Book Review: Architectures Of Dismantling and Restructuring Spaces Of Danish Welfare, 1970-Present

Abstract

Socio-political changes in Denmark after 1970 have manifested in the regional concentration of public services and in the experimental digitalisation of hospital interiors but, according to this provocative book, the most essential change has been ideological and normative in the design principles themselves. This book explains how welfare does not only refer to human rights and equality, but also to the reproduction and optimisation of social norms entangled with ideological economy. The present institutional conditions for a good life are meticulously analysed in Architectures of Dismantling and Restructuring. This massive combination of articles by 23 authors is associated with the research project Spaces of Danish Welfare, accomplished at the Royal Danish Academy in Copenhagen during 2017-22, but the cross-disciplinary anthology clearly directs to wider and deeper socio-political concerns about community and public services than only the Danish realm. Of the editors representing different fields, Kirsten Marie Raahauge is a spatial anthropologist, Deane Simpson and Katrine Lotz are architects interested in societal changes and Martin Søberg is an art historian who specialises in architecture. Architectures of Dismantling and Restructuring seems to be aimed at large international audiences. It is written in American English and made available by a Swiss publisher. Its topics must interest not only architects and urban and regional planners, but also everyone adhering to public policies, governance and the spatial dimensions of contemporary ideologies. The articles of the book display a variety of research methods. Most of the chapters combine empirical research and interviews with literature sources. The somewhat dry but very practical design and diagrams of the publication are created by Studio Joost Grootens, and they create association to architectural publications rather than to conventional research. This may be misleading because the opus is backed up by extensive references. Most of the material, as well as the prologue and epilogue, are rooted in critical theory and political economy.