Modern Art and Architecture in Birk by Herning

Modern Art and Architecture in Birk by Herning

From the 1960s onwards, and thanks to, among others, the unorthodox and visionary shirt manufacturer Aage Damgaard and a visionary city council, art and world architecture education and business flourished in and around Herning.

Let's visit Birk, on the outskirts of Herning to look at and move in the landscape architect Carl Th. Sørensen's master plan for Birk Centerpark with the Angli shirt factory, the sculpture park, the Geometric Gardens, museums, schools and the landmark sculpture "Elia".

The circular sculpture park's 36 sculptures are predominantly made by Danish artists such as Robert Jacobsen, Svend Wiig Hansen and Sven Dalsgaard.

The similarly circular shirt factory Angli has a 220 meter long inner courtyard, decorated with ceramic tiles by Carl-Henning Pedersen. And another circular building and more Carl-Henning Pedersen, is the Carl-Henning Pedersen & Else Ahlfelt Museum.

Opposite is HEART, which is an art museum - and of course the architecture looks like a folded shirt, as the museum was created to house the shirt manufacturer's art collection.
400 meters from HEART, Ingvar Cronhammer's "Elia" towers. The giant steel sculpture is 60 meters in diameter and 32 meters in height, Northern Europe's largest. Elia is equipped with 4 columns and a gas burner, "spitting out" huge flames at uneven intervals. The Geometric Gardens are landscape art with 8 meter high beech hedges built around a principle of "the complexity of simplicity". The gardens are both a harmonious structure and a labyrinthine experience.

Jørgen Utzon (The Opera House in Sydney) has also built the most beautiful "sample" at an intended export and design school. And Henning Larsen's Design Studio is represented with the School of Business and Engineering from 1995.

Nature lovers can take one of the many hiking and cycling routes in Knudmosen.