NEW MUSEUM REVIVES HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN

Special and artistic experience gives a glimpse of the museum of the future

In the summer of 2021, the brand new Hans Christian Andersen House in Odense, Denmark will open its doors. The design is a poetic ode to the life and work of the Danish fairytale writer Hans Christian Andersen. Top Japanese architect Kengo Kuma and his team came up with the design for the new museum – an elegant wood and glass construction that blends seamlessly into the lush green gardens. Due to the unique combination of architecture, landscape and exhibition design, the museum offers a completely new experience for the museum visitor.

The World of Hans Christian Andersen 

Generations have been brought up with the stories of the Danish Hans Christian Andersen; one of the most famous and respected authors in the world. Everyone has heard of “the Little Mermaid”, “the Chinese Nightingale” or “Thumbelina”. But the new museum is not just about telling about Andersen and his fairy tales, but just like Andersen. “Hans Christian Andersen’s artistic universe is wonderful. His fairy tales do not pretend to be general truth, but rather point towards an openness – the peculiarity and complexity of this world,” said Henrik Lübker, the museum’s creative director. In this way, the new museum tries to simultaneously create a breeding ground for new perspectives on ourselves, nature and our society. 

An artistic experience 

The vision of the Hans Christian Andersen House is therefore to bring Andersen’s literary universe to life and to offer a complete artistic experience in which the interplay of architecture, sound, light and image continuously creates new experiences. Important in the creation process was the involvement of artists, filmmakers, illustrators and storytellers who gave Andersen’s fairy tales a completely new artistic interpretation. In addition, Andersen’s philosophy – which underpins his works – was an important thread. There are profound messages in Andersen’s writing that reflect the author’s life. His work thus projects the duality of everything that surrounds us; real and imaginary, nature and man-made, man and animal, light and darkness.  

A new way of exhibiting 

By immersing the visitor with all his sensory perception in Andersen’s fairytale world, it is fully brought to life. The latest technologies and design concepts are used to connect everything, so that the boundaries between reality and illusion sometimes seem to blur completely. By playing with perspective and scale, the visitor imagines himself upside down, or very small. And due to the clever integration of architecture and landscape design, visitors will be inside and outside the next. In the magical gardens, the plants speak to you and you even breathe under water. The garden feels like a maze. Because much of the museum is underground, sunken holes serve as a ‘gate’ between the real and the imaginary world.