One particular part of the Carlsberg breweries became a central theme in many proposals for the international ideas competition ‘Carlsberg Vores By’ in 2006-2007: the cellars, 11 kilometres of them, beneath the brewery. In this chapter they will serve as a locus to study how layered accumulations of myths, language, and human perception all play a role in the ideas and decisions generated about the future of an industrial site.

During the redevelopment of Carlsberg, it seems to have been troublesome to know how to deal with the cellars, which are not as easily reused in an economically profitable way as many of the buildings. The competition brief therefore asked ‘Can the Carlsberg cellars be used for new purposes in the future?’ During the urban development project, the public gradually became aware of Carlsberg's cellars. Since the middle of the 2000s, increasing public access to Carlsberg brought enthusiastic urban explorers, neighbours, artists and others to go on tours of the cellars organized by Carlsberg Ltd.

After the building project was put on hold in 2008, little was mentioned about the idea of making the brewery cellars accessible for reuse. Rather, a new structure of parking cellars and an underground water reservoir were built independently of the existing cellars, which are now closed off. This is striking, thinking of their significant role in the brewery processes and in the imaginary of the breweries. Carlsberg's subterranean architecture has been connected to different values, allowing them to be perceived, used and their future imagined in different ways.

When the spirit of Carlsberg resided in its cellars

‘An act of genius.’ With this strong endorsement, journalist Synne Rifbjerg praised the present urban plan for the Carlsberg site by Entasis in an article in 2008. In her view, the plan's main quality is that it ensures a desired vivid urban life while at the same time revealing the ‘spirit of the place’. Rifbjerg argues that the urban plan is able to keep the spirit of the place ‘intact’ by relating closely to the plan of the cellars.