Louisiana

The Louisiana Museum of Modern Art stands as a landmark of Danish modernist architecture. Exemplifying the discreet refinement of late 1950s modernism, its low, horizontal structures blend seamlessly into the coastal landscape, forming a harmonious dialogue between art, architecture, and nature.

What strikes visitors first is Louisiana’s quiet confidence - its unpretentious simplicity. When founder Knud W. Jensen commissioned architects Jørgen Bo and Vilhelm Wohlert in the mid-1950s to transform an old villa into a museum, their shared vision was clear: the architecture should grow out of the landscape itself.

Since its opening in 1958, Louisiana has expanded seven times, each extension carried out by Bo and Wohlert - later joined by Claus Wohlert. Remarkably, the museum’s original spirit has endured. Every new wing has been absorbed into the terrain with care, ensuring that Louisiana remains an integrated whole where building, park, and sea merge into a single, resonant experience.

When Jensen acquired the property in 1955, he initially imagined a traditional arrangement - the villa and a detached pavilion overlooking the Sound. But through collaboration, a more poetic concept emerged: a museum conceived as a “covered stroll” through the landscape. As Jensen later reflected on the site’s influence, “the lot made its own demands and became, in a sense, our employer, deciding where buildings and sculptures should stand.”

Construction began in 1956 and concluded two years later. Bo and Wohlert’s design vocabulary was defined by whitewashed walls, laminated wooden ceilings, deep-red tile floors, and expansive glass panels that dissolve the boundary between interior and exterior. The result is a sense of architectural lightness that allows the museum to breathe with its surroundings.

Their inspiration drew from both California and Japan. Wohlert’s studies at Berkeley exposed him to the Bay Area’s wooden architecture, while Japanese design’s serene restraint informed the museum’s spatial rhythm. From the outset, Louisiana’s architecture has been guided by two essential qualities - coherence and gentleness - principles that continue to define its timeless beauty.