aspectus: The Danish National Maritime Museum By Bjarke Ingels Group

photo © Rasmus Hjortshoj.

Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) has just completed another impressive project in their home country, Denmarkwhich opened its doors to the public in early October 2013. Located in the town of Helsingør, (just 50 km north of Copenhagen) the building for the new Danish National Maritime Museum sits in the shadow of one of Denmark's most important buildings, Kronborg Castle - also known as Hamlet’s Castle, after Shakespeare’s play. With the aim of keeping views of the venerable landmark unobstructed, the architects at BIG decided to submerge the entire museum, building its galleries underground. However, in doing so, they faced a major problem: in building underground, where exactly do you place the facade? A solution was found throughincorporating the gigantic on-site 60-year-old dry dock: measuring some 7 meters in depth, the dock became a submerged courtyard onto which all the museum spaces open up. Instead of a monumental facade, the architects gave the people of Helsingør an ‘‘urban abyss’’ as they call it - a void space that functions as an inversion of a public building.