Maniitsoq Museum

© Styrelsen for Dataforsyning og Infrastruktur
Maniitsoq Museum is housed in four listed colonial buildings from the second half of the 19th century. This beautiful two-storey house is the main building in which part of the collection is displayed. The timber houses originated in Norway, called »laftehus « and were used as living quarters for tradesmen. A great advantage of this type of house was that it could easily be dismantled and sailed to Greenland, where it could be rebuilt quickly.
FILIP GIELDA/VISIT GREENLAND, 2019

The Maniitsoq Museum opened on 25 October 1974 in the former town treasurer’s office on Imeqvej. Prior to 1974, the museum committee in Maniitsoq had used venues like the settlement hall for exhibitions. The four old colonial buildings from the second half of the 19th century, which today house the museum, were slated to be dismantled in 1970 at their original location on the waterfront to make way for an expansion of the town’s fish processing plant. At the request of the local council, a project was prepared to rebuild the four buildings.

The buildings were an assistant’s residence made of timber, an old shop, a half-timbered warehouse and a cooper’s workshop and a workshop building made of stone. They were re-erected at Illunnguit in Kirkegårdsdalen in the late 1970s, and in early 1977, the first buildings were ready for use.

Further reading

Read more about Culture in Greenland

  • Daniel Thorleifsen

    (b. 1962) MA. Director of the Greenland National Museum & Archives.

  • Bo Albrechtsen

    (b. 1968) MA. Director of the Greenlandic House in Aalborg.