Architect(s): BIG - Bjarke Ingels Group | JDS Architects
Address: Københavns Havn, COPENHAGEN, Denmark
Latitude/Longitude: 55.66822263951901,12.57442277440109
Photographs: Iwan Baan
Copenhagen’s harbor has transformed from an industrial port and traffic junction to being the cultural and social heart of the city. The Copenhagen Harbor Bath has been instrumental in this evolution. It extends one of the city’s most popular parks over the water by incorporating the practical needs and demands for accessibility, safety, and programmatic flexibility. In 2011, the Harbor Bath was recognized by the International Olympic Committee as one of the Best Sports Facilities in the world.
A new winter bath addition is currently under construction and expected to welcome swimmers in the Winter of 2022.
Rather than imitating the traditional Danish indoor swimming bath, the Harbor Bath offers an urban harbor landscape with dry-docks, piers, boat ramps, cliffs, playgrounds and pontoons.
As a terraced landscape the Harbor Bath completes the transition from land to water making it possible for the citizens of Copenhagen to go for a swim in the middle of the city.
Incorporated as a natural extension of the existing harbor bath, the new winter bath will extend the existing wooden deck and lift to allow the underlying saunas and thermal baths to overlook the harbor. The winter bath experience is based on contrast: between cold and hot; outside and inside. These contrasts are what generate the physical experience and health benefits.
In the same way BIG’s proposal seeks to create two widely different experiences – the exterior is fully contextual and has emerged out of the local site conditions – the interior on the other hand has references to another time and place, as well as the contemporary Copenhagen art scene.
During the summer, the inclined roof surface of the winter bath functions as an amphitheater facing the pools as well as the park, increasing the connection between the bath and Islands Brygge. Throughout the winter the active zone is mainly under the lifted deck, where the winter bath facilities are placed facing southwest. During the dark months, the winter bath brings life to the area and can be seen as a lantern from both Islands Brygge and Kalvebod Brygge.
As a local reinterpretation of traditional Roman bath house mosaics the floor surfaces are decorated with mosaics of the artist Remember My Name (HuskMitNavn).
Text description provided by the architects.
Contributed by BIG – Bjarke Ingels Group
