THE MARITIME MUSEUM

Basically, the job description was something like this: Design a unique building of 4,000 cubic metres in an eight-metre deep dry dock in the former Elsinore Shipyard. The building could not be more than a meter above the surface of the earth. And this is what they did - or at least four of the architectural firms that submitted bids for the project. The fifth firm, however, opted to go in a wholly different direction.

WORLD-CLASS ARCHITECTURE

"OUT OF THE BOX"
Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) thought quite literally "out of the box" and chose to place the museum on the outside - all the way around the docks. They ran away with the project. "Once we had seen the submitted projects, there was never any doubt. Four of the submissions were perfectly adequate, but the fifth was quite simply brilliant," says the museum's curator and historian, Benjamin Asmussen. It took seven years to realise the project, and there were many challenges along the way. "Just drying out the docks without harming Kronborg, which is of course a UNESCO-listed heritage site, was incredibly difficult," explains press and communications officer Signe Lundgren, as she shows us around.

THE KRONBORG BRIDGE
After dropping down an entire storey, you are led through the narrow exhibition hallways all the way around the dock, and via zigzag footbridges of glass and steel across to the dock room. In the middle of all of this is the Kronborg Bridge, where the museum's conference room is situated. "It is the heart of the museum and perhaps the most beautiful room in the building. It's also its most photographed," Lundgren continues, and highlights this point by mentioning that this is where most pictures are taken which then appear on social media sites.