Identifying Pathways to Change with Jan Gehl
When you’re in town to meet one of the country’s best-known urban planners, you look at streets and cityscapes in a very different way.
By Christopher Findlay
Primafila Senior Editor
Photo: Lars Møller
An interview with architect and urban quality consultant planner Jan Gehl marks my second assignment in Denmark within a five-month period. Already during my first visit to Copenhagen, I had been impressed with the way large swathes of the city center are more accommodating to the needs of pedestrians and cyclists than to those of cars.
Today, I’m going to talk to the man who has contributed as much as anybody to the transformation of the Danish capital, and other cities worldwide, over the past 50 years. Both as professor of architecture at the University of Copenhagen’s School of Architecture and as co-founder of Gehl Architects, he has left his mark not just on the shape of the city, but also on the underlying philosophy of planning for public spaces in his hometown.
One of the most noticeable features of Copenhagen are the broadly spaced cycling corridors on the city’s main thoroughfares, often equal in size to the adjoining car lanes, from which they are separated by raised curbs – and occasionally, by rows of parked cars that create a buffer between bikes and motorized traffic. It’s a very different picture in my current hometown of Zurich, Switzerland, where bike paths (marked by no more than a strip of yellow paint along the roadside) often end abruptly at intersections, or are missing altogether.
During our conversation, Gehl points out that as global travel becomes more and more common, ordinary people are beginning to see what cities in other countries are able to achieve in terms of urban planning. As Gehl notes, this awareness is now a driving force for changes elsewhere: “Then they come home and say, ‘Hey, Mr. Mayor, can we have this too?’ Much of what is happening right now is due to citizens’ demands to replicate in their hometowns the developments they have encountered in other places.” It’s something to bear in mind as I fly back to Switzerland.
Read the complete interview with Jan Gehl here.
