Constructed Fantasy - Tivoli Garden

The amusement park is where architecture and tourism collide. Outside the realm of architectural tourism, where a student or practitioner of architecture makes a pilgrimage to a building or group of buildings, the amusement park is an environment constructed entirely for the enjoyment of the average person. One needn't be an architect to enjoy the buildings and, indeed, the park would never make any money if that were a requirement. As an aspiring architect, and a meta-tourist, I find the concept of building an alternate reality fascinating.

The amusement park is a purely touristic phenomenon. It's an entire landscape built purely for the enjoyment and spectacle of a visitor who may only spend as many as four hours. The park has a very specific goal and purpose: to immerse the visitor in fun. This is why theme parks tend to be in rural areas or, in the cases of parks in dense cities, to be entirely walled in. This is partly to control who enters, but it serves a more profound purpose: to hide the outside world.

Tivoli Gardens is one of the earliest examples of the amusement park as we know it. The original park buildings date to 1843. While it predates the first World's Fair by eight years, Tivoli shares the interest in exotic foreignness that pervaded European culture in the second half of the 19th century. With particular emphasis on the orient, Tivoli creates a magical paradise which immerses the visitor in foreign images and architecture to transport them to another place.

The park meets the city around it in a combination of wall and storefront. Some walls are simply nine-foot tall slabs of concrete and others are metal rail which allows the passerby a peek into a fantasy land.

Among the oldest buildings is the Pantomime Theatre, which opened in 1874. The Theatre, designed by the Dane Vilhelm Dahlerup, is a classic European interpretation of traditional East Asian architecture.

A fine detail in this theatre. which enhances the general exotic atmosphere is the unique stage curtain. The peacock's wings unfold to reveal the players on stage and the peacock itself, along with its wings, sink beneath the stage.



Most notably, Tivoli's design and atmosphere influenced Walt Disney's planning of his own theme park. In many cases, Tivoli feels like an older version of Disneyland. The park is broken down into a few different, unique areas. The transitions are a little sloppy but the architecture lets you know when you've reached another area by evoking a different world region, as in the case of Nimb, the Middle Eastern palace (with a dollop of Russian on top?)

Unique to Tivoli, or rather, not common in America, is the variety of people who enjoy the park. Beyond the young family, which is a staple of all amusement parks, I saw a surprising number of elderly and older people. These people were obviously locals and, unlike the busloads of tourists, visited Tivoli much as they would any public park. I saw a pair of elderly women sitting on a shaded bench just on the edge of a major point of intersection in several of the park's paths. They talked merrily and laughed easily, evidently two old friends who may have been engaging in a weekly routine of spending a warm summer's afternoon at Tivoli.

This piqued my interest, as their purpose for being at Tivoli was far removed from my expectations of my own experience, which were to see as much as I possibly could and photograph everything. The diversity of experiences and visitors that I saw at Tivoli, such as the middle-aged couples who came to spend an evening at one of to park's world-class restaurants, caused me to question my expectations of the "theme park" experience. The park can be a delight to both young and old.