Havneparken – The Harbour Park
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Havneparken (English: The Harbour Park) is a public park located directly at Islands Brygge in central Copenhagen, Denmark. Located in a former dockland area, the park has retained a number of features from the area’s industrial past. The park is also the location of the Islands Brygge Cultural Centre and the Harbour Bath.
Islands Brygge Cultural Centre (Danish: Islandsbrygge Kulturhus) is a community arts center, located in the middle of Harbour Park. The center has a restaurant and arranges a multitude of cultural activities.
The Harbour Bath is a public swimming facility, located in the water off the northern part of the park. Designed by Julien de Smedt and Bjarke Ingels in 2003, it has a total of 5 pools and a capacity of 600 people. There are two pools dedicated to children, two 50-meter pools for swimming, and a diving pool with three and five-meter springboards.
The water in the harbor today is as clean as that of Øresund. The quality of the water is checked daily and has to be approved by the authorities before swimmers are let in.
In the redevelopment of the area. a number of existing industrial structures were preserved and incorporated into the design of the park. The quayside still features the disused railway tracks and an old railway car contains an exhibition on the local history of the neighborhood, rusty steel profiles have been left and now serve as pergolas, upon which Honeysuckle and Clematis are trained, and bits of wall from now-demolished buildings have been left.
Havneparken is one of the most popular places in Copenhagen to enjoy good weather and the quayside serves as an esplanade popular with strollers.
Besides the harbor bath, the park has facilities for skateboarding, street basket, beach volleyball, and pétanque. The park also has a playground.
The park is home to many open-air concerts – frequently performed at the bandstand.
