Updating Den Gamle By. History and future of a 100-year-old Open Air Museum in Denmark
Updating Den Gamle By. History and future of a 100-year-old Open Air Museum in Denmark

Summary/Abstract: Den Gamle By (The Old Town) was founded in 1909 as the world’s first open-air museum dedicated to urban history and culture. With buildings, workshops and homes from almost every town and city in Denmark it now is the national open-air museum of urbanity. In the mid-20th century Den Gamle By also built up comprehensive collections of objects and artefacts, but after having been run as a traditional object-oriented museum for decades, Den Gamle By in the 1990s began to redefine itself as an open-air museum and develop new ways of presentation. Living history was initiated, new school-programmes were developed as well as special arrangements for elderly people suffering from senile dementia. And a formal cooperation with the university was initiated. In 2007 Den Gamle By launched a huge, new project aiming to update the museum. The project is about to create two town-districts, one with townscapes from the 1920s and one with townscapes from the 1970s. The first part of this updating will be finished in 2012.

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