The Reykjavík City Museum consists of five different exhibitions around the city, each with a different story to tell about the city’s history and culture. Visitors discover the history and daily life of Reykjavík’s people from the Viking Age to modern times.
The Reykjavík City Museum’s goal is to enhance interest, understanding and respect for Reykjavík‘s city. The museum cohort includes the Árbær Open-Air Museum, the Settlement Exhibition, the Reykjavík Museum of Photography, Reykjavík Maritime Museum, and Víðey Island.
Árbær Open-Air Museum
Arbær Open-Air museum opened in 1957 and contains over twenty old buildings. The buildings come from different places around the Reykjavík area, and the museum builders moved them to the Árbaer area to form a village. Each building displays information about a particular era of Reykjavík’s history. Visitors can spend an entire afternoon walking down the street and into Reykjavík’s past.
The Settlement Exhibition
The Settlement Exhibition tells the story of the city’s first Viking age settlers. This interactive exhibition uses scholars’ theories about the life and work of the first settlers. The focus of the exhibition is an excavated Viking-age long house from the Settlement Age (874 – 930 AD). You can see interesting replicas of how the longhouse probably looked, as well as what Reykjavík’s landscape looked like to the first settlers.
GPS: 64.147294 N, -21.942687 W
The Reykjavík Maritime Museum
The Reykjavík Maritime Museum is a part of Reykjavík’s Old Harbour area. Its location is a renovated fish freezing plant. This museum exhibits Icelandic maritime history throughout the ages. Moreso, one of the main attractions is the coast guard ship Óðinn.
GPS: 64.153105 N, -21.950149 W
Víðey Island
People first settled Víðey island around 900 AD. In 1225, the priest Þorvaldur Gissurarson founded a monastery on the island with the assistance of scholar and chieftain Snorri Sturluson. Iceland’s first treasurer, Skúli Magnusson, had his official residence on Víðey in the 18th century. He founded Iceland’s first industrial enterprise, a woollens workshop, starting the urbanization of the area. Víðey has also been a governor’s house and a dairy farm. There is plenty of nature to enjoy on the island, especially bird and plant life, with nice walking trails around the island. Víðey is also home to the Imagine Peace Tower that Yoko Ono had built in Iceland to honor John Lennon. Walking around the and viewing the island is interesting and fun. A ferry operates between the island and Reykjavik on a daily schedule.
GPS: 64.164301 N, -21.852902 W
Museum of Photography
This museum’s exhibitions focus on Icelandic photography and works of foreign photographers. The museum exhibits both historical and contemporary photography in an artistic, social and cultural context. The collection currently has approximately six million photographs. The oldest photos date from about 1860, the most recent from 2014. The museum preserves photographs from both professional and amateur photographers. Professional photographs include portrait and press photographers. In addition, the museum preserves personal photo collections, albums, and family photographs.
GPS: 64.14935, -21.94152
