the Vision of BispeBjerg Bakke - Realdania Byg

On December 1st 2004, the then Lord Mayor of Copenhagen, Lars Engberg (second from left), officially laid
the foundation stone of Bispebjerg Bakke. Also the Managing Director of Realdania, Flemming Borreskov
(third from left) and the Chairman of The Copenhagen Association of Crafts, Klaus Bonde Larsen (far right),
took part in laying the foundation stone of the unorthodox residential building that welcomed its first residents
two years later. At the far left is Søren Ulslev, at that time the CEO of NCC.
lity about taking over the site, but it was
difficult because they couldn’t sell us the
land without making a public invitation to
tender. At that time we had already done
sketches of the building. It was our luck
that the municipality ended up inviting
tenders that had to include a building
project – and they were very interested
in our project!”. Not everyone was enthusiastic
about placing a large residential
building on the site, though. The project
was met by opposition when a group of
squatters occupied the site in 2004. Just
as construction was about to start, 20
young people invaded the trees on the
site to stop work being done there. Their
objective was that the site should be used
to create a place like Christiania or other
alternative facilities in Copenhagen. Both
NCC and Realdania declared themselves
ready for dialogue, but the case was closed
after a week when police forced the
squatters out of the trees.
Inspired by the Blocks of
Nørrebro
‘The skateboard ramp’, ‘the ski jump’, ‘the
roller coaster’. These are some of the associations
people have when they see the
highest point of the building that now towers
above the landscape next to Bispebjerg
Hospital. At the highest point on the
site, the Bispebjerg Bakke building rises
from three floors to eight floors. The snake
has been equipped with a head held high.
But long before Bispebjerg Bakke became
a snake with its head held high, the concept
of the building had to become a reality.
”We quickly came up with the idea of
making a snake. We knew from the start
that we wanted to use the topography of
the site as a starting point for the building.
It should be varied and alive and
move with the site. The building shouldn’t
work against the site, but should interact
closely with it”, says Bjørn Nørgaard. The
Bispebjerg Bakke site slopes 10 metres
from the highest to the lowest point. And
to accommodate for that slope, Nørgaard
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