The Unique Oval Community Gardens of Copenhagen

The Naerum  suburban district of Copenhagen, in Denmark, is home to one of the most visually appealing allotment gardens in the world – the “round gardens”, which are actually oval.

Søren Carl Theodor Marius Sørensen is considered one of the greatest landscape architects to have ever lived, and the oval gardens of Naerum are one of his most famous projects. In 1948, 40 oval allotment gardens, each measuring approximately 25 × 15 m, were laid out on a rolling lawn, between public housing on one side and more traditional allotments on the other. Owners were free to position their cottages, select the surrounding hedges, and lay out the interior of their plots, but Sørensen provided some directions, stressing that they were meant as a guide, not rules. Seven decades later, the oval gardens of Naerum are still one of the most beautiful attractions in the Danish capital.

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Christiania – Denmark’s Ultimate Freetown

The Freetown of Christiania is a self-governing neighborhood in Copenhagen, Denmark’s capital city, where the people actually live freely.

Chritiania was created in 1971, and consists of the old Bådsmandsstræde Barracks and parts of the city ramparts. After the barracks were abandoned by the military, the area was simply taken over by the locals in the surrounding neighborhoods, as a playground for their children. This was actually a protest against the Danish government of that time, started by the article of one Jacob Ludvigsen.

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