kengo kuma nears completion of waterfront culture center
Francisco Tirado’s photo series reveals Kengo Kuma & Associates’ cluster of brick-clad pyramids taking shape on the edge of Copenhagen’s harbor. The photographer reveals steady progress on Kuma’s long-anticipated Waterfront Culture Center, which upon completion in 2026, will form a new public complex combining public baths, open-air pools, and a cultural program.
Set on Denmark’s Paper Island (Christiansholm), the sculptural complex is defined by a field of interconnected monoliths and angular rooflines — a contemporary interpretation of the island’s historic pitched-roof silhouette. While also mirroring the rhythms of the surrounding waterscape, they create porous connections between the city, the water, and public life.
all images © Francisco Tirado
francisco tirado reveals the cascading brick volumes underway
Designed by Kengo Kuma & Associates, the Waterfront Culture Center is envisioned as a terrain that flows seamlessly from city to sea. The ground plane gently cascades toward the water in terraced steps, while its pyramid-like structures, some still under construction, are composed of solid and void, where cones are pushed and pulled to create distinct zones across multiple levels.
Externally, the architects have clad the Waterfront Culture Center in Danish brick, rooting the design in local building traditions while experimenting with light and scale. The masonry is expressed in varying degrees of opacity — from dense walls to perforated screens — allowing the building to breathe and glow with a soft internal light. At night, or during the dark winters of northern Europe, the luminous brick skin is designed to reflect gently onto the water, creating a warm and tactile urban beacon for the new Paper Island development.
Francisco Tirado captures Waterfront Culture Center
reinterpreting copenhagen’s traditional architectural forms
On the ground floor, indoor pools are topped by skylights cut into steep roofs, filtering in natural light and shadow. Above, open-air baths sit like valleys among the peaks, with panoramic views over Copenhagen’s waterfront. The central void, formed by an inverted cone, houses an outdoor stairwell and structural core, emphasizing the interplay between positive and negative space across the complex. According to the team at Kengo Kuma & Associates, this approach creates particular experiences for each program through volumetric variation, spatial contrast, and atmospheric control.
With many of the pyramid structures now visibly complete, and others actively rising, Francisco Tirado’s photographs offer an extended look at the project’s spatial richness. They document a work in transition, as the complex moves toward its anticipated 2026 opening.
the photo series reveals progress at the complex
Kengo Kuma & Associates’ cluster of brick-clad pyramids taking shape
located on the edge of Copenhagen’s harbor
the sculptural complex is defined by a field of interconnected monoliths and angular rooflines
skylights cut into steep roofs, filtering in natural light and shadow
a new public complex
it will combine public baths, open-air pools, and a cultural program
a contemporary interpretation of the island’s historic pitched-roof silhouette
the volumes create porous connections between the city, the water, and public life
clad in Danish brick, rooting the design in local building traditions while experimenting with light and scale
set for completion in 2026
project info:
name: Waterfront Culture Center
architect: Kengo Kuma and Associates | @kkaa_official
location: Paper Island, Copenhagen, Denmark
photographer: Francisco Tirado | @francisco_tirado
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