ARKEN Museum of Contemporary Art

This guide to ARKEN Museum of Contemporary Art in Copenhagen goes back to 1988, when a Danish jury opened a design competition entry and found it had come from a student still enrolled at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. It follows Soren Robert Lund's wrecked-ship concept from that envelope through Queen Margrethe's backing and a fight with conservationists over how close the building could sit to the dunes of Koge Bay. The museum's hull-shaped Art Axis and lifeboat-like cafe both trace their form back to Lund's original wreck.