There are several museums in Aalborg, Denmark. These include a museum of modern art, a

historical museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make thes ...

and a

maritime museum A maritime museum (sometimes nautical museum) is a museum specializing in the display of objects relating to ships and travel on large bodies of water. A subcategory of maritime museums are naval museums, which focus on navies and the milita ...

. Together with the city's theatre, cultural centre and music interests, they constitute an important aspect of the municipality's recent focus on knowledge and culture.

History

The Aalborg Historical Museum in the city centre was established in 1863 making it one of the earliest provincial museums in Denmark. Excavations in the 1950s revealed Iron Age and Viking artifacts from burial sites at

Lindholm Høje Lindholm Høje (Lindholm Hills, from Old Norse ''haugr'', hill or mound) is a major Viking burial site and former settlement situated to the north of and overlooking the city of Aalborg in Denmark. About the area The southern (lower) part of Li ...

just north of

Limfjord The Limfjord ( common Danish: ''Limfjorden'' , in north Jutlandish dialect: ''Æ Limfjord'') is a shallow part of the sea, located in Denmark where it has been regarded as a fjord ever since Viking times. However, it now has inlets both from ...

while in the mid-1990s, the foundations of the Greyfriars Monastery were investigated in the city centre, both leading to smaller museums. The striking museum of modern art was completed in the early 1970s, to be followed in 1992 by a marine museum and in 2002 by a defence museum. Over the years, the Historical Museum's administration developed into the North Jutland Historical Museum (''Nordjyllands Historiske Museum''), a system administered by a 12-member committee made up of representatives of the constituent organisations, including the Museum Society of Hadsund, the Museum Society for Hals Kommune, the Aalborg History Association, the North Jutland Association of Archaeology for Jutland, the Historical Community of Himmerland and Kjaer District, and the Cultural Historic Society of North Jutland.

Museums

Aalborg Historical Museum

The first building for the Aalborg Historical Museum (1863) was designed by Conrad Weber in 1863. The present museum was constructed in 1878 and expanded in the early 1890s to house the growing collection of items from the region's earliest inhabitants to modern times. The Aalborgstuen presents a fine Renaissance interior from 1602.

Kunsten Museum of Modern Art

The Kunsten Museum of Modern Art was built between 1968 and 1972 after designs by Elissa Aalto, Alvar Aalto and Jean-Jacques Baruël. The design is said to be inspired by the

ziggurat A ziggurat (; Cuneiform: 𒅆𒂍𒉪, Akkadian: ', D-stem of ' 'to protrude, to build high', cognate with other Semitic languages like Hebrew ''zaqar'' (זָקַר) 'protrude') is a type of massive structure built in ancient Mesopotamia. It has ...

. The structure extends over , with galleries organised around a central hall. The external walls and most of the pavement are of

Carrara Carrara ( , ; , ) is a city and ''comune'' in Tuscany, in central Italy, of the province of Massa and Carrara, and notable for the white or blue-grey marble quarried there. It is on the Carrione River, some west-northwest of Florence. Its mot ...

marble. The building materials have light colours to emphasise the art works.KUNSTEN: The Building
, retrieved 2 October 2011 The outdoor areas include a sculpture park, amphitheatre and terrace. Some of the sculptures exhibited are by

Gunnar Aagaard Andersen Gunnar Aagaard Andersen (14 July 1919 – 29 June 1982) was a Danish sculptor, painter, designer and architect whose work belongs to the Concrete art movement. Early life and education Born in Ordrup to the north of Copenhagen, Aagaard Andersen a ...

Willy Ørskov Willy Ørskov (21 December 1920 in Aarhus – 12 June 1990 in Helsingør) was a Danish sculptor who is remembered for works created from plastics and inflatable materials. Biography Ørskov's studies at the Valand School of Fine Arts Valand A ...

, Lene Adler Petersen and

Mogens Møller Mogens Møller (28 November 1934 – 16 June 2021 The collection consists of around 1,500 art objects, including paintings, sculptures and other forms of artistic media.

Greyfriars Monastery Museum

In 1994 and 1995, excavations at the site of the 11th-century Greyfriars Monastery in central Aalborg resulted in the creation of the Greyfriars Monastery Museum (''Gråbrødrekloster Museum'') underneath the central pedestrian shopping street. Inside the well-preserved foundations, the museum reveals the history of the monastery, the town and former houses and churches.

Springeren - Marine Experience Center

The Springeren - Marine Experience Center is a marine museum on the wharf of Aalborg. Inaugurated on 24 May 1992, in the presence of Queen Margrethe, the museum's collections have since been expanded considerably, especially with an extensive collection of ship radios and navigation instruments, showing the development of such tools. The main attraction is the Danish submarine "Springeren".

Aalborg Defence and Garrison Museum

The Aalborg Defence and Garrison Museum documents Danish defences during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

as well as the history of Aaborg's garrison since 1779. The museum is in a historic building in the western part of Aalborg - a huge hangar with side buildings, erected by the German occupation forces in 1940 at the

seaplane A seaplane is a powered fixed-wing aircraft capable of taking off and landing (alighting) on water.Gunston, "The Cambridge Aerospace Dictionary", 2009. Seaplanes are usually divided into two categories based on their technological characteri ...

base Seefliegerhorst Aalborg.

Lindholm Høje Museum

In the 1950s, the Nordjyllands Museum conducted a series of archaeological excavations at

Iron Age The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age ( Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age ( Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostl ...

and

Viking Vikings ; non, víkingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and se ...

sites in the area, including the extensive burial sites at

near

Nørresundby Nørresundby () is a city in Aalborg Municipality, north of Limfjorden, in Vendsyssel, in Denmark. The urban area has a population of 23,718 (1 January 2021). It is located just north of Aalborg, which lies south of Limfjorden. Statistically its o ...

on the north side of the fjord. In 1992, thanks to funding by Aalborg Portland, a museum was opened on the site and extended in 2008 following a grant from A.P. Møller. It presents many of the findings from the excavations as well as displays illustrating life in the Viking period and in earlier settlements.Elisabeth Barfod Carlsen, "Fortidsmindet Lindholm Høje er en del af Kulturarvsstyrelsens project 'Danmarks Oldtid i Landskabet'"
''DitBlad'', July 2012. Retrieved 24 August 2013.

References

External links

{{Aalborg Museums in Denmark