In the town of Akranes, not far from the capital Reykjavík, a handful of historic buildings stand together at Garðar. This spot is home to the Akranes Folk Museum (Byggðasafnið í Görðum Akranesi), a place dedicated to keeping the memory of daily life and work in the Akranes area alive for future generations.
A gathering of houses and history
What sets this museum apart is its open-air approach. Several homes from the 19th and 20th centuries have been moved here from their original sites nearby, creating a small village of old timber and stone. Among these is the Garðar house, built in 1876 as a parsonage. It stands out in Icelandic architectural history as the country’s oldest surviving concrete house. The building was the first home of the museum when it opened its doors in 1959, and today it offers a look at the interiors of an upper-class Icelandic home from the late 1800s.
Other buildings reflect the varied lives of Akranes’ residents. Sandar-Vestri, put up in 1901, gives a glimpse into the life of working-class families. Neðri-Sýrupartur, dating from 1875, is the oldest timber house surviving in the area. Fróðá, constructed in 1938, was once a bustling net and sail workshop, while Stúkuhúsið started life as a barn in 1916 before serving as a meeting house for the temperance movement. Geirsstaðir, from 1903, functioned as both a family home and a preschool.
The Sigurfari and the tools of the trade
Moored on land beside the buildings is a large oak fishing vessel called Sigurfari (Kútter Sigurfari). Built in England in 1885, this 86-tonne ketch spent more than thirty years fishing off Icelandic shores and later was used in the Faroe Islands until the 1970s. Today, Sigurfari stands as the only preserved ship of its type remaining in Iceland. Although no longer accessible to climb aboard, it remains an important feature of the museum, highlighting the central role of fishing in local life.
Inside the exhibition halls, visitors find a wide array of objects reflecting the day-to-day reality of generations past. The collection covers everything from household utensils and clothing to the tools used by farmers, fishermen, and craftsmen. There are examples of medical equipment, as well as a portion of a traditional turf house, evoking the resourceful building methods needed to withstand the Icelandic weather.
It was thanks to the efforts of Jón M. Guðjónsson, a local pastor, that the museum’s collection began to take shape. In the decade before the museum opened, Guðjónsson was already gathering artefacts from around Akranes. By 1959, his collection contained well over a thousand objects, forming the heart of the museum’s holdings today.
