The Spiral brings a twisting glass facade to Copenhagen’s museum
At the harbour edge of Christians Brygge in Copenhagen, the Statens Museum for Kunst is gaining a bold new piece of urban architecture. Lendager Arkitekter’s roughly 13,000-square-metre extension, known as The Spiral, joins the National Gallery of Denmark’s existing galleries with a building whose outer skin twists as it rises. It is an extension shaped as much by movement and public life as by exhibition space.
The glazed form is easy to describe as a twisting glass facade, but that misses its broader purpose. The spiral turns circulation into a civic experience, drawing people from the street into galleries, learning areas and shared rooms. It also gives the museum a more visible presence beside Copenhagen Harbour, where architecture is often experienced at close range on the walk between city and water.
For Australian architects, designers and furniture makers, the project offers useful lessons about making a major institution feel open without making it generic. Its handling of daylight, structure and public routes resonates with cities dealing with intense sun, compact sites and busy cultural precincts. It is also a European design story with direct relevance to specification, hospitality and residential markets closer to home.
A new address for Danish art
SMK already occupies a prominent position in Copenhagen’s harbour district, close to canals, parks and other cultural institutions. The Spiral adds density to that setting and creates a new street address for a museum long known internationally for modern and contemporary Danish art. Rather than stand as an isolated object, the building works with the grain of the surrounding block and the daily routes through it.
That urban reading matters. Copenhagen’s centre is compact, cycling traffic is strong and public spaces are used intensively, so a cultural building is judged by how generously it participates. A museum can draw a morning crowd for an exhibition, then become a place for conversations, school groups or a walk along the water. The extension’s rounded profile and rising ramp make those overlapping uses physically legible.
For the museum, the practical gain is a connected sequence of exhibition and support areas rather than a collection of disconnected departments. Flexible rooms can accommodate changing formats, from focused displays to talks and installations, while public floors establish a threshold between the city and the art. The building therefore recasts the institution as both a repository and an active public forum.
The Spiral takes shape
The design was selected through an architectural competition, and its central idea is remarkably direct: a broad route curls through the new building, linking lower entrances to upper galleries and gathering spaces. The ramp is not tucked away as back-of-house circulation. It becomes an informal street, a place to see other visitors, pause and understand how the museum is organised.
On the exterior, pale horizontal bands sweep around the curved volume, making the building seem to rotate. Between them, glass panels change angle to follow the geometry, producing shifting reflections of sky, harbour and neighbouring façades. The effect is closer to a piece of folded glass than a conventional rectangular elevation. At each level, the changing outline also provides a different spatial relationship to the city.
That complexity required close coordination between enclosure, structure and movement. The supporting frame has to hold a visually fluid form while accommodating galleries with very different requirements, from precise lighting to open floor area. For additional architectural reading, readers can consult Deepali Gupta’s site alongside official museum and studio material on the project.
Glass, structure and movement
Glass gives The Spiral a changing presence through the day. In Copenhagen’s long summer light, the facade can catch the low sun and brighten the internal route, while also reflecting the movement of ferries, cyclists and pedestrians around the harbour. Rather than presenting one fixed image, it keeps the building visually connected to its setting.
The environmental layer is only part of the story. Glazing in a large public building must be balanced against glare, heat gain, maintenance and the need to make galleries feel calm. The spiral’s layered geometry offers shade and changing orientation, but the architectural ambition still depends on ordinary performance: stable floors, controlled light, durable fittings and clear wayfinding.
The contrast with the more rectilinear existing museum is useful. Old and new remain identifiable, yet the extension gives the complex a unified public address. Its visual drama comes from a coordinated whole rather than a decorative screen applied to an arbitrary shape. That distinction is why the facade can read as both an image and a piece of practical architecture.
Details that shape the visitor experience
The visitor route and the building envelope each contain several lessons that designers can read without copying the form literally.
For visitors
- Enter through the new public levels and use the rising route to understand the museum’s layout at a glance.
- Pause at viewpoints where the city, harbour and internal galleries appear in the same frame.
- Treat the roof-level outlook as part of the exhibition experience, not simply a place for a photograph.
The same route offers a practical checklist for architects adapting public architecture in Australia.
For designers
- Make the main circulation route visible, generous and useful before adding secondary sculptural gestures.
- Coordinate facade geometry with glare, daylight and views rather than treating transparency as a blanket goal.
- Use edges and upper levels to reveal the institution’s civic role to people who may never enter a gallery.
These features matter because The Spiral is experienced sequentially. A visitor first encounters it as an urban form, then as a promenade, and only afterwards as a collection of rooms. The architecture keeps all three readings active, giving the project an identity that can be understood quickly without becoming visually superficial.
Copenhagen lessons for Australian projects
Australian conditions sharpen those lessons. Sydney’s coastal glare and strong UV, Brisbane’s heat and humidity, and Melbourne’s compact laneway sites demand careful attention to orientation, shade and the thermal performance of glass. Any translation of the facade should begin with local climate rather than with its formal gesture. Australian access requirements, including the National Construction Code and AS 1428, also make inclusive routes a non-negotiable starting point.
Materials and markets need similar translation. European furniture frequently enters Australia through local distributors, specifiers and premium stockists, where freight, lead times, local joinery and compliance affect what projects can specify. Designers here regularly combine imported European pieces with Australian timber, masonry and locally made components. That hybrid approach has more practical value than a literal copy of the Danish scheme.
In Australian design conversations, plain phrases such as “beaut” and “fair go” often cut through presentation language: does the building look good, and can a broad public genuinely use it? Melbourne Design Week brings similar questions into focus for furniture, interiors and public space. The Spiral answers them by making spectacle serve access, while retaining the social value of a landmark that people can see and share.
Make the Spiral part of Copenhagen
The Spiral matters to the international design world because it shows how a museum extension can act as civic infrastructure. It gives a national collection new space, gives the harbour edge a memorable address and gives architecture a way to make circulation itself part of cultural storytelling. Its twisting glass facade is compelling precisely because that image rests on coordinated planning, environmental thinking and an inviting public route.
Plan a visit to SMK in Copenhagen and walk the spiral from its city-facing base toward the upper views. Allow time to compare the new extension with the existing galleries, then continue along the harbour to see how the building sits within Copenhagen’s wider design landscape. The experience offers a clear benchmark for anyone shaping the next generation of cultural places.
