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Abstract
This article concerns the transformation processes of Copenhagen’s Nørrebro Park between 2001 and 2007. Through research of the processes as a case study, examples emerge regarding how the landscape architecture was reconstructed in collective form-generating processes between different actors. Theoretical analysis was executed using actor–network theory (ANT), with particular emphases on the terms “black box” and “mediator,” both by Bruno Latour, and “material agency,” by Albena Yaneva. This article argues that the construction of landscape architecture in this case can be considered as a strong collective and relational process, where unexpected and invisible actors become co-designers.
Acknowledgements
With gratitude to the two blind peer reviewers and the editor for their relevant and inspiring comments. Translated by Thomas Garvin. Edited by Courtney D. Coyne-Jensen.
Notes
1 Steen Høyer, “Nørrebroparken i København – Renoveret 2007” [Nørrebro Park in Copenhagen – Renovated 2007], Landskab 88, no. 8 (2007): 186–192, at 186.
2 Per Stahlschmidt, “Et brag af en park: anmeldelse af Ny Nørrebro Park” [A Triumph of Park – A Review of New Nørrebro Park], Landskab 88, no. 8 (2008): 190–195; Betinna Lamm, “Ny Nørrebro Park” [New Nørrebro Park], Arkitektur DK 4 (2008): 54–63; Høyer, “Nørrebroparken i København,” 186–189.
3 Michael Guggenheim, “Mutable Immobiles: Building Conversion as a Problem of Quasi-Technologies,” in Urban Assemblages: How Actor–Network Theory Changes Urban Studies, ed. Ignacio Farías and Thomas Bender (Abingdon: Routledge, 2011), 161–178.
4 Mattias Kärrholm, “The Materiality of Territorial Production: A Conceptual Discussion of Territoriality, Materiality, and the Everyday Life of Public Space,” Space and Culture 10, no. 4 (2007): 437–453; Ignacio Farías, “Introduction: Decentring the Object of Urban Studies,” in Farías and Bender, Urban Assemblages, 1–24; Andrés Valderrama Pineda, “How Do We Co-Produce Urban Transport Systems and the City?,” in Farías and Bender, Urban Assemblages, 121–119; Tomas Bender, “Postcript: Reassembling the City: Networks and Urbans Imaginaries,” in Farías and Bender, Urban Assemblages, 303–323.
5 Yvonne Rydin and Laura Tate, “Exploring the Influence of ANT,” in Actor Networks of Planning: Exploring the Influence of Actor Network Theory, ed. Yvonne Rydin and Laura Tate (Abingdon: Routledge, 2016), 3–23, at 17.
6 Sophie Houdart, “Copying, Cutting and Pasting Social Spheres,” Science Studies 21, no. 1 (2008): 47–63;
Katrine Lotz, “Architectors: Specific Architectural Competencies,” (Ph.D. diss., The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts School of Architecture, Copenhagen, 2008), 165–215; Albena Yaneva, “How Buildings ‘Surprise’: The Renovation of the Alte Aula in Vienna,” Science Studies 21, no. 1 (2008): 8–28; Albena Yaneva, The Making of a Building: A Pragmatist Approach to Architecture (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2009); Albena Yaneva, Made by the Office for Metropolitan Architecture: An Ethnography of Design (Rotterdam: 010, 2009), 86–96; Camilla Hedegaard Møller, “Konstruktionen af en park: Et aktør-netværksteoriinspireret studie af inddragende processer i transformationen af Nørrebroparken” [An Actor–Network Theory-Inspired Study of Participatory Processes in the Transformation of Nørrebro Park] (Ph.D. diss., The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts School of Architecture, Copenhagen).
7 Mattias Kärrholm, “The King and the Square: Relationships of the Material, Cultural and Political in the Redesign of Stortorget, Malmö, Sweden,” in Rydin and Tate, Actor Networks of Planning, 127–141.
8 Møller, “Konstruktionen af en park.”
9 Ibid., 44–233.
10 Erik Maaløe, Casestudier: Af og om mennesker i organisationer [Case Studies: By and About People in Organizations] (Copenhagen: Akademisk, 2002), 131.
11 Yaneva, Made by the Office for Metropolitan Architecture.
12 Bruno Latour, Reassebling the Social: An Introduction to Actor–Network-Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 46–50.
13 Michel Callon, “Some Elements of a Sociology of Translation: Domestication of the Scallops and the Fishermen of St Brieuc Bay,” in Power, Action and Belief: A New Sociology of Knowledge?, ed. John Law (Abingdon: Routledge, 1986), 196–223.
14 Bruno Latour, Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers through Society (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987), 3.
15 Ibid., 21.
16 Latour, Reassebling the Social, 40, 105.
17 Yaneva, Made by the Office for Metropolitan Architecture, 58.
18 Kärrholm, “King and the Square,” 132.
19 Latour, Reassembling the Social, 43.
20 Albena Yaneva, “Making the Social Hold: Towards an Actor–Network Theory of Design,” Design and Culture 1, no. 3 (2009): 273-288, at 276.
21 Madeline Alkrich, “The De-Scription of Technical Objects,” in Shaping Technology/Building Society: Studies in Sociotechnical Change, ed. W. E. Bijker and J. Law (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992): 205–224, at 208.
22 Yaneva, “How Buildings ‘Surprise,’” 8.
23 Bruno Latour and Albena Yaneva, “Give Me a Gun and I Will Make All Buildings Move: An ANT’s View of Architecture,” in Explorations in Architecture: Teaching, Design, Research, ed. R. Geiser (Basel: Birkhäuser, 2008): 80–89, at 84.
24 Lotz, “Architectors,” 79.
25 Yaneva, Made by the Office for Metropolitan Architecture, 96.
26 Niels Albertsen, “Arkitekturværkets netværk. Tre samfundsteoretiske perspektiver” [Architectural Network. Three Societal Perspectives], Nordic Journal of Architectural Research 15, no. 3 (2002): 7–22, at 22.
27 Møller, “Konstruktionen af en park,” 44.
28 Ibid., 98.
29 Louise Risør (landscape architect), interview with the author, September 2012.
30 Møller, “Konstruktionen af en park,” 151.
31 I have no insight into the occurrences that led to the reduced number of earthen embankments.
32 Yaneva, Made by the Office for Metropolitan Architecture, 96.
33 Louise Risør’s Minutes of Meeting with Copenhagen Municipality, GHB Architects Archive, October 13, 2005.
34 Anonymiseret Analyserapport [Anonymized Analysis Report], GHB Architects Archive, September 22, 2005.
35 Yaneva, “How Buildings ‘Surprise,’” 19.
36 Steen Høyer, Landskabskunst [Landscape Art] (Copenhagen: Kunstakademiets Arkitektskoles [The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture], 2006), 269.
37 Møller, “Konstruktionen af en park,” 154.
38 Albertsen, “Arkitekturværkets netværk,” 19–20.
39 Yaneva, “How Buildings ‘Surprise,’” 15.
40 Albertsen, “Arkitekturnetværkets netværk,”19.
41 Bender, “Postcript,” 316.
42 Ibid.; Farías, “Introduction,” 14.
43 Yaneva, Made by the Office for Metropolitan Architecture, 96.
44 Bruno Latour, “The Power of Association,” in Law, Power, Action and Belief, 264–280.
45 Rydin and Tate, “Exploring the Influence of ANT,” 20.