M/S Museet for Søfart

Why it is renowned

Bjarke Ingels Group's building for the museum won a RIBA Award in 2014, one of twelve given that year to buildings in Europe outside the UK; Dezeen named it among the 56 winners alongside Zaha Hadid's Olympic aquatics centre in London and the rebuilt King's Cross station.¹ The same year it won the culture category at the World Architecture Festival and an Architizer A+ jury award, followed in 2015 by an AIA National Honor Award and a place among the finalists for the Mies van der Rohe Award.²³

The story

The museum was founded in 1915 and was first housed in Kronborg Castle.⁴ To keep the view of the castle clear, BIG placed the new museum below ground, wrapped around the walls of a disused dry dock 150 metres long and 9 metres deep; the dock itself stays open, crossed by ramps and bridges.⁴⁵ Funded by eleven foundations, it opened on 5 October 2013, with exhibitions designed by the Dutch firm Kossmann.dejong.⁴ The collections cover Danish shipping and trade from the 15th century to the present: ship models, paintings, the trade with China and India, and more than 33,000 photographs of Danish ships since 1880.⁴

What to know it by

• The dry dock⁴2013Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG)Museum built below ground around a 150-metre dock
• The exhibitions⁴2013Kossmann.dejongGalleries on six centuries of Danish shipping
• Photograph collection⁴Over 33,000 pictures of Danish ships since 1880