--- title: "Copenhagen Design Guide: Hospitals, Hotels and Room 606" url: https://quietmenace.com/travel/copenhagen-design-guide/ author: Quiet Menace Editors section: Travel published: 2026-10-05 updated: 2026-10-05 topics: City Guides, Furniture, Mid-Century Modern, Travel Guides --- # Copenhagen Design Guide: Hospitals, Hotels and Room 606 > A design museum in an eighteenth-century hospital, a hotel built down to the cutlery and a square that has sold furniture since 1925. In Copenhagen there is a hotel room that has not changed its mind since 1960. Room 606 at the hotel Arne Jacobsen designed for SAS still has its grey and blue-green palette, its wengé wood and the furniture he drew for the building, and it is the only room in the hotel left with his original decor. That a hotel would keep one room as a working period piece says a lot about how this city treats design. ## A museum in a hospital Start at Designmuseum Danmark, because everything else makes more sense afterward. The museum was founded in 1890 by the Confederation of Danish Industries and the Ny Carlsberg Museumslegat, and since 1926 it has occupied the former Royal Frederik's Hospital, built from 1752 to 1757 under King Frederik V to designs by Nicolai Eigtved and Lauritz de Thurah. The conversion matters as much as the collection. The architect and furniture designer Kaare Klint adapted the old hospital wards with Ivar Bentsen in the 1920s and then furnished the whole museum himself, designing its entire interior inventory. So the building is a lesson in the thing it exhibits, rococo bones fitted out by one of the founding figures of modern Danish furniture. The museum closed in 2020 for a major renovation and reopened on June 19, 2022. Check [the museum's own history page](https://designmuseum.dk/en/om-museet-2/history-architecture/) and current exhibition schedule before you go, since galleries rotate and some close for installation. ![Wooden chairs displayed in a modern museum exhibition](https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1775722937082-9c5cbd82a220?w=1600&h=1067&q=80&auto=format&fit=crop) *Chairs as exhibits, the way Danish design museums like to show them Photo by Serenay Bayar on Unsplash* ## Jacobsen's total hotel Arne Jacobsen designed the SAS hotel between 1956 and 1960, and he did not stop at the building. The interiors and fittings were his too, and the Egg and Swan chairs were designed for the hotel. It has changed names more than once since, so look it up by its history rather than by an old brand name. Even if you are not staying, the building is worth seeing as an argument. Jacobsen treated a commercial tower as a single object, from the facade to the door handles, and the chairs he made for it went on to outlive the original fit-out by decades. The story of the Egg, from hotel lobby to the auction houses, is in our [history of the Arne Jacobsen Egg chair](https://quietmenace.com/design/arne-jacobsen-egg-chair/). ## Amagertorv and the shopping streets Most visitors arrive on Strøget, the long pedestrian shopping route that became traffic-free in 1962, and most of it is the same high street you can see anywhere. The exception is Amagertorv, the square at its middle, dominated by the Stork Fountain, a gift built in 1894 for the silver wedding anniversary of the future Frederik VIII and Crown Princess Louise. The square was the city's main marketplace for centuries, and most of its buildings date from after the fire of 1795. Two addresses on and around the square are worth your time. Illums Bolighus was founded in 1925 as BO by the businessman Kaj Dessau, working with the artistic consultant Brita Drewsen, and the brand still keeps its flagship on Amagertorv. It sells furniture, lighting and interior design, and it works as a kind of department store of Danish taste. A short walk away, HAY House is the global flagship of the company Rolf and Mette Hay built. In 2025 HAY also moved its design and product development teams into a new creative headquarters behind one of the colored facades of Nyhavn, a short walk away. The Hays are good at making Danish modernism feel young without making it cute, which is harder than it sounds. Like any shop, check before you go. Store layouts change, and concessions inside the bigger stores move from season to season. ![Poster showing a century of Danish lighting designs](https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1768203629801-c89a6d642c1f?w=1600&h=1067&q=80&auto=format&fit=crop) *A century of Danish lamps on one sheet of paper Photo by Lee Milo on Unsplash* ## Get out of town to Louisiana The best design day in Copenhagen is partly outside it. The Louisiana Museum of Modern Art sits on the Øresund coast at Humlebæk, about 35 kilometers north of the center. The businessman and cheese wholesaler Knud W. Jensen bought the abandoned estate in 1955 and opened the museum in 1958, in buildings by the young architects Vilhelm Wohlert and Jørgen Bo. The odd name comes from the property's first owner, Alexander Brun, who named the estate after his three wives, all of them called Louise. The architecture is the reason to go. The buildings were set into the old estate's garden on the coast, and the walk between the galleries is half the experience. Go on a clear day and leave time to sit outside by the water. ## When to go, and what to read first June is the month that matters. The 3daysofdesign festival takes over showrooms, galleries and cultural spaces across the city each year, and the 2026 edition ran from June 10 to 12. Expect launches, open studios and crowds. If you prefer the furniture without the crowds, any other month is quieter. Copenhagen was also the UNESCO-UIA World Capital of Architecture in 2023, a reminder that the buildings deserve as much attention as the chairs inside them. For background reading, our pieces on [Bang and Olufsen's design history](https://quietmenace.com/tech/bang-olufsen-design-history/) and on [USM Haller modular furniture](https://quietmenace.com/design/usm-haller-modular-furniture/) set Danish and Swiss modernism side by side. If you are building a design-focused trip around Europe, our [Milan Design Week guide](https://quietmenace.com/travel/milan-design-week-guide/) covers the April counterpart to 3daysofdesign. More in our [furniture](https://quietmenace.com/topics/furniture/) and [mid-century modern](https://quietmenace.com/topics/mid-century-modern/) archives, our [city guides](https://quietmenace.com/topics/city-guides/) and the full [Travel section](https://quietmenace.com/travel/). On the way back across Amagertorv, stop at the Stork Fountain. It was an anniversary present in 1894, and Illums Bolighus has been selling furniture on the square around it since 1925, when it was still called BO. --- Filed under: [City Guides](https://quietmenace.com/topics/city-guides/), [Furniture](https://quietmenace.com/topics/furniture/), [Mid-Century Modern](https://quietmenace.com/topics/mid-century-modern/), [Travel Guides](https://quietmenace.com/topics/travel-guides/) Hero image: Photo by Nick Karvounis on Unsplash (Unsplash License)