Copenhagen’s Opera Park opens the 27th of October

The city’s new public green space, the Opera Park, will open in the heart of Copenhagen, the 27h of October, 2023. The park has a unique location, situated right next to The Royal Danish Opera and the Copenhagen Harbourfront. It will include six gardens representing different places in the world, where visitors will experience trees, plants and flowers from all over the world, which have been carefully selected for their colour variation throughout the year. The park was built by the Operaparkfonden with a donation from A.P. Møller and wife Chastine Mc-Kinney Møller's Foundation for general purposes.

The park has been designed to accommodate the many people who every year visit the Opera, which includes both cyclists and people arriving by car or public transportation. A car parking facility with space for 300 cars has been constructed under the ground, while the top part of the park embraces the need for public green breathing spots by the harbourfront in a city with great building activity.

The public opening of the park will take place at 2 PM on Friday the 27th of October in the park’s greenhouse and includes different activities. 

Designed by the renowned Danish architecture firm COBE, the Opera Park is inspired by Copenhagen’s Romantic parks, such as the Botanical Gardens and the Frederiksberg Gardens. The park will feature a vast variety of trees, bushes, plants, and flowers combined with winter pavilions, niches, and winding paths. A greenhouse with an integrated café will be the heart of the park, and from here, the park’s paths and streams branch off. The park also includes a stair and a sloping plateau connecting the park directly with the water. This is based in evidence studies that concludes that classical gardens shaped with winding paths, defined views and a natural scenography have a healing effect on stress-related health issues.

Designed with a focus on climate resilient solutions, the park deals with challenges of extreme fluctuation of the waterline by using floodable surfaces creating an ever-changing shoreline. Moreover, the park will work as a complex water cycle of infiltration, evaporation, drainage, run-off, delay, and storage of water to handle both extreme rain and drought.

The park's landscape plan uses a wide palette of plant species, which contributes to a high biodiversity and entails the park as a habitat for a multitude of birds and insects throughout the year.

• The Opera Park was built by the Opera Park Foundation, which will also run the park.
• The park is donated by A.P. Møller and wife Chastine Mc-Kinney Møller's Foundation for general purposes.
• The park measures 21,000 square meters. This corresponds to three football pitches.
• The park is located on the southward dock island.
• The park was designed by COBE architects, who won the competition to design the park among five architectural firms. The inspiration comes from Copenhagen's other romantic gardens and parks.
• The park consists of six gardens from different places in the world. The North American Forest, the Danish Oak Forest, the Nordic Forest, the Oriental Forest, the English Garden and a subtropical atrium in the Væksthuset in the middle of the park.
• The park is a composed landscape with a foreground, a middleground, and a background like an opera stage.
• The biodiversity of the park's vegetation makes it beautiful to stay in, regardless of the season.
• The variety of plants species and sizes creates an environment for birds and insects to find food and shelter all seasons.
• Restaurant Væksthuset is the the Greenhouse's new café and restaurant. It is run by the company Norrlyst, which already runs several reputable restaurants in Copenhagen.
• Biodiversity and sustainability are themes in the park with the reuse of rainwater for irrigation, a gentle construction method, solar panels and through the composition of the planting; 600 trees and 70,000 plants from all over the world have been planted.
• In Væksthuset, trees and plants rise from the lower level of the underground parking facility.
• The parking facility under the park has room for 300 cars, which are equipped with 48 charging stations for electric cars and 2 fast chargers.
• From the park and the parking facility, it is possible to get over to the Opera through a covered passage.
• The park is open from 7-23 daily.
• The Greenhouse is open during the cafés opening hours.

Read more about the Opera Park at www.operaparkfonden.dk (in Danish)