Harbour of Gnosis

Copenhagen, a city that connects its past and future,  initiates the dialogue between people and architectural splendours. Looking back at the development of architectural history, architects are emphasizing more and more attention towards ‘friendliness’. Including eco-friendly, city-friendly, public-friendly and future-friendly trends.

The design proposal for the Athenaeum, "Harbour of Gnosis", is based on the concept of friendliness, where it can acknowledge by not only the professional architects of the upcoming forum but also all kinds of innovators and people around the world who wants to experience a journey through architecture and foresee the future architectural philosophies of the world. 

The greatest challenge is to find a way to present the historical identity of the Danish fabric of Architecture and the architectural evolution of the world. Our design routine started from the Danish architectural studies, extracting the traditional Danish architectural form of Viking ring house and boat and interpreting it into a modern way of architectural language through axis and structure.

The site locates at the north end of the Copenhagen canal. It acts as a guardian of the canal facing the Kastellet castle and the famous mermaid. Along the canal, facades of the symbolic architectures display a trait of architectural development throughout history. Particularly with the Danish Architecture Centre by BIG, a tour along the canal will lead you to the future Athenaeum.

Two pivotal axes are extracted, creating the primary grid for the Athenaeum. The one is the axis along the Kastellet castle representing the line of history, whereas the mermaid located nearby acts as the witness of the city’s cultural development. This axis stands on a firm ground of the ‘genius loci’ while giving us inspiration for a ‘portal’ along the axis. it links the past, present and the future.

The other axis is generated from the site itself, creating a texture of an industrial building environment with storage houses and garages.

To present the message of architectural evolution, we decomposed the literal definition of the Athenaeum, extracting its library function and combining it with museum exhibition. Auditorium and working space are combines into the architecture with two types of gridding. 

With the grass-covered roof and the gigantic tilted wall cutting into the architecture, we send an invitation to our visitors or the people pass by even before entering the Athenaeum. Inside the hall, structures are leading the way for visitors to start a journey along the wall. The history of architecture reveals as they descend, increasingly growing their anticipation. 

The journey starts from the basement floor, visiting four exhibition halls in sequence as ascending and always returning to the centre hall after an end of a section. The first section ends by experiencing a boat-like pathway facing the sea, giving the visitors a choice of mesmerizing the splendour of the sea, continue their journey or head out to the sea.

Continuing the journey, visitors might walk through the tilted wall and enter into the library section, where they can communicate in a more opened and public space, indulging in the sea of creativity and possibilities of future architecture. Reaching the top of the wall, you can discover a temporary exhibition section above the exhibition section and visitors can get on the rooftop of the library and rest with a magnificent view of the canal. 

The whole journey concludes into a consistently shifting sea-exhibition-sea-library-exhibition-sea process. This astonishing ‘maze’ like circulation is integrated carefully with the double-axis system, allowing visitors to find their direction while encouraging them to be fully incarnated in the architectural journey.

We believe that "Harbour of Gnosis" is a suitable approach to ‘friendliness’ by activating the visiting experience of visitors of different needs, starting off the energy of this region and also show a positive way towards the architectural future and the earth we are living in.