ARoS Aarhus Art Museum

ARoS opened in 2004 as a red brick cube split by a curving white stair, and in 2011 Olafur Eliasson set a circular glass walkway on the roof: 150 metres round, glazed through the full spectrum, so that walking it shifts the whole city through red, yellow, green and blue. That piece, Your Rainbow Panorama, is what most people come for, but the floors below hold Danish golden age painting, a strong post-war and contemporary collection, and Ron Mueck's enormous crouching Boy in the central hall. The lower level keeps a run of dark, deliberately uncomfortable installation rooms known as the nine spaces.

History

The museum was established in 1859 and is the oldest public art museum in Denmark outside Copenhagen: the local art association of 1847 began collecting some years earlier, and the first public exhibition opened on 6 January 1859 in the old Town Hall beside the cathedral. On 7 April 2004 ARoS opened in a new building of ten storeys and 20,700 m² designed by Schmidt Hammer Lassen, and the architectural vision was completed in 2011 with Ólafur Elíasson's circular skywalk, Your rainbow panorama, which made it one of the most visited museums in the country. In 2009 the museum marked its 150th anniversary with an exhibition repeating works from the first show, and the first phase of a further expansion, the underground Salling Gallery, opened in June 2025. The name comes from Áros, the Old Danish name of Aarhus, with the capitals hinting at ars, the Latin for art (Wikipedia, ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum).

What you'll find

• Your Rainbow Panorama - the circular coloured glass walkway on the roof.
• Boy - Ron Mueck's oversized crouching figure in the main hall.
• The Danish collections - golden age painting through to contemporary work.
• The nine spaces - the dark installation rooms on the lower level.

When to go

Open year-round and a reliable rainy day option in a city that gets plenty of rain. The rainbow walkway is best at dusk, when the city lights come on through the coloured glass, so check the late opening evening before you go. Weekend afternoons and school holidays are the busiest hours.

What to expect

The ticket is expensive by Danish museum standards and the rainbow walkway takes ten minutes, so you need to want the collections underneath it too. The roof gets crowded and everyone is photographing everyone else. Parts of the building are often closed for rehanging or building work, and signage inside is thin.

Nearby

The city hall and the Latin Quarter are alongside; the open-air town museum is a short bus ride.

Key facts