The City Link: A Copenhagen Cycling Bridge Reimagined as a Linear Public Square

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Q: What is "The City Link: A Copenhagen Cycling Bridge Reimagined as a Linear Public Square" about?

This article covers topics related to Public Architecture, Transportation, Infrastructure Design. Yannic Kohnen and Jonathan Burkard stretch pavilions, kiosks and repair stations across a rotating Copenhagen bridge, making the crossing a destination.

Most bridges ask you to keep moving. The City Link asks you to stop, fix your chain, buy a coffee and look at the water before carrying on. The proposal takes the most utilitarian object in Copenhagen's cycling network, the crossing, and treats its deck as a linear public square. Glazed pavilions line the route, open zones sit between them, and the act of getting from one bank to the other becomes a civic event.

Designed by Yannic Kohnen and Jonathan Burkard, the project spans the harbour between Christianshavn and the heart of Copenhagen, a city where the bicycle is already infrastructure, habit and identity at once. Rather than adding another efficient link to that system, the designers argue that infrastructure at this scale should also carry public life. Their bridge borrows from historic precedents like Venice's Rialto Bridge, where commerce and circulation share the same span, and translates that idea into a restrained contemporary language.

Glass Pavilions Turn the Deck into a Street

Interior view down a glazed pavilion with a plywood bicycle repair counter, bike racks and a potted plant in soft daylight

Bridge deck lined with glass pavilions, small trees and a cyclist riding past under a pale overcast sky

The interior view sets the tone: a plywood bicycle repair counter, bike racks and a potted plant inside a glazed pavilion washed in soft daylight. It reads less like a bridge component and more like a neighbourhood workshop. That domestic scale is the project's sharpest move. Repair stations, retail kiosks, cafés, exhibition spaces and information centres occupy a sequence of these pavilions, giving the deck a reason to be inhabited at different hours rather than simply crossed.

The exterior image shows how the pavilions organise the deck. Small trees and seating zones punctuate the open areas between the glass volumes, while a cyclist rides past without obstruction. A light roof structure shelters these spaces from sun and rain, an essential concession to the Danish climate that keeps the programme usable across seasons. The material palette stays minimal and the colours muted, so the pavilions frame activity instead of competing with it.

Four Arms Sort Bikes and Pedestrians Without Splitting Them

Axonometric drawing of a bridge crossing a canal between city blocks, with three small diagrams and text columns below

The axonometric clarifies the circulation logic. The bridge arms extend outward to guide users toward four primary directions in the city, so riders read their route intuitively rather than negotiating a single congested landing. Cyclists and pedestrians run on separated paths, which keeps commuter traffic fast, yet the two flows remain visually connected across the deck.

This is the balance the whole scheme depends on. A plaza bridge that slowed cyclists would fail Copenhagen's commuters; a cycle highway with shops bolted on would fail as public space. By letting the fast lane and the slow zone sit side by side, with continuous visual language along the span, Kohnen and Burkard let the cyclist pass through the square without being forced to participate in it, while still offering views of greenery, seating and the water along the way.

Two Sculpted Piers and a 25-Metre Opening for Boats

Long view across the water to a low bridge on curved piers, with a cyclist on the quay and a boat below

Seen from across the water, the bridge sits low on two organically formed pillars, a cyclist on the quay in the foreground and a boat slipping beneath. The piers create a 25-metre opening for navigation, and a rotation axis allows the bridge to move and maintain clear passage for vessels. That mechanism does double duty: it solves a functional harbour constraint and gives the structure a sculptural, kinetic identity.

What stands out in this view is restraint. The bridge does not reach for the skyline or announce itself with a dramatic profile. It stays close to the water, matching the horizontal grain of Copenhagen's harbour edge, and lets its strength come from spatial clarity and human scale. The curved piers are the one expressive gesture, and they earn it by carrying both the structure and the navigational opening.

Why This Project Matters

The City Link makes a persuasive case that infrastructure can be architecture in the full sense: a place with programme, shelter and character, not just a span between two points. In a city that already leads on cycling, the proposal pushes the conversation from moving bikes efficiently to giving cyclists somewhere worth arriving at mid-route. The repair counter, the café and the shaded bench become part of the commute.

Its value also lies in how quietly it works. A minimal palette, separated but visible circulation, a sheltering roof and a navigable opening are not radical individually. Combined on one deck, they suggest a replicable typology for waterfront cities: the bridge as an elevated plaza that adapts through the day, includes those who walk as well as those who ride, and strengthens the identity of the neighbourhoods it joins.