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Helle Nebelong

The Children's Millennium Garden

In the European Culture Year the biggest ever garden exhibition in Denmark took place, with 17 newly planted theme gardens being made in Valbyparken as I mentioned before.

My role was to do the master plan for the 17 theme gardens in 1996. In 1999 I had got the idea to ask children to design a millennium garden. This was possible because my area of responsibility is developing and trying new ways of consulting the citizens. The City of Copenhagen therefore asked the state schools in the local area to take part in a competition about a new theme garden in Valbyparken. The schools were asked:

Do children have a relationship to or interest in garden culture?

Can they, who will design the future, design a garden of the future, and thus celebrate the millennium?

We now know the answer is "Yes". Although the new millennium is characterised by a fast technological development, children do have a relationship to garden culture. Fortunately!

We had 7 suggestions, but the winner was a year 3 class from Valby School. They designed a garden, which is split into 2 different areas. One part of the garden is full of shadows and has a jungle-type character. The other is a garden full of light and flowers. There is a heart-shaped path and small nooks with love-seats. Here you can meet your loved-one and be romantic. The two halves of the garden are separated by a lake, but the two worlds are connected by a bridge over the water. The bridge, and all the life-strengthening thoughts, which lie behind this suggested garden, symbolises a fine crossing to the next millennium.

We translated the model into architectural drawings and the construction work got under way. At the beginning the children couldn't recognise their garden design, they were surprised to see, that so much work had to be done, before the garden was finished.

We were true to the children's ideas. They wanted a mushroom table and mushroom chairs. So I found the concrete mushrooms in a private garden, which I had read about 15 years earlier!

The only wish, we couldn't fulfil, was their idea of a sculpture of Minni and Mickey Mouse. The Walt Disney Company wouldn't allow it. So the children made their own couple, which I think fits the garden much better.

The garden was opened in the summer 2000, where we invited all the children and their families and the public in general to a big party. The Major from The Building and Construction Committee, and a famous singer joined the opening ceremony with the children.

The result was fulfilling. Everyone was very happy and had a good time. The children are very proud of having made their own garden and they visit the garden with their teacher every year to help tend the garden. I had a terrific and super positive process with the creative young ones.

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