Mikael Colville-Andersen
Designer. Speaker. Author. TV host. Photographer. Dad.
Mikael’s fresh approach to talking about urbanism in general and bicycle urbanism in particular have made it difficult to pin him down. Many have tried. The Anthony Bourdain of urbanism seems to be the latest one. The Canadian newspaper La Presse dubbed him The Pope of Urban Cycling. The Guardian has thrown the Richard Dawkins of Cycling and the Sartorialist on Two Wheels into the mix to tango with labels like the Modern Day Jane Jacobs and the Justin Bieber of Urbanism.
Book Mikael as a speaker
What is clear is that Mikael continues to rewrite the playbook about how to inspire, provoke and engage people about the future of urbanism in our cities. He has been working passionately and tirelessly to transform and improve cities for over fifteen years. He’s worked in over 100 cities and has given hundreds of entertaining and inspirational keynotes about his many urban philosophies and work experience.
Mikael likes to keep it simple. He speaks about how we should be designing our cities and streets instead of engineering them. relying on engineering. Using design - a human-to-human process - to improve the urban landscape more quickly and efficiently and teaming design up with anthropology, sociology and transport psychology first will ensure effective urban transformation.
His book Copenhagenize - the definitive guide to global bicycle urbanism sums up his thinking, analysing and his efforts to force urban change, using the bicycle as the most effective tool in our urban toolboxes. As the Canadian author Chris Turner puts it, “Mikael has forgotten more about urban cycling than most people will ever know.“
He now hosts the global television series about urbanism, The Life-Sized City, where he curates great ideas and experiences from cities around the world. His Danish TV series, Gadekamp (Street Fight) zooms in on urbanist issues in Greater Copenhagen and he is developing his next international series called Urban Origins.
Mikael contributes to improving the narrative around urbanism in general. If you’ve come across phrases like; copenhagenize, bicycle urbanism, citizen cyclist, viking biking, the slow bicycle movement, the arrogance of space, A2Bism, cycle chic, and many more, you’ll have come across Mikael’s influence.
All of Mikael’s thinking has been translated directly into practice. From 2007-2018 he was CEO of Copenhagenize Design Company he worked directly on projects in over 100 global cities. Talking the talk AND walking the walk. Everything from planning bicycle infrastructure in cities, graphic design of logos and visual identities, product design, designing graphics for wayfinding, advising politicians on strategy and communication… you name it.
He pioneered using the art of direct observation to study cyclist behaviour and using the Desire Lines of cyclists and pedestrians as a map for redesigning cities. Through his Desire Lines Analyses of intersections in five cities, over the behavioural transport patterns of over 100,000 cyclists have been mapped, analysed and quantified. It is the largest behavioural study of cyclists in history and studying cyclist behaviour continues to fascinate Mikael.