”With the overall exhibition design our ambition has been to create an environment that is welcoming and places the new Museum of Copenhagen as a space where Copenhageners and guests of the city feel at home, where their stories are told, and where the different exhibitions cultivate, move, inspire, and challenge.”

Exhibition Architect Johan Carlsson, JAC studios

The museum’s new exhibitions are placed throughout three floors in the two wings of the original 1893 H.J.Holm building including; the ground floor housing the special exhibition area, shop, café and gallery as well as the first and second floors, with permanent exhibitions and Copenhagen panorama that tells the city’s overall history in beautiful historical surroundings.

The permanent exhibitions are arranged according to the concept of chronotop. Moving through the exhibitions with this concept, one moves through both different places and spaces in the city and through time periods that give the essence of the city in the museum as well as connects the museum to the city’s boroughs and people.

The central staircase including stained-glass motifs by Agnes Slott-Møller is the backbone of the museum’s new exhibitions. Here a new lighting installation leads visitor up through the building with a vertical structure holding fixtures and an array of hand-blown glass discs that reflect light and guide guests through the museum.

The museum in the city – the city in the museum

1:1 casts of the city made especially for the Museum of Copenhagen

Throughout the project, JAC studios and model craftsman Steen Holdt have explored Copenhagen through physical 60cm x 60cm sections. The 1:1 physical cast sections of specific areas in the city form an introduction to each of the selected places and rooms in the permanent exhibition.

”It has been a such a journey to experience our city from completely new perspectives. Together with the model craftsman Steen Holdt we have crawled on our knees on the city hall square, dug into the ground underneath the cobblestones, climbed towers and spires, and have examined countless statues intimately. Working with exhibition design is about creating a personal connection to the story itself. In the exhibitions this relationship is literally apparent in the physical casts of the actual city made specifically for the Museum of Copenhagen.”
Exhibition Architect Johan Carlsson, JAC studios