GeoCenter Møns Klint is a geological and natural history museum on the island of

Møn Møn () is an island in south-eastern Denmark. Until 1 January 2007, it was a municipality in its own right but it is now part of the municipality of Vordingborg Municipality, Vordingborg, after merging with the former municipalities of Langeb ...

in southeastern

Denmark Denmark is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe. It is the metropole and most populous constituent of the Kingdom of Denmark,, . also known as the Danish Realm, a constitutionally unitary state that includes the Autonomous a ...

. Located close to the top of the chalk cliffs known as

Møns Klint Møns Klint is a 6 km stretch of limestone and chalk cliffs along the eastern coast of the Danish island of Møn in the Baltic Sea. Some of the cliffs fall a sheer 120 m to the sea below. The highest cliff is , which is 128 m above sea lev ...

, it was opened on 29 May 2007 by Queen Margrethe. The building was designed by

PLH Architects PLH Architects is an architectural firm based in Copenhagen, Denmark. It was founded in 1977 by Palle Leif Hansen. Location PLH Arkitekter is based in a former industrial complex situated in the Haraldsgade neighbourhood on the border between oute ...

, the winners of an international

design competition A design competition or design contest is a competition in which an entity solicits design proposals from the public for a specified purpose. Architecture An architectural design competition solicits architects to submit design proposals for a b ...

.Interview with Søren Mølbak, Architect
, retrieved 2009-10-10

Design

Considered by the

World Architecture Festival The World Architecture Festival (WAF) is an Architecture, architectural and design event held annually and considered to be one of the most prestigious events dedicated to the architecture and development industries. It was founded by Paul Fin ...

to be one of the world's most beautiful buildings, most of the structure is underground. The architects chose to safeguard nature by reducing the visible above-ground part of the building to a minimum. The large exhibition area, entirely underground, falls in line with the centre’s objective which is to tell the story of what lies beneath Denmark. The curvature of the building was the result of a desire to preserve the trees lining the cliff. The centre's architect,

Søren Mølbak Søren (, ) or Sören (, ) is a Scandinavian given name that is sometimes anglicized as Soren. The name is derived from that of the 4th-century Christian saint Severin of Cologne,Portal Rheinische Geschichte"Severin (circa 330-400), Heiliger und B ...

, explains: "Because the cliffs are white and we wanted to follow nature, our choice of materials and colours is based on the natural environment. But we didn’t want to paint the walls white, so the building is made of white concrete, the floors are white cement plaster, the indoor walls are white rendered plasterboard, and the ceilings are white Mono acoustic spray-rendered ceilings." The white ceilings in the restaurant are free of directional lines, following the curvature of the building, and have randomly placed light fixtures. Those in the underground exhibition centre are black. The outer wall adjacent to the parking lot is lined with untreated planks of larch wood, blending into the surroundings.

The exhibition

The exhibition traces Denmark's birth from prehistoric times 70 million years ago. Around the main exhibition hall, there are a number of large cave-like booths where artists express their views of the story. Visitors can walk through the gallery experiencing the different geological levels passing through the

Cretaceous Period The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 143.1 to 66 million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era, as well as the longest. At around 77.1 million years, it is the ninth and longest geologi ...

with sharks, sea urchins and the

mosasaur Mosasaurs (from Latin ''Mosa'' meaning the 'Meuse', and Ancient Greek, Greek ' meaning 'lizard') are an extinct group of large aquatic reptiles within the family Mosasauridae that lived during the Late Cretaceous. Their first fossil remains wer ...

Tertiary Period The Tertiary ( ) is an obsolete Period (geology), geologic period spanning 66 million to 2.6 or 1.8 million years ago. The period began with the extinction of the non-bird, avian dinosaurs in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, at t ...

when the chalky seabed was freed from the sea; and the

Quaternary Period The Quaternary ( ) is the current and most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS), as well as the current and most recent of the twelve periods of the ...

when glaciers subsided over Denmark. In addition to interactive computer screens, the exhibition gallery has many attractions for children including treasure hunts, competitions and a 3D film."Stor guide: 50 fede oplevelser med børn i påsken"
''Politiken.dk'', 15 April 2011. Retrieved 1 May 2011.

Gallery

File:GeoCenter2.JPG, Ground floor with shop File:GeoCenter3.JPG,

Mosasaur Mosasaurs (from Latin ''Mosa'' meaning the 'Meuse', and Ancient Greek, Greek ' meaning 'lizard') are an extinct group of large aquatic reptiles within the family Mosasauridae that lived during the Late Cretaceous. Their first fossil remains wer ...

model suspended from exhibition gallery ceiling File:GeoCenter5.JPG, Show case in the underground exhibition centre File:GeoCenter4.JPG, Upper floor section of the exhibition centre

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:GeoCenter Mons Klint Møn Tourist attractions in Vordingborg Municipality Museums in Region Zealand Geology museums in Denmark Museums established in 2007

Design

The exhibition

Gallery

See also

References

External links