KUNSTEN Museum of Modern Art Aalborg

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Aalto's major work in Aalborg

By Simon Ostenfeld Pedersen (5 stories)

North Jutland's KUNSTEN Museum of Modern Art Aalborg was designed jointly by the Finnish architects Alvar and Elissa Aalto and the Danish architect Jean-Jacques Baruël. The museum is a major work in the history of Danish architecture in being the only building in Denmark by the world-renowned Modernist architect Alvar Aalto. He won the design contract as early as in 1958, but financial problems caused delays and the museum was not completed until 1972. By then, an exclusive and costly anachronism, it met with harsh criticism for being elitist and conservative.

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Museum as a light machine

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Story written by Simon Ostenfeld Pedersen

Time / Periode 1958 1972

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What acoustics are to a concert hall, light is to a museum of art". Under this title, Alvar Alto and his wife submitted their tender for an architectural design contract for a new museum of art in Aalborg. Certainly, the whole museum is characterised by the spaciousness created by the building's illumination. With an array of reflectors and light-coloured materials, the light is reflected and directed around the exhibition spaces. As the light bounces off screens, boards, ceilings, walls and floors, it is diffused and can be adapted in all horizontal directions. The unique structures turn the museum into a virtuoso 'light machine'. The flexible lighting fixtures in the exhibition spaces allow them to be adapted to the art on display. Some spaces have diffuse overhead lighting, while others have bright side-illumination. Common to all the galleries is that their qualities change in response to the time of day and year. "