Denmark: House of Fairytales winners announced

The winners of a competition to design a new home for Danish children’s author Hans Christian Anderson’s stories have been announced.

The new home, the House of Fairytales, is due to open on Anderson’s native island of Funen in 2018.

With 475 entrants from 57 countries, the architectural competition was the most popular of its sort ever held in the Scandinavian country. The three winners, whose designs will inspire workers creating the tourist attraction, were announced on 3 April, Hans Christian Anderson’s birthday.

UK artist Leith Kerr designed a ‘Paper Cutting House’ that showed a house appearing as though it was clipped from paper surrounded by a lush green garden. Swiss-Russian designer Rodion Kitaev’s proposal was based on four key elements: a tower, a food court, a garden and a maze, which the judges described as “simple yet inspirational”.

Meanwhile, Hortus Conclusus, dreamt up by the Norwegian Trans Border Studio, featured a closed patio, a new garden and an art colonnade.

Organisers wanted entrants to produce work based on Anderson’s childhood home in the city of Odense, which would ultimately lead to the establishment of a new tourist attraction in Funen city. The funding for its creation has been included in the government’s tourism budget.