Eldheimar
Volcano museum on Heimaey built over a house dug out of the ash of the 1973 eruption.
On 23 January 1973 a fissure opened on the eastern edge of Heimaey without warning. The whole population of more than five thousand was taken off the island by fishing boat within hours, and over the five months that followed the eruption of Eldfell buried or burned some four hundred houses. Eldheimar was built over one of them, the house at Gerdisbraut 10, which was dug out of the tephra more than thirty years later and left standing where it was found, split open and filled with ash.
The museum opened in 2014 and was designed by the architect Margret Kristin Gunnarsdottir with Axel Hallkell Johannesson and the landscape architect Kristin Olafsdottir; the interactive displays were made by Gagarin. A dark hall wraps around the ruin, with photographs, recordings and objects recovered from the ash, and an audio guide follows the accounts of residents. Upstairs a second exhibition deals with Surtsey, the island that rose from the sea south-west of Heimaey between 1963 and 1967 and is now a UNESCO World Heritage site closed to the public.
Highlights
- Built over the excavated house at Gerdisbraut 10, left as it was found
- Accounts of the overnight evacuation of Heimaey in January 1973
- Upper floor devoted to the birth of Surtsey between 1963 and 1967
- Winner of the Icelandic Design Award in 2015
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