Thoughts on: the Hans Christian Andersen Museum
The Hans Christian Andersen Museum is a wooden and glass structure, full of curves and sunken courtyards and overhead gardens. There is a sense of mystery, imagination, and adventure surrounding the building itself. The experience is definitely one that doesn’t match any other museum I’ve been to. It starts with a headset and is almost entirely auditory. The audio recording immediately immerses you in the experience and is the true threshold into the museum. There is background music in each room while different audio snippets play depending on where you stand in the room.
The exhibits have almost no writing on them. Other than the single little card informing visitors about what the item is, there is no writing on the wall that describes what the gallery contains or the contextual history of the items, like in other museums. Instead, audio plays through the headphones as you walk in front of different objects or different areas of the gallery. The audio isn’t just a description or the history of the item; it is a dialogue acted out by voice actors of the events in Andersen’s life and stories, whether it’s his lover writing to him in a letter or the princess in the Princess and the Pea. It mirrors the storytelling experience, where children listen to fairy tales being recited rather than reading them.
There was a room full of books he collected and paper cutouts that he made, some of the actual artifacts within the museum. It is quite interesting to be able to experience these objects through sound and dialogue rather than just words on the wall.
The earlier galleries describe his life and his lifestyle, his numerous lovers and his lust for travel. There is a section of the hallway that contains objects from each of his lovers and describes his relationship with them. Along the walls there are audio snippets that describe his major life milestones, from the rejection from the ballerina to Odense recognizing him as an honorary citizen. These transitional events in his life correspond to their location in the winding hallways.
The room filled with busts and statues of Hans Christian Andersen is quite intriguing. The recordings attributed to each statue are filled with other people’s perception of Andersen, whether good or bad. It reflects his public persona and the statues themselves, which are meant for other people to view. One memorable piece of audio is one recalling all the descriptions of his physical stature: some people describing him as one of the ugliest people ever, followed by someone saying that he is extremely handsome.
The big gallery is one that goes through his most famous stories, from The Nightingale to the Princess and the Pea to the Ugly Duckling and the Little Mermaid. Each section of the curvy gallery is detailed with enough immersion but still feels like a grand exhibition space. Most of the objects and sculptures in the room are abstract creations rather than accurate representations of the setting in the story. The audio in the section with the Princess and the Pea is long, sarcastic, and ridiculous.
The last part of the museum is the childhood home of Andersen. It is almost claustrophobically small compared to the museum, hinting at the unfathomably large imaginary universe formed by Andersen compared to his reality. It also brings us back into the real world, into Odense, and into a time and place recognizable to the history books.
The Hans christian Andersen Museum is a place unlike anything I’ve ever experienced.
I give it 9/10. If only it weren’t so far away.
See you soon.
-Nathan Chen
