Vrak is a museum at Royal Djurgården in Stockholm. The exhibitions and website, together with trend scanning and collaborative partnerships with other countries around the Baltic Sea, make the Museum of Wrecks more than just a museum building – the interactive, multi-channel experience enables you to live history in the making.
With wrecks and other discoveries as our point of departure, we tell the stories of people who have depended on the sea for their livelihoods, used it as a sea route, a battlefield – and a graveyard. The unknown world of the Baltic Sea is brought to life in exhibitions and on the museum’s website.
The museum is located on Royal Djurgården, a national urban park overlooking the Baltic Sea and Stockholm’s lively boat traffic. Nearby are former naval shipyards and shipwrecks.
The functionalist architect Paul Hedqvist designed the boat hangar from the 1940s that now houses the museum. His more well-known works include Skatteskrapan, the DN building and Västerbron Bridge.
The museum’s diving maritime archaeologists are always making new discoveries and uncovering new knowledge about the unique cultural heritage of the Baltic Sea. Archaeological investigations and research serve as the foundation for the museum’s content.
With the salvage of the Vasa in the early 1960s, the subject of maritime archaeology evolved into a science. The Maritime Museum in Stockholm had archaeologist divers at the time and was a leader in the field for several decades. Starting in 2021, the Museum of Wrecks took over this position.
The museum is part of the state-run National Maritime and Transport Museums (SMTM) together with the Naval Museum, the Maritime Museum, the Vasa Museum and the Railway Museum.