The next 5 October opensthe new Danish Maritime Museum in Helsingør designed by BIG next to the old dry dock between the Kronborg Castle, where William Shakespeare's play Hamlet is set.
The Danish Maritime Museum has to be able to fit into a unique historic and spatial context: between one of Denmark’s most important and famous buildings and a new, ambitious cultural centre.
BIG has preserved the old dock as an historical, industrial monument, leaving it open for outdoor exhibitions and events. It will be a subterranean museum in a dry dock.
The museum is accessed via bridges spanning the dock. The floors in the exhibition area slope gently downwards, so visitors can move around the building as they descend in a spiral.
By placing the museum in this way, it appears as part of the cultural environment associated with the Kronborg castle and the neighboring Culture Yard, while at the same time manifesting itself as an independent institution.
The dock creates a museum space as a cohesive floor plan which discreetly becomes lower and lower across the entire museum length. Simple accessibility ramps and bridges are added, cutting through the dock in a structural and sculptural way.
“Prince Hamlet’s Castle, with its fortifications, masonry, and tower skyline is one of Denmark’s greatest tourist attractions. And due to preserving the views of the Castle’s towers we were not allowed to even stick out a meter above the ground level.
We considered it architectural suicide to fill the dry dock with program and therefore decided to empty the dry dock and wrap it with the museum, making it the centerpiece of the exhibition. Instead of drowning the dry dock with galleries we would leave it open. A new kind of urban space – open for new ideas and life.” Bjarke Ingels
Location: Helsingør, Denmark
Architect: BIG
Partner-in-Charge:Bjarke Ingels
Project Leader: David Zahle
Contributors: Rune Hansen, Karsten Hammer Hansen, Andy Yu, Pablo Labra, Marc Jay, Maria Mavriku, Qianyi Lim, Peter Rieff, Tina Lund Højgaard, Annette Jensen, Johan Cool, Sara Sosio, Todd Bennett
Consultants: Alectia, Rambøll, Freddy Madsen Ingeniører, Kossman Dejong
Architect: BIG
Partner-in-Charge:Bjarke Ingels
Project Leader: David Zahle
Contributors: Rune Hansen, Karsten Hammer Hansen, Andy Yu, Pablo Labra, Marc Jay, Maria Mavriku, Qianyi Lim, Peter Rieff, Tina Lund Højgaard, Annette Jensen, Johan Cool, Sara Sosio, Todd Bennett
Consultants: Alectia, Rambøll, Freddy Madsen Ingeniører, Kossman Dejong
Size: 7200 sqm
Budget: DKK 130,000,000 Mil
Budget: DKK 130,000,000 Mil
Client: Helsingør Municipality, Maritime Museum, A.P. Møller Foundation, JL Foundation
Competition Date: 2007 - 1st Prize