Poetic museum architecture
The new museum is designed by esteemed Japanese architect Kengo Kuma and his team, who are also behind the new Olympic stadium in Tokyo. As part of the design process, Kuma has found inspiration in Andersen’s fairytale ‘The Tinderbox’, in which a tree reveals an underground world full of new perspectives.
”The idea behind the architectural design resembled Andersen’s method, where a small world suddenly expands to a bigger universe,” explains Kengo Kuma.
The site covers an area of 5,600 square meters and contains a children’s house and an underground museum, which intertwines with a surrounding magical garden.
The new museum will be one of Denmark’s largest and most ambitious museums, and it has been made possible through a substantial donation from The A.P. Møller Foundation, and contributions from Nordea-fonden, The Augustinus Foundation, Knud Højgaards Fond and the City of Odense.
The new museum is located in Odense, the birthplace of Andersen, and the exhibition leads to his actual childhood home to showcase how far the author had come. Odense is the main city of the island of Funen, which features many other fairy tale sights and places with unique connections to Andersen.
