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Denmark to build new H.C. Andersen museum

Xinhua, November 1, 2016 Adjust font size:

A new museum to commemorate Hans Christian Andersen will be built in Odense, the hometown of the renowned Danish fairytale writer, and financing plans of the museum was presented on Monday by the City of Odense.

The financing of the new museum, H.C. Andersen Museum, which totals 305 million Danish kroner (about 45 million U.S. dollars), has been completed, the City of Odense said in a statement.

The A.P. Moeller Foundation has ensured the realization of the project with a donation of 225 million kroner, thus becoming the largest sponsor of the project.

Additionally, the Augustinus Foundation has made a donation of 20 million kroner, while the City of Odense has donated the remaining 60 million kroner.

Japanese architecture firm Kengo Kuma & Associates has won out in the competition for the design of the museum, while British exhibition design agency Event Communications is responsible for the content design of the museum.

Kengo Kuma & Associates is the firm that will design the new Olympic stadium in Tokyo for the 2020 games.

"I am now able to say with certainty that the new Hans Christian Andersen Museum will be realized," said Odense Mayor Anker Boye at the presentation ceremony.

"Right in the middle of Odense, it will blend in with the new neighborhood that is currently being built on the old street called Thomas B. Thriges Gade," the mayor added.

"The new museum will make Hans Christian Andersen feel even more present and alive for the children and young people of the city, while I also expect the new museum to significantly boost the city's culture tourism," said Jane Jegind, deputy mayor for the Department of Culture, Sport and Urban Development in Odense.

The construction of the new H.C. Andersen Museum is expected to begin early 2017 and to be completed in 2020.

Odense currently has a H.C. Andersen Museum that is located in the building thought to be the birthplace of the writer, a small yellow house in the old town. In 1908, the house was opened as the H.C. Andersen Museum to document his life.

Andersen's childhood home, where he lived in the little half-timbered house from the age of two until he was 14, was also opened as a museum in 1930. (1 U.S. dollar = 6.78 Danish kroner) Endit