Royal Visit in BLOX

November 8, 2023

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Presseansvarlig Johanne Troelsgaard Toft
jott@dac.dk
+45 6142 1927

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Today, Their Majesties The King and The Queen of Spain, and Their Royal Highnesses The Crown Prince and The Crown Princess of Denmark visited BLOX – the Danish epicenter for architecture, design, creativity, and urban innovation. The purpose was to discuss how architecture and design contribute to the sustainable development of cities.

Denmark and Spain share values within their traditions of urban planning, such as an emphasis on shared spaces and traffic-free zones.

The two countries also face shared challenges, including the need for affordable housing, biodiversity, and using fewer natural resources for building.

The King and The Queen and The Crown Prince Couple joined Alfonso Vegara Jr from Foundacion Metropoli, Eva Ravnborg from Henning Larsen, and Jesper Nygaard from the philanthropic association Realdania for a roundtable on how to address these issues with a human and life-centric approach.

  • Alfonso Vegara Jr emphasized how cities can be the new solution-making engine for a wide variety of challenges among other climate change, improving quality of life, and immigration issues and development. He introduced the partnership between Foundacion Metropoli, the Regional Government of Madrid, and the Spanish cluster of urban solutions, MWCC, that is aiming to shape a collective vision for Madrid in 2040 and provide an inspirational case for other cities on how public-private collaborations can recreate the urban setting.
  • Eva Ravnborg highlighted learnings from the new city district, Fælledby, which is being developed in Copenhagen, predominantly using timber or biogenic materials. The project has a distinctive biodiversity strategy, enriching the neighbourhood’s number of species with 300%. In her presentation Eva underlined how meaningful it is to push biodiversity in cities, along with a low carbon strategy for urban development.

The exchange of learnings between Spain and Denmark is well-timed, as Copenhagen hands over the status as the World Capital of Architecture to Barcelona at the beginning of 2026. The Crown Prince of Denmark is the patron of Copenhagen as UNESCO – UIA World Capital of Architecture 2023 to 2025.

The Royals were also introduced to community involvement in Copenhagen through a guided tour of the exhibition Copenhagen in Common.

BLOX’s management, Torben Klitgaard, CEO Bloxhub, Majken Kalhave, CEO Creative Denmark, Kent Martinussen, CEO Danish Architecture Center, and Jesper Nygaard, CEO of the philanthropic association Realdania hosted the visit.