Southern Harbour, Aarhus in transformation: mutual benefits between backside milieu and frontside development?

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Abstract

Present proceeding paper will discuss and address the development of the Southern Harbour in Aarhus, primarily as a case of contemporary strategic planning, where elements of what usually characterizes the backsides or the more heterogeneous elements of an urban area is cultivated into a new setting or relation.

What happens when frontside planning seeks the atmosphere, wildness, and life of the backsides and the voids?
The frontside-backside discussion and the schisma between planning and the counter defining alternative public spaces (the voids and the backsides with their heterogenic milieus) are highly relevant today in an era of strategic urban planning.
In recent urban development projects, you see projects that embark upon what you could call backside life or backside atmospherics. The purpose is to add life, identity, and atmosphere to the new development, generally characterized as frontside, and in that regard, one could state that the backside is capitalized.

What happens in planning when you short-circuit the schisma between the front and backside of the city? Where elements of the backsides are proactively used to establish an atmospheric or urban life-based setting for developments that you would typically refer to as front sides? Does it transform the lifeforms of the backside, or does it nurture gentrification?

The paper discusses the development project of Sydhavnen in Aarhus, which represents a unique example of this discussion of how frontside and backside elements are brought into a large urban development project. Is it an authentic urban situation, where the former backside urban life or milieu has been transformed into a ‘social condenser’ (Koolhaas) or a collective public domain (Haijer & Rijndorp)? Or is it an agent of (an unavoidable) gentrification, where the backside becomes a new 'squatwashed’ frontside?

The article relates the main case to other national and international cases: Køge Kyst and Musicon in Denmark, BRUTUS in Rotterdam, Holland, and Los Angeles Artist District, California, USA. Furthermore, it uses Skot Hansens model for categorizing urban policies to discuss the objectives and motifs of the case studies in order to qualify the discussions on the projects primary strategies, and how they use the cultural assets.
The article will discuss where the balance between mutual benefit and individual gain is found, and will seek to identify how and on what premises it can be obtained.
Original languageEnglish
Publication date3 Nov 2021
Number of pages16
Publication statusPublished - 3 Nov 2021
EventNAF/NAAR Symposium 2021: Concepts of Transformation - Arkitektskolen Aarhus, Aarhus, Denmark
Duration: 3 Nov 20214 Nov 2021
https://aarch.dk/en/events/concepts-of-transformation-naf-naar-symposium-2021/

Conference

ConferenceNAF/NAAR Symposium 2021
LocationArkitektskolen Aarhus
Country/TerritoryDenmark
CityAarhus
Period03/11/202104/11/2021
Internet address

Keywords

  • Aarhus
  • harbour transformation
  • urban development

Artistic research

  • No

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