgade street.
A logical result of this proposal is that the entrant wants to turn the listed Observatory into the central building of the museum and its main entrance. In connection with this main building the entrant suggests that the required undergroundfloor area be provided by building into the Observatory hill instead of using the area below the hill as required in the competition brief.
However, the most remarkable concept relative to the educational aspect of the museum is a series of footbridges (similar to the footbridges in Kew Gardens) which, starting at the Observatory, take visitors on a tour of the Botanical Gardens at treetop height. One of the footbridges continues across Sølvgade to Østre Anlæg and the National Gallery; another crosses Øster Voldgade and provides access to Rosenborg Castle. The entrant sees this system of footbridges as an ‘extra layer’ of experiences, an additional perspective on the Botanical Gardens in which the bridges will not be a disturbing element, and as an opening of the gardens towards other units in a green museum belt.
