ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum

Look up. High above the street, a ring of coloured glass sits on top of a red brick cube. On a bright day it glows like a halo. People move slowly along inside it, small dark shapes against bands of red, orange, green and violet. From down here you can almost guess which colour each person is standing in. That ring is where most visitors end their visit. But the story of this museum starts much lower, and much earlier.

This is ARoS, the art museum of Aarhus, Denmark's second city. The name is a small piece of wordplay. Aros was the old name for the settlement that grew into Aarhus. It comes from Old Danish words for the mouth of a river. The capital letters in the middle also point to the Latin word ars, which means art. So the name joins two ideas: the city's oldest identity and the reason the building exists.

The building is new, but the institution is not. Aarhus has had a public art museum since the mid-nineteenth century. That makes it one of the oldest public art museums in Denmark outside Copenhagen. For most of its life, the collection lived in more modest buildings. Then, in 2004, it moved here. The Danish architects Schmidt Hammer Lassen designed the new home as a large, almost closed cube of red brick. From the outside, it looks calm and solid. Inside, it opens up completely.

Step through the doors and you enter what the architects call the museum street. It is a tall, open space that cuts through the building from one side to the other. Light falls from above. Voices carry and soften. Rising through this space is a white spiral staircase. It curves upward floor after floor, and many visitors notice a quiet echo of the Guggenheim in New York. Here the spiral is not the gallery itself. It is the spine that connects the galleries to each other.

Now, a surprise that many first-time visitors miss. ARoS goes down as well as up. Below street level is a series of dark galleries known as The Nine Spaces. The walls are black. The lighting is low and precise. These rooms are made for video, light and installation art — works that need darkness to exist. Coming down here after the bright foyer feels like walking into a cinema. Give your eyes a moment. The rooms reward patience.

Back on the upper floors, the permanent collection runs across roughly two centuries. One strong thread is the Danish Golden Age. That was a period in the first half of the nineteenth century when Danish painters produced clear, quiet landscapes and portraits. You will see soft northern light, careful skies, and everyday scenes painted with real tenderness. If you know only modern Scandinavian design, these rooms show where some of that clarity began.

The collection then moves forward into modernism and contemporary art, both Danish and international. The galleries change regularly, so the exact works on view will differ from visit to visit. That is part of the character of ARoS. It treats the permanent collection as something to rearrange and question, not as a fixed display. Temporary exhibitions also take over large parts of the building, so check what is on before you plan your route.

And then there is the boy. On one of the lower gallery levels, a giant figure of a young boy crouches on the floor. This is Boy, by the Australian-born sculptor Ron Mueck. Mueck is known for figures that look almost alive — every crease of skin, every eyelash, every fold of fabric. But he plays with scale. This boy is several metres tall. He squats with his arms around his knees, and he looks sideways with a wary, uncertain expression.

Stand close and look at the hands and feet. You can see veins, small marks, even the texture of the soles. Then step back and the scale hits you again. Many people say the figure feels both huge and very fragile. Children often react first, with a mix of delight and nervousness. Adults tend to go quiet. It is a strange experience: something so large that still seems to need protection.

Now, the ring on the roof. It is called Your Rainbow Panorama, and it is a work by the Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson. It opened in 2011. It is a circular walkway, about 150 metres around, enclosed in glass that runs through the full colour spectrum. As you walk, the colour around you slowly shifts. The city outside shifts with it — first warm and red, then green, then cool and blue.

Here is the detail many visitors only notice later. Eliasson's title uses the word your. The work is not only the glass. It is your own walk, your own pace, and the way your eyes adjust. Stay in one colour for a minute and the world starts to look normal again. Then move into the next band, and the change feels sharp. The piece is partly about the city, and partly about how your own seeing works.

From up here, Aarhus spreads out in every direction. You can pick out the old town centre and the cathedral tower. Toward the east, you can see the harbour and the water of the bay. On one side, the low roofs of the city run toward green hills. Below you, close by, is the concert hall area and the streets that lead into the centre. Walk the full circle at least once. Then walk it again more slowly.

When you come back down, pause in the street-level foyer for a moment. Look up through the open space to where the spiral ends. Somewhere above you, people are walking through colour, the boy is still crouched on his floor, and the dark rooms below are still running their films. When you step outside, turn around and look at the red brick once more. The ring on top will look a little different now — because you have been inside it.