Architecture for Children

Sensuous experiences at ARKEN

Join your kids in exploring ARKEN’s architecture. Let them experience the museum as a house that influences all one’s senses and breaks with the usual notion of how a building is supposed to look. A visit to ARKEN is a sensuous experience.

Try walking through the Red Axis and feel how one wall leans inwards as if it is about to fall over – maybe you will have a hard time keeping your balance and feel a little seasick. Try putting your heals flush against the wall and feel how it “pushes” you.

Or try touching the big stone in the foyer. All four sides are different: One is matt, another rough, the third one smooth, and the fourth one is polished to a shine.

In the Art Axis your sight is challenged. Try looking down the Art Axis and then walking from one end to the other – it looks much longer than it really is.

The Art Axis is shaped very differently from ordinary rooms – have you ever been in a room with only two corners?
Furthermore the Art Axis’ one end is completely dark and so a great place to hide. Dare you go in?

When you move down the Red Axis, use your hearing and listen to the various sounds in there. It sounds like the engine room of a ship. And that is not the only ship element in the museum – here are also portholes, large heavy iron doors, bolts etc. Go “hunting” with the kids …