A new, fairytale-inspired Hans Christian Andersen museum is set to open this summer in Odense, the city where the Danish author was born. H.C. Andersen’s House aims to rethink how the writer’s life and work is told.
Hans Christian Andersen
Hans Christian Andersen died in 1875 and is famous for many timeless fairytales. These include The Ugly Duckling, The Tinder Box, The Snow Queen, The Steadfast Tin Soldier, The Emperor’s New Clothes, The Princess and the Pea, The Nightingale, Thumbelina, The Little Mermaid and The Little Match Girl.
People all over the world grew up hearing these fantastical fairytales and now will have the opportunity to learn more about the author in a ground-breaking museum that is the first of its kind.
According to the H.C. Andersen’s House website, the museum doesn’t speak of what once was, or “once upon a time.” It is rather about our present time, “right here, right now, you and me.” In the museum’s description, it explains that the museum doesn’t speak about Andersen. It rather speaks as Anderson himself. It also insists that the fairytales written by the author are “just as vibrant and relevant today as they were in the 1800s when he wrote them.”
Inspiration For The Museum’s Design
The architects behind the museum’s design are Kengo Kuma and Associates. They took inspiration from the fairytale, The Tinderbox, for H.C. Andersen’s House. Kengo Kuma explained that the idea behind the architectural design resembles Andersen’s method – “where a small world suddenly expands to a bigger universe.”
The museum is an immersive, artistic space, aimed at evoking the feeling of stepping into the writer’s fairytales, using the architecture, light, sound and a series of images. The buildings and surrounding gardens cover an area of 29,527 sq ft (9,000 sq m) and lead to Andersen’s actual childhood home.
On entering H.C. Anderson’s House, visitors will enter the literary world of Andersen the storyteller. The immersive, artistic space is where architecture, exhibits and gardens interact to create new meetings between visitors and Andersen’s fairy tale universe. The space will encourage curiosity, imagination and wonder and encourage reflection and the invoking of new perspectives on nature, society and ourselves.
Visitor facilities and a café are available in the main building, while there is also an underground museum and a children’s house, intertwined with the surrounding magical garden.
Hans Christian Andersen’s Artistic Universe
Speaking of the author, the museum’s creative director, Henrik Lübker explained that Hans Christian Andersen’s artistic universe is “fantastic.” He said this is because it reverses how you imagine this world that you thought you knew, but without putting anything else in its place.
“His fairytales do not point towards a universal truth, but rather into the open – towards the peculiarity and multiplicity of the world. In the new museum, we maintain this ambiguity by using Andersen’s own artistic strategies as the starting point for how the garden, the house and the exhibition have all been shaped, as well as for the many artistic contributions that will also be part of the museum,” Lübker added.
Further information about H.C. Andersen’s House can be found on the official website here.
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