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Hans Andersen Museum, By SA 2.0

Top 10 Interesting Facts about Hans Christian Andersen Museum

The Hans Christian Andersen Museum or H.C. Andersens Odense, is a set of museums/buildings dedicated to the famous author Hans Christian Andersen in  Odense, Denmark, some of which, at various times in history, has functioned as the main Odense-based museum on the author.

They variously comprise the H.C. Andersen Museum (existing museum), the  Andersen Birthplace (original museum), the H.C. Andersen Childhood Home, and even  Montergarden (city museum).

A new installation called House of Fairytales (called New H.C. Andersen Museum) is planned to open in late 2020.

1. The building dates back to 1908 and provides insight into Hans Christian

Hans Christian Andersen Childhood home, Odense, Denmark. Picture By Greger Ravik.

Andersen鈥檚 humble beginnings showcase his life鈥檚 work through drawings and artwork.

You鈥檒l find interactive exhibits like a PC where you can look through his books. You listen to posts where you can hear stories and poems.

Unfortunately, the museum is currently closed and undergoing renovations, but it鈥檚 still worthwhile walking by and taking a photo with the H.C. Andersen plaque.  

2. The Museum Attracts many people to Odense

The biggest new attraction for many years in Odense opened – a new H.C. Andersen Museum.

Japanese architect Kengo Kuma designed the spectacular museum. The Museum consists of both indoor and outdoor spaces (2/3 of the museum is underground) and so far it looks beautiful.

Many local and foreign visitors flock each time to see for themselves what was in the mind of Hans Christian.

3. The museum is situated with Andersen鈥檚 birthplace

Hans Christian Andersen Birthplace, Odense, Denmark. By R眉diger Stehn

The museum is situated with Andersen鈥檚 birthplace as its cornerstone so that visitors鈥� journeys will end in the room where he is said to have been born.

It will also work to connect visitors to other Odense attractions related to Andersen, including his childhood home where he lived until moving to Copenhagen at age 14 to pursue his career in the arts.

鈥淚nspired by Boston鈥檚 Freedom Trail, we have physical footprints that allow you to walk in the footsteps of Andersen around the city from location to location.

4. It was built when Odense decided to close off the main thoroughfare that previously divided the city center

Plans for the museum go back to around 2010 when Odense decided to close off the main thoroughfare that previously divided the city center.

The project鈥檚 large footprint currently contains the existing, much smaller, Hans Christian Andersen Museum, the Tinderbox Cultural Centre for Children, the building where Andersen was born, and Lotzes Have, a park themed after Andersen.

The city chose Kuma鈥檚 firm, which is working together with Danish collaborators Cornelius+V枚ge Architects, the MASU Planning Landscape Architects, and Eduard Troelsg氓rd Engineers, through a competitive process.

In a separate competition, Event Communication of Britain was chosen to design the museum鈥檚 exhibitions.

5.  Part of the museum sets out to recreate the ominous ambiance of 鈥� The Shadow”

Title page of Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen (1916). Picture Courtesy of Harry Clarke

Another part of the museum sets out to recreate the ominous ambiance of 鈥� The Shadow,鈥� a fairy tale Andersen wrote in 1847 in which a good man鈥檚 evil shadow eventually replaces and destroys him.

Visitors see what at first appears to be their shadows behaving just as they normally do until they suddenly begin acting on their own. 鈥淚 think it would ruin the experience if I went too much into detail,鈥� says L眉bker.

鈥淭hey鈥檙e very deep stories, and there are many layers to them,鈥� L眉bker adds. 鈥淚nstead of just giving one interpretation, we want to create them in a sense where people can feel something deeper and richer than what their memory of the story is.鈥�

6. The museum cafe,  Deijlig, 

The museum cafe, Deijlig, is helmed by chef Tanja Weber and focuses on local, seasonal ingredients. (Think herring with raw egg yolk, horseradish, and wildflowers or a pastry filled with chanterelles, asparagus, and pea shoots.) A children鈥檚 center is slated to open later in August, with the epic gardens and building facade following in the autumn.

7. Cylindrical volumes interconnect tangentially

In the center of Odense, the home city of fairytale writer Hans Christian Andersen, a series of wood-clad cylindrical volumes are interconnected to create a continuous route from the gardens to the museum.

Sought to reflect the duality of opposites that surrounds us, as in Andersen鈥檚 literature. Cylindrical volumes interconnect tangentially. They form a continuous meandering route from the gardens to the museum, where the exhibition spaces are placed below grade.

The project seeks to give visitors an experience that immerses them in worlds imagined by the writer, through a narrative sequence of scenographic places like labyrinths, forests, underground spaces, and more.

8. The museum is equipped with an advanced audio system NOUS Sonic is installed in the museum

 The planners didn’t want it to be too hyper-realistic so visitors can invest in their imagination. With an immersive exhibition that brings inanimate objects to life, a heavy dose of whimsy, and a fairytale-like blurring of reality, the museum is less a historical overview than a trip inside Andersen’s mind.

To make this possible, NOUS developed the advanced audio system NOUS Sonic. It is installed throughout the whole museum. This allows visitors to immerse themselves in the famous Danish storyteller’s life and narratives, illuminated from different angles.

Precise location-censoring technology allows different sounds and dials to play depending on how a visitor moves through space. It creates a world that visitors can explore, a world that is a joy but also a surprise because things are often not what they appear.

9. One of  Denmark’s largest and most ambitious museum

The new museum was made possible by The A.P. M酶ller Foundation as well as contributions from Nordea-London, The Augustinus Foundation, Knud H酶jgaards Fond, and the City of Odense.

Covering an area of 5,600 square meters, the proposal includes a children鈥檚 house. There is an underground museum, surrounded by a magical garden. In addition, the museum will utilize 鈥渁 wide array of state-of-the-art technologies and approaches to set design. This will all add to the experience of Andersen鈥檚 magical universe coming to life鈥�.

鈥淪patializing鈥� the experience of Andersen鈥檚 literary universe and staging a complete artistic experience, the museum鈥檚 architecture, sound, light, and visuals will come together to constantly create new encounters between each visitor and the fairytales.

10. The museum was designed by Japanese Kengo Kuma

Japanese architect Kengo Kuma in 2009.By Strelka Institute

Kengo Kuma is one of the most critically acclaimed Japanese architects of all time. His practice, Kengo Kuma and associates, has offices in Tokyo and 麻豆APP.

He is world renown for his innate ability to merge architecture with nature and social responsibility.

In 2016, it was announced that Japanese architect,  Kengo Kuma, and museum design consultancy,  Event communications, had won an international competition to design a new House of Fairytales concept for the Hans Christian Andersen Museum (also called the New Hans Christian Andersen Museum). Kuma’s designs revolve around “a series of cylindrical volumes with glass and latticed timber facades, and scooped green roofs”.

Event Communications said that the museum would follow an “immersive theatre.” That “taps into a fundamental aspect of fairytales 鈥� they are journeys where the line between every day and the transformative is blurred”. The project is being managed by  Odense City Museums and plans are for it to open in late 2020.

The Museum is located upstairs in The Book Loft Building. Open Daily from 10:00 is to 5:00 PM.