H.C.Andersen Hus Museum | Kengo Kuma & Associates

H.C.Andersen Hus Museum’s Concept:

The project is to create a new building for the H.C. Andersen Museum, the garden and cultural center in the heart of the city where Andersen was born. The site is located in between the residential area with small traditional wooden houses from the middle age and the newly developed urban area in Odense.

The stories to be told here are not only in written form, but it is to be experienced and sensed through physical spaces in the museum and in the garden. There are profound messages in HC Andersen’s writing that reflect the author’s life and his life journey. Andersen’s work projects the duality of the opposite that surrounds us; real and imaginary, nature and manmade, human, and animal, light and dark… The opposite of the matters coexists, they are not in black and white. Our architectural design is to reflect this essence of his work in architectural and landscape form.

The museum spaces are composed of a series of circular forms that are tangent to each other like a chain. They are organized in a non-hierarchical, non-centric manner. The continuous curve linear green wall expands and traces the underground space structure and defines the garden and paths above ground. It meanders and weaves in and out, above and under the ground throughout the site. In the sequence of intertwined spaces, visitors will find themselves in between outside and inside as the green wall appears and disappears. The journey of the museum would be the narrative, the elements of his work; the duality of the opposite, dissolving the boundary, will be read through spatial composition and the ambiguity.

The exhibition spaces are planned underground. The enchanting garden above ground is composed of a curve linear hedge that traces the exhibition spaces belowground. The meandering paths through the garden area are to be experienced as the extension of the museum. Here the architectural built form is diminished, and visitors would be led into the “maze” like space created by trees and leaves. The underground world is connected to the garden above through a series of sunken gardens that appears like a “hole” on the ground, a “portal” from a fairytale world to the world outside. The landscaped architecture, where elements of nature are merged with architectural elements, is what would make the experience unique.

The building completion is the beginning of the life of the garden. It is designed to grow over time and set its root. Over the years to come, the garden will mature, will offer the visitors and the community the sense of nature and seasons, change of colors, scent, density, transparency, and scenery in its growth. The HC Andersen’s Museum would play a core role in the new Urbanscape of Odense city.

The development plan is to close off one of the arterial roads and reconnect two parts of the city; new and old, which are currently separated. The Garden of the museum is to offer a new quality public area, giving life to this “in-between” zone. One part of the city where the birth house of the writer is, remains the medieval townscape with small and meandering streets, the opposite of modern urban development with wide and straight fast lanes. The meandering path and hedge garden are to bring back the human scale quality to make a soft link to the urban area of the city.

During the construction of the building, we were put in a unique situation, the Pandemic. it imposed us all unexpected challenges in carrying out the work, in sequencing, planning, sourcing, and so on. The reality and norm we were accustomed to in daily activities were questioned by the cause that was intangible and incomprehensible. It felt to me as if we were experiencing Andersen’s world of fairytales, flighting the invisible or learning to adapt, cope with the unknown. His stories speak to us still today.

Project Info:
Architects: Kengo Kuma & Associates
Area: 5600 m²
Year: 2022
Photographs: Rasmus Hjortshøj- COAST
Landscape Design: MASU Planning
City: Odense
Country: Denmark