Photo by Rikke Larsson, courtesy of Moesgaard Museum

The museum under the lawn | Moesgaard by Henning Larsen

by Riccardo Bianchini, Inexhibit

On 10 October 2014 the Queen Margrethe II officially opened the new Moesgaard Museum in Aarhus, Denmark

The architecture conceived by Henning Larsen architects is hard to confuse with any other: a large inclined plane covered with lawns and flower beds constitutes the building accessible roof, inviting people to walk on its gentle slope. The roof almost looks like a rectangular piece of land that has been cut and tilted up. Such solution was conceived not only to better mix together the building with the surrounding landscape but also to provide unconventional opportunities to visitors like to “form an area for picnics, barbecues, lectures and traditional Midsummer Day’s bonfires. Come winter snowfall, the sloping roof will become transformed into the city’s best toboggan run” (from Henning Larsen architects’ project description).

Top left: aerial photo by Jan Kofod Winther; top right: site plan; middle and bottom: photos by Hens Markus Lindhe; all images courtesy of Henning Larsen architects

When examined a bit closer, the roof plane reveals a more complex form with counter-sloped surfaces, light dwells and footpaths, somehow reflecting the internal layout of the building.

The interior is indeed arranged on different levels, interconnected through ample stairways, with a total gross floor area of 16,000 square meters (172,000 sq. ft.).

Top; conceptual sketches; middle and bottom: photos by Hens Markus Lindhe, all images courtesy of Henning Larsen architects

The inside of the museum is intentionally arranged in a quite articulated ensemble of layers to invite the visitors to a progressive and surprising discovery of the various historical and archaeological sections featured. A large foyer, forms the building functional core as well as its main socializing and gathering space.

The Moesgaard Museum permanent exhibition is poly-thematic and currently covers three main subjects: anthropology, ethnography and archaeology.

The central staircase has been conceived, quite ingeniously, also as an anthropology exhibit support where seven “steps” of human evolution, from 3,2 million-year old Lucy Australopithecus to a stone age Danish woman up to modern men, are reconstructed. Going up and down the main staircase we are somehow invited to perceive such remote ancestors as if they were ordinary visitors like us.

Below the stair an archaeological gallery is then focused on Bronze Age, Iron Age and Viking Age, with exhibits such as the “Grauballe Man” bog body and artifacts dating from the 19th century BC to the 11th century AD.An ethnographic exhibition, entitled “Lives of the Dead” is also featured at the museum, focused on rituals, cults and traditions related to the remembrance of deceased relatives in different cultures from Mexico, Uganda, Australia and Denmark.

top: photo by Rikke Larsson, courtesy of Moesgaard Museum

middle: photo by Jacob Due, courtesy of Moesgaard Museum

bottom: photo by Hens Markus Lindhe, courtesy of Henning Larsen architects

museum plans courtesy of Henning Larsen architects