Nyboder Mindestuer, Sankt Pauls Gade 24

Life inside the yellow naval barracks

Nyboder Mindestuer occupies one of the earliest surviving houses in Nyboder, the historic residential quarter built in the 17th century to house sailors of the Royal Danish Navy and their families. Step through the door at Sankt Pauls Gade 24 and you leave modern Copenhagen behind, entering compact rooms that once formed part of a larger military housing experiment. The terraced house is part of a long row of characteristic "Nyboder yellow" buildings, their simple rhythm and repeated gables forming a distinctive streetscape. Inside, the museum preserves that same modest scale: narrow staircases, low ceilings, and multi-purpose rooms that had to accommodate cooking, sleeping and family life for those tied to long years of naval service.

Rooms frozen in different centuries

The heart of the museum lies in its carefully reconstructed interiors. Different rooms are arranged to represent various periods, typically spanning the 17th to 19th centuries, showing how living standards and household objects evolved as Denmark’s navy and society changed. You might see a sparsely furnished early room with simple wooden furniture and a small stove, contrasted with later interiors featuring more textiles, decorative objects and improved kitchen arrangements. Everyday items – children’s toys, uniforms, household tools and religious prints – help to tell stories of families who balanced the hardships of duty with ordinary domestic routines.

A privileged yet demanding community

Nyboder was always more than just housing. The naval authorities created an entire micro-society here, with its own schools, hospital and policing. In exchange, men were bound to long terms of military service, sometimes up to two decades, anchoring families to a strict but relatively secure environment. The museum highlights this tension between privilege and obligation. Exhibits and information panels explain how families navigated cramped conditions, irregular pay, and the constant risk of war at sea, while still forming tight-knit networks and traditions that gave Nyboder its strong sense of identity.

Architecture shaped by the Danish navy

Architecturally, the house reflects the functional thinking of royal builders working for the navy. The long terraces were laid out in orderly rows, with simple façades and repeated doorways that made it easy to add or adapt apartments as the population grew. Nyboder Mindestuer preserves details such as timber beams, small-paned windows and shared circulation spaces that reveal how multiple households fitted into a single block. These features are part of the reason Nyboder is considered one of Copenhagen’s most distinctive historic quarters, an early example of purpose-built workers’ housing on a large urban scale.

A quiet corner of a living neighborhood

Although the museum is open only limited hours, usually on Sundays, the surrounding streets remain very much alive. Nyboder is still inhabited, with many dwellings reserved for defence personnel, and the yellow rows form a calm pocket between busier city districts. Visiting Nyboder Mindestuer is therefore as much about the atmosphere outside as the exhibits within: cobbled lanes, long sightlines of terraced houses, and the nearby presence of St. Paul’s Church and other 19th-century buildings. Together they offer a compact, rewarding glimpse into how military, urban and family history intersected in this unusual Copenhagen neighborhood.