Mølleparken / The Mill Park

Location: Århus, Denmark
Client: Municipality of Århus
Team: Stig L. Andersson, Lisbeth Westergaard, Thomas Kock, Malin Blomqvist, Svava Riesto
Design phase: 2005
Area: 4.200 m2

As part of the reopening of Århus River a desire arose to transform the Mill Park by the Main Library to a green and lively urban space. With its location by Århus’ popular recreational strip along the river, where Århus Mill was located previously, the Mill Park plays a special role in the history of the town.

SLA’s proposal for restructuring the park is based on the concept of history as a continuing process and of time as elastic and qualitative. Through the project in the Mill Park, an investigation of how stories disappear or reappear in an historic continuum was carried out – in constant alternation and interchange with citizens’ use of the place. By considering history as a sequence of stories of equal importance the Mill Park shows that small adjustments can have the same value as more radical changes.

SLA ’s interdisciplinary team of architects and art historians has developed a strategy for the preservation of the town history, where selection of the unique and sensory has priority. In the past there were a number of what are today very rare meadow ponds in the Mill Park, that in the new layout have become integrated in the park as narratives of its earlier stages and uses.

Elements from different periods, from the Middle Ages, 1930s, present day and the future, such as flora, sculpture, body culture and yet unknown developments can be incorporated in the park’s varied layer-upon-layer structure. These markers point to a common time – and past – and function as personal way markers that remain open for new layers of narratives and meaning.

These diagrams show different aspects of the work with preservation in Mølleparken.