Architizer A+Awards 2015

The new Moesgaard Museum is uniquely located in the hilly landscape of Skåde. With its sloping roofscape of grass, moss and flowers in bright colours the building will appear a powerful visual landmark perceptible even from the sea.

The rectangular shaped roof plane seems to grow out of the landscape and during summer it will form an area for picnics, barbeques, lectures and traditional Midsummer Day’s bonfires. Come winter snowfall, the sloping roof will become transformed into the city’s best toboggan run.

The interior of the building is designed like a varied terraced landscape inspired by archaeological excavations gradually unearthing the layers of history and exposing lost cities. The visitor can move through a vivid sequence of exhibitions and scientific experiments – like a traveler in time and space. The heart of the building is the foyer with a café and outdoor service. From the foyer, the terraced underworld opens up to the light from the roof garden and the impressive view of the Aarhus Bay.

Exhibition design
Architecture, nature, culture and history will fuse together into a total experience, and the museum’s many years of exhibition experience and research will be drawn upon in a new approach to the presentation of cultural history. Moesgaard Museum will be able to facilitate their knowledge in a way that is interesting to children, parents, and grandparents. There is something for everyone regardless of their point of departure.

With its light court yards, terraces and small cave-like ‘houses in the house’, the museum will encourage many new and alternative types of exhibitions where the use of technology combined with a more workshop-like arrangement will give the visitors a glimpse of how archeologists and ethnographers work.

Materials
The materials of the building harmonize with the overall expression of the building and at the same time acoustics, economy, technical settings, maintenance, durability, colour options and sustainability are considered. The walls inside of the museum are generally painted or in rough concrete. Acoustically regulating ceilings are mounted between the concrete beams in order for the beams in the longitudinal direction of the building to become visible. The floors of the exhibition rooms are raised floors with a wooden surface.
The exterior of the building is dominated by the large unifying roof surface with a roof ending in concrete. The roof surface itself is covered in grass with paths that live up to the demands of escape routes both regarding course and materials.

Sustainability
The key to aesthetic, comfortable and energy-efficient buildings is found in the interaction between architecture and technology. At Henning Larsen Architects, we have made the concept of sustainability tangible by focusing on energy reduction as the primary strategy. We have done this with a belief that focusing on energy can create quality all the way round. This is based on the methodology of “Design with Knowledge”. The specific gear wheels, agents, have been developed with the objective of creating value for all three aspects of sustainability, that is, economically, socially and environmentally.

Sustainability has been a big factor in the overall architectonic arrangement of Moesgaard Museum. The south facing roof surface (roof facade) ensures the calculated basis for an energy-efficient building, which is able to achieve energy class 1 status.

About Moesgaard Museum
Moesgård Museum is a regional and specialist museum of archaeology, and ethnography. The exhitibions in the new museum will contain a series of unique finds from Danish prehistory, including two world class finds from the Iron Age: the c. 2,300 years old Grauballe Man - the world's best preserved bog body - and the exceptional weapon sacrifices from Illerup Ådal, which reflect sacrifice traditions, long distance contracts and power struggles that took place 1,800 years ago.