The latest museum project from Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) is now officially open following a weekend ceremony for the new FLUGT Refugee Museum in Oksbøl, Denmark.

With Queen Margrethe looking on, Ingels and his team were on hand to inaugurate the new institution, which is meant as a platform for stories of the immigrant experience in Danish society.

Located on the site of one of Denmark’s largest post-World War II German refugee camps, BIG’s design reworked an existing historic hospital structure into a 1,600-square-meter (17,220-square-foot) space, split into two buildings, that are connected by a single curved Corten steel volume to create a welcoming entryway into the exhibition areas. 

Its north wing maintains the original circulation of the hospital layout, utilizing the introduction of three stabilizing cross-sections to increase gallery space in the new exhibition areas. In the new south wing at the other end of the museum, smaller exhibition areas are aligned around a cafe, administrative spaces, and a conference room rendered “with the same character and materiality” as its opposite. Outside, a courtyard is beset with metaphorically juxtaposing native plants (courtesy of BIG Landscape) and framed by a glass wall that allows natural light to fill the interior of the space for visitors. 

Refugees and other immigrant groups have taken a central role in shaping modern life for the Scandinavian country. Depictions and accounts of their experience in Danish film and literature (Pelle the Conqueror, Flee, Death of a Nightingale) are well-established and popular narratives, and recent developments have combined with the constant pushback from retrograde far-right figures like Rasmus Paladin to create what the firm feels is a renewed mandate to focus on telling stories of their contributions and survival.

This is now BIG’s second museum project for client Vardemuseerne and designer Claus Kjeld Jensen, who commissioned the Tirpitz Museum, which opened five years ago today. Tinker Imagineers contributed to the exhibition design of the museum. 

In a press statement, BIG's project lead Frederik Lyng said it was “a great example of how adaptive reuse can result in sustainable, functional buildings that preserve our shared history while standing out architecturally.”