125th anniversary

We’ve looked back in time and brought out some of our all-time favorites, so you can experience them again for one special weekend. Dance folk dance, play with clay, come behind the scenes, meet the mischievous elf and much more.

There is something truly special about open-air theatre at the Open-Air Museum. During the anniversary weekend, you can relive some of our most beloved productions – for this weekend only, when we rekindle The Tinderbox by H.C. Andersen, celebrate Carl-Emil’s birthday by Ole Lund Kirkegaard, and get a visit from the Mischief Elf. All plays are in danish.

Øresundsvej Station is opening its doors, and you can be among the first to walk through. New life has been brought to both the kitchen, the waiting room, and the details, which have been recreated as they once were. The building dates back to the Amager Line and was designed by DSB’s chief architect Heinrich Wenck, who was also behind Copenhagen Central Station. And we’re also opening a hayloft, where children and nostalgic adults can jump in the hay.

Meet Josefine Sorring, who is the great-great-grandchild of the potter who originally owned the workshop. The craft has been passed down through the generations, as Josefine is also a ceramicist. Experience her work with clay, have a chat, and take a piece of history home with you.

If you feel like diving into creative projects, you can dye candles, make bricks, dye with plants, and do other activities together. Schedule a handicraft break in the program and make things with your hands and your family.

Bernhard Olsen was the driving force behind the Open-Air Museum and a visionary cultural figure in the late 19th century. After finishing at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, his great interest in historical costumes led him to a job as a costumer at the Royal Theatre. Later he became artistic director at Tivoli, where he was, among other things, responsible for the iconic Peacock Theatre. He founded Panoptikon, Scandinavia’s first wax museum, and at the same time opened the Danish Folk Museum with furnished peasant rooms. But the rooms were not enough; he wanted to exhibit entire houses. From there his life’s project grew: to save buildings from the old rural culture, which was threatened by industrialisation. That project became the Open-Air Museum, to which he devoted a great deal of his love and energy. Today he is buried on the museum grounds, where his memorial stone can still be visited.

In 1885, the Danish Folk Museum was founded. Its task was to collect and preserve Danish folk and rural culture before it was too late. The Folk Museum’s exhibitions were, among other things, based on the principles from Panoptikon, where Bernhard Olsen had experimented with scenes from everyday Danish life. The Folk Museum collected and communicated Danish folklore and rural history to a broad, popular audience by means of beautifully furnished rooms. The Open-Air Museum was a natural development from the Folk Museum. By moving and furnishing real rural buildings, people could get even closer to history – they could visit history, step into it, and experience it in natural surroundings.

The Open-Air Museum began modestly in 1897 with just a few buildings in a corner of the King’s Garden in Copenhagen. By 1901 the space already felt too cramped, and the museum’s founder, Bernhard Olsen, bought a plot of land of 12 tønder (about 6 hectares) around the old Fuglevad Windmill in Sorgenfri. Since then, additional pieces of land have been acquired for the Open-Air Museum, creating room for all the many historic buildings, animal breeds, and visitors.