Charm Offensive

If we need any further proof that the Danish architect and wunderkind Bjarke Ingels is destined for superstardom (and we don’t), here’s another piece of evidence: a new documentary on Parkour, the so-called “urban sport” where competitors race from one spot in the city to another as quickly as possible. (Fifty years ago this was […]

If we need any further proof that the Danish architect and wunderkind Bjarke Ingels is destined for superstardom (and we don’t), here’s another piece of evidence: a new documentary on Parkour, the so-called “urban sport” where competitors race from one spot in the city to another as quickly as possible. (Fifty years ago this was called “playing on the fire escape.”) The film—directed by the Danish director Kasper Astrup Schröder and entitled My Playground—began as a modest twenty-minute effort. But the irrepressible and relentlessly media savvy Ingels watched a rough cut, saw hipsters at his Mountain complex in Copenhagen leaping from one terrace to another, and suddenly a short film on Parkour became a somewhat longer film on Parkour—and architecture. (More specifically, Ingels’ architecture.) Think of it as a benign form of creative hijacking. The trailer, in fairness, looks like a lot of fun:

My Playground premiers in the United States on October 1, at the Plaza Theater in Atlanta, GA.


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In our December 2010 issue, we covered Bjarke Ingels’s “relentless climb to the top.” The architect has answered questions for us, for the magazine via text message, and here on the blog. We do our best to keep up with his various new projects and competition wins.

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