Copenhagen tourist attractions

Looking for great Copenhagen attractions? Come visit The Workers Museum in the heart of the city. Below you can read about the exhibitions in the old Workers’ Union- and Meeting building.

Ground floor – the Childrens’ Workers Museum

On the ground floor of the Assembly Building, both young and old can play their way backwards in time at The Childrens’ Workers Museum. What was it like to be a working-class kid in the 1930s? What was everyday life and school like, and did children also have jobs? You can learn more about this when you have the chance to dress up in clogs, aprons and vests, like the ones children wore in the old days. You can play in the small worker’s apartment, play the brewery game, and see if you’re lucky at the pawn shop. You can also visit the old-fashioned schoolroom or dance at the dance school. Apart from all this, you can visit Prime Minister Thorvald Stauning at work, make a phone call, use stamps and a typewriter at the union office.

1st floor – the 1950s

In the exhibition about the 1950s, you can take a walk down the high street, visit the coffee bar and visit the apartment of the working-class Hansen family. On the high street, you can explore shops, products, clothes and TV-sets as they looked in the late 50s. How much did a TV cost, and what kind of coat, soap or washing machine did people have in the 1950s? In the Hansen home, you can see the colourful interior design of the decade and learn more about working-class family’s work – and everyday life.

The Coffee Bar from the 1950s offers up a Stjerne (Star) pilsner, a cup of coffee brewed with Rich’s substitute coffee or a piece of chocolate biscuit cake. When the coffee has been drunk, you can leave the 1950s and enter the big Assembly Hall.

The Assembly Hall

In the old assembly hall, you can sense the presence of history. Christmas tree celebrations, balls and revues have been held here. Look up at the hall’s patterned ceiling, feel the squeaky floor, where so many before you have walked, and walk around the balcony where speakers such as socialist Rosa Luxemburg, Nelson Mandela and previous minister of state Thorvald Stauning have stood.

2end floor – The Sørensen family

On the 2end floor, you can visit the Sørensen family exhibition, featuring a family that came to Copenhagen in 1885 to start a whole new life. The family moved around to several different apartments, until settling in the Østerbro quarter in 1915. This apartment sets the stage for the exhibition showing the family’s every-day life, work-life and spare time.
In the apartment lived Peter Martin Sørensen, workman, and Karin Marie Sørensen, housewife. With them living in the apartment, were also their flock of children, numbering eight in all. The family’s everyday life and work life for three generations can be tracked through the exhibition, which also features the Sørensen family’s original kitchen and living room from the apartment in Østerbro.

3rd floor – The industrial workforce

The industrial workforce exhibition tells the story of the transition from a farming-based society to an industrial society and the migration from country to the city.
The story is told of the struggle for better working conditions in factories, work-related injuries, development of new trades and the struggle for better wages and equal pay. Follow the story of the demand for an 8-hour workday, 8-hours of rest and 8 hours of freedom, and hear the workers’ stories from the shipyard to the sewing factory and to the industrial smithy.