June 1990: a new museum for Sweden's famed Vasa warship

Abstract

In No. 142 Museum reported on the extraordinary fate of the Wasa—pride of the Swedish navy, but which capsized on her maiden trip in 1628, lost for more than four centuries in the depths of Stockholm harbour, located by a private researcher, Anders Franzén in 1956, and housed in a temporary museum since 1962.Now called the Vasa (‘V’ has replaced ‘W’ in contemporary Swedish usage), she is housed in a brand new museum on the island of Djurgården in Stockholm, scheduled for inauguration in mid‐June 1990.The new Vasa Museum was designed by the Swedish architects Göran Månsson and Marianne Dahlbäck, and can be described as a large, soft‐copper tent. In this most unusual building one can see the large, dark ship from seven different levels. Exhibitions will visualize the ship and its history, the people who built and manned her and Swedish society at that time. The Vasa's lower masts, of which two are original, will be stepped.Visitors may walk through a full‐size copy of the upper gun‐deck, complete with gun‐carriages, equipment and crew or gather knowledge about the ship through a computer.