Hans Christian Andersen Museum

A subterranean labyrinth telling the life of Denmark's most famous storyteller

H.C. Andersens Hus, redesigned by Japanese architect Kengo Kuma and reopened in 2021, is a single-storey building that sinks most of its exhibition space underground beneath a garden of cylindrical pavilions. The displays follow Andersen's life and work in a non-linear loop, mixing letters, manuscripts, contemporary artworks responding to his tales, and full-room installations evoking specific stories.

Andersen's childhood home stands next door — a tiny half-house preserved more or less as it was. Together they make a substantial half-day visit. The children's section, Ville Vau, is separate and aimed at under-tens, with workshops and storytelling sessions in Danish and English.

things to do museum
A story
Andersen, born in extreme poverty in Odense in 1805, wrote *The Little Match Girl*, *The Ugly Duckling*, *The Emperor's New Clothes*, and *The Snow Queen*. He hated revisiting his birthplace; he found it humiliating. The current museum stands on the spot of the half-room where he was born and where his mother continued to live after his father's early death.