Paper Island (Papirøen)

Paper Island — Papirøen in Danish — earned its name from decades as the storage site for Copenhagen's major newspapers. For most of the 20th century, newsprint was warehoused in these harbour-front buildings before being distributed across the city. When the newspaper industry contracted, the warehouses emptied, and the island sat largely unused until 2014, when Copenhagen Street Food opened in the old storage halls, turning industrial paper storage into one of the most popular food destinations in Northern Europe.

The original Copenhagen Street Food market operated from 2014 to 2017 and packed dozens of food stalls into a single warehouse, creating the template that Reffen would later build on at a larger scale. At its peak, the market drew thousands of visitors daily to eat everything from Korean tacos to Danish hot dogs overlooking the harbour, with views across to the Opera House and the old city. When the lease expired in 2017, the food vendors relocated to Refshaleøen and became Reffen, while the island itself entered a new phase of development.

Today, Paper Island is being redeveloped into a mixed-use neighbourhood designed by COBE Architects, featuring residential buildings, cultural spaces, and a public swimming area in the harbour. The project aims to maintain the island's creative DNA while adding permanent structures to what was previously temporary use. The harbour bath — part of Copenhagen's broader mission to make its waterways swimmable — is designed to integrate the island into the city's unique relationship with water.

Paper Island sits at the junction of Christianshavn and the inner harbour, a short walk from both the Opera House and Christiania. Its transformation from newsprint warehouse to street food mecca to residential neighbourhood mirrors Copenhagen's broader story: a city that keeps finding new uses for old infrastructure, rarely demolishing when it can repurpose.