Urban space is a major focus in Copenhagen's planning policies, which understands it as an important place to nurture people's well-being, social coherence and sense of community in the city. Urban space also was a key concept and criteria of success in the Carlsberg competition and planning, which begun in 2006. Yet, while there were great expectations of Carlsberg's future urban spaces, the existing open spaces of the brewery went largely unnoticed and were substantially changed without much discussion. Surprisingly little attention was put into Carlsberg's outdoor spaces in the heritage surveys, design proposals and discussions surrounding the redevelopment process, although the undisputed stated ambition throughout has been to strengthen the existing character and history of the area. This chapter studies the redevelopment of Carlsberg as a locus for discussions of industrial open space and critically addresses the underlying assumptions and spatial concepts that were at stake in this discussion. From the observation that most of the existing open spaces of Carlsberg escaped from the valuation of most heritage professionals and designers, I add on new perspectives to the life history of Carlsberg's open spaces.

Urban space is an important locus for building a positive imaginary of Copenhagen – a city that has repeatedly been internationally awarded as attractive and ‘liveable’. The Carlsberg urban redevelopment project was an early a milestone in the city's urban space planning in the new millennium. The success of this as a ‘vivid’, ‘attractive’ urban district, would fail, the Carlsberg Ltd and the municipality stated, if they followed the standard procedure of planning and focused on constructing buildings. Rather, the idea was to stimulate urban life by following an ethos that has since then become both a hallmark and a method in Copenhagen's spatial policies: when developing new city districts the planners aim to ‘think urban life before thinking urban space and […] think urban space before considering buildings’. But what exactly does it mean to ‘think urban space’ in an abandoned industrial facility? How do different ideas about the value of urban spaces encounter the existing industrial landscape?