One of Europe’s largest cultural centres 

ARCHITECTURE: Denmark’s second city, Aarhus, is in the process of making itself a dignified competitor to Copenhagen regarding cultural facilities. A new art gallery and an expansion of its concert hall are helping to turn the city into a cultural magnet for the whole of Denmark

In a recent survey of growth in Denmark, the country’s second largest city, Aarhus, shot to the top of the list. The city is the centre of an area with around 650,000 inhabitants, and boasts annual growth rates of almost 3%, while the capital Copenhagen manages about half that figure. Research intensive companies in life science, IT and telecommunication are the engines of growth, often rooted in the pulsating research environment around the University of Aarhus.

     The cultural profile of Aarhus also helps to attract a lot of young talent to the city. A profile which is being further sharpened by the enlargement of Aarhus Concert Hall, making it not just the largest of its kind in Europe, but a unique cultural centre for both music and theatre.

     “It will be a multifunctional hall which sizewise will surpass all other similar places in Europe,” says Aarhus Concert Hall director Hans N. Hansen. “The expansion comprises a new symphony concert hall for an audience of 1,200 people, a special concert hall for rhythmical music, new facilities for the Royal Academy of Music, Aarhus, as well as a new hall for the children’s theatre group Filuren.”

     The Aarhus based firm CF Møller are the architects of the project which will make the Concert Hall the focal point of Aarhus city centre. The area is already developing into a veritable culture park with a new art gallery, libraries, theatres and workshops with a diversity of artistic and cultural activities. The ’old’ concert hall, which dates from 1982, occupies more than 15,000 m2, and the expansion will more than double that area. Today Aarhus Concert Hall attracts more than 500,000 visitors annually.

Architectural diamond Schmidt, Hammer & Lassen is among Denmark’s leading architectural firms. It is best known for Copenhagen’s most striking modern building, The Royal Library, known as “The Black Diamond”.

Absorption and pulse When gallery director Jens Erik Sørensen in 1996 presented architectural firm Schmidt, Hammer & Lassen’s winning project for a new art gallery in Aarhus, he said enthusiastically: “We are getting the building we have dreamed of. An art gallery with a flexibility which has validity into the new millennium with its requirements for modern exhibitions. It meets all our ambitions.” The Aros art gallery opened in 2004, and in the first six months attracted almost half a million visitors, three times more than expected. It is proving a great success, not only because of the quality of the museum’s permanent and changing exhibitions, but equally because of the museum’s architecture and integrated interplay with the city’s other cultural institutions. “One of the most remarkable qualities of Aros, apart from its obvious exhibition qualities, is the democratic architecture of the building,” says communication manager Bjarne Bækgaard. “Instead of being aloof and withdrawn, Aros is almost provocatively central with open access from two sides. When you move on foot through the city, access to Aros forms part of the city’s path system. There is free entry, and the building becomes a part of the public space. It invites all the citizens of the city to step inside.” On first impression, the art museum Aros is a 50 x 50 m cube in a green landscape, close to the impressive Concert Hall and a number of other notable cultural buildings in the centre of Aarhus. Two access ramps form a dynamic connection between two of the city’s busiest quarters. And as you approach Aros, the building progressively yields a panoramic vista of horizontal and vertical lines. “It is a building to be used,” says Bækgaard. “In all its monumental greatness, Aros has both become a place for artistic absorption, but at the same time a natural part of the urban environment which reflects the pulsating life of the city.” With its 17,000 m2 of space, of which almost 7,000 are exhibition areas, Aros in Aarhus is northern Europe’s largest art gallery.

Free concerts In addition to the public areas, the new Aarhus Concert Hall will also become home to the Royal Academy of Music, Aarhus, which will thereby gain significantly improved practice and teaching facilities. The agreement between the Concert Hall and the Royal Academy of Music includes an obligation for students of the academy to give free concerts 180 times a year in the various concert halls.