The enduring beauty of Tivoli Gardens, now 174 years in the making, lies in its gentle foundational idea, to be a recreational fantasy park serving a substantial and active city.

With the completion of the Hjørnet project, it has been our privilege to engage with this extraordinary place and to be included in the latest chapter of its storied history.

The original character of Tivoli as a place of amusement, culture and recreation has been sustained by a commitment to constant change and self-renewal. Janus-like, it looks to both the past and the future. It is our hope that the new building, placed in this historic setting, will gracefully anticipate and accept the overlays that will inevitably accrue with time.

The key architectural idea for Tivoli Hjørnet was derived from the fortification walls and moat that historically enfolded the city and that today remain imprinted on the Gardens’ layout. Just as these walls formed the boundary of the city, so is the building a new edge for the garden. It is an inhabited zone that both engages and entertains. It looks inward to the garden and outward to the city.

The new building is both a framing portal and a curving mirror – a portal to the fanciful world of Tivoli and a mirror, amplifying the very real and vivid life of Copenhagen. It allows the two worlds to touch and overlay.  Cantilevering out on the city side, the building shares in the vitality of the street. It enfolds rather than delimits. By capturing the nuances of the changing, light and unfolding with passage its variable form is designed to enrich the experience of passers-by. . From within, you are invited to drift above and along Bernstorffsgade. On the garden side, its terracotta terraces weave together and step back, beneath the Copenhagen sky, Hemmed with lush plantings, these terraces present panoramic views of the beloved Pantomime theatre, Tivoli’s stately trees, and the relaxed life of the garden playing out below.

Embedded in a city of practical and material reality, Tivoli is a place that invites involuntary dreaming. It is our hope that with time, the new building will find its place in the public imagination that has so long and so widely embraced the buoyant spirit of this remarkable Garden.

SITE: Western edge of Tivoli Gardens in central Copenhagen

COMPONENTS: 8,500 m2 / 91,500 ft2 gross area; hotel, restaurants, food hall, retail

CLIENT: Tivoli A/S

PCF&P SERVICES: Master planning, architecture; exterior envelope; interior design

SUSTAINABILITY: Climate wall, solar panels, electronic heliostatic shading. Energy model: Danish building energy performance simulation model BR2010

AWARDS:

Award of Merit
American Institute of Architects, New York State Chapter, 2018

American Architecture Award
Chicago Athenaeum, 2018

International Architecture Award
Chicago Athenaeum / European Centre, 2018