The power of Hans Christian Andersen’s Fairy Tales lies on the fact that, while being simple stories, they enclose powerful philosophical messages whose ultimately aim is to trigger reflection upon different aspects of human nature. A persistent feature of these stories is the use of fantastic and magic world, which often hold a parallelism with or are connected to the real world. These often represent experiences from Andersen’s own life, but, most importantly, they act as a means of social critique or address moral and existential issues. The link between these two worlds, the fantastic and the real, is constructed in Andersen’s stories through nature. Nature is regarded as the place where emotion, imagination and intuition are established and the only way to experience the ‘unique moment’ or, in other words, the moment when the reader experiences the meaning of the story, customarily known as ‘Moral Space’.
The conceptual definition of the project is based on a spatial interpretation of the structure of Andersen’s fairy tales, which leads to the consideration of a dual world: the real and the fantastic. The ‘real world’ is predominantly situated at the surface-level of the site, and is represented by existing buildings, Lotze’s Garden and the entrance to the ‘fairy tales world’. On the other hand, the ‘fantastic world’, is located underground and mainly integrated by the exhibition spaces. As in Andersen’s stories, ‘nature’ constitutes the interface between these two worlds: vegetation, water and light are the key elements shaping the visitors’ experience. Obtaining inspiration from fairy tales such as ‘The Little Mermaid’ or ‘The Ugly Duckling’, water is considered to be the gateway to the fantastic world. A smooth ramp piercing a shallow lake transports visitors to a world of magic and exploration. Nevertheless, during their journey through this seemingly isolated world, visitors are continuously aware of the real world above them, albeit from a different perspective, through what the project named as the Artifacts. The trees from the park above invade the fantastic world, occupying several courtyards carved on the surface of Lotze’s Garden. Light is canalized into the underground spaces through skylights that surface into the real world. Visitors perceive a distorted view of the world above them through the water surface. After going through the fantastic world, visitors finally experience what the project refers to as the ‘Moral Space’, which returns them back to reality while revealing new knowledge about some aspect of human complexity.
The project introduces a further dimension that breaks away from the linear perspective of Andersen’s narrative and the typically linear spatial structure of traditional museums, where spaces are experienced one after the other from the entrance to the exit. The new museum of fairy tales is indeed understood as a continuum of interlinked spaces offering multiple choices, and being the visitor who decides how to experience it. For this reason, the characteristic words ‘The End’ are not present in the ‘Moral Space’, but the visitor can go back from this space to the fantastic world again in order to experience either another fairy tale, or the same one from a different perspective.
The fluid experience that characterizes the museum is also translated into the urban setting, accessibility between the urban surroundings and the museum site being one of the majors concerns. Furthermore, the museum acts as a space-organizing object, having pedestrian flows and different activities around itself. Additionally, The new museum acts as a focal point where pedestrian flows coming from different parts of the city and different transport modes (pedestrian, cycle, light rail, car) are channeled and gathered into the park and the museum through different accesses: Thomas B Thriges Gade Road, Ramsherred St., Bangs Boder St. and the new catwalk at the underground level.
The Canopy can be considered as the starting point of the museum experience, under which the main museum access is located. Once within the museum, visitors are first gathered into ‘The Panoramic Space’ from where they are able to fully appreciate the natural elements surrounding the building: the lake, the trees, the sky, etc., before walking along the ramp that will submerge them into the fantastic world. The ramp lands on the main hall of the museum.
As mentioned earlier, glimpses of the ‘real world’ are continuously offered to visitors throughout the visit through ‘artifacts’, which are:
.The Canopy: A man-made forest that serves as entrance to the museum and is a new landmark for local people, which can work as a street market or meeting point.
. The Lantern: Light element. Skylight during the day and lantern in the night.
. The Saxophone: A Hearing device connects with the sounds from the underground.
. The Voyeur: The people in the fantastic world see the real world but not viceversa.
. The Microscope: People take a peek into the fantastic world, and feel attracted to it.
. The Storyteller: A device that transports you to HCA’s fantastic world instantly.
Finally, the ‘Moral Space’ is understood as a go back to reality, where visitors experience the messages behind the stories. It is conceived as a flexible space that can host different activities as well as provide different spatial configurations that best fit those. Examples may be an initial configuration where space for auditorium is combined with spaces for workshops, to a configuration where the whole space is transformed into auditorium space. A key strength of this space lies on the fact that, besides being regularly used by the visitors of the museum, it can also be entered directly from the park, being potentially accessible to locals in specific occasions as result.
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knitknot team: Gonzalo J. Lopez//Alexandre Malagelada//
Teresa Santás//Alfonso Simelio//Tania Oramas
Collaborators: Sandra Javera//Federica Russo