BLOX / Danish Architecture Center

When Rem Koolhaas and OMA designed BLOX, they described it as "an inhabited infrastructure knot" — which is exactly the kind of thing architects say when they know a building is going to be controversial. Completed in 2018 on the site of a former brewery at the Copenhagen waterfront, BLOX is a stack of green glass volumes that straddle a road, connect the parliament district to the harbour, and manage to house exhibition spaces, offices, co-working areas, a cafe, a bookstore, a fitness centre, a restaurant, twenty-two apartments, and an underground automated car park all within a single building. It is either a masterpiece of mixed-use urbanism or an overcomplicated Tetris game, depending on who you ask.

The building is home to the Danish Architecture Center (DAC), which moved here from its previous location to take advantage of the harbour-front setting. DAC's exhibitions explore architecture, design, and urbanism with a focus on how buildings shape daily life — a fitting mission for a country that has produced Jørn Utzon, Bjarke Ingels, and some of the most thoughtful urban planning in the world. The rooftop playground, designed as a public space accessible to anyone, offers views across to Christiansborg Palace and the harbour.

Ellen van Loon, the OMA partner who led the project, positioned BLOX at a deliberate crossroads: between the old city and the new waterfront, between parliament and the water, between high culture and daily life. The building bridges Frederiksholms Kanal physically, with public paths passing through and around it at multiple levels. It achieves the Low Energy Class for sustainability with primary energy usage under 40 kWh per square metre annually.

Love it or hate it — and Copenhageners do both, loudly — BLOX represents exactly the kind of architectural ambition that the Danish Architecture Center exists to champion. Housing the centre in a building this polarising is either deeply ironic or perfectly logical.