MagazineStep Inside Norway’s Stunning New Waterfront MuseumThe National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design opens its doors in Oslo

By Fred A. Bernstein

May 31, 2022

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An aerial view of the waterfront building.Iwan Baan

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There are more than just fjords in its future. Norway, famous for natural beauty, will become a cultural mecca on June 11 with the opening of its 587,000-square-foot National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design. Formed by the merger of four smaller institutions, it displays some 5,000 objects in roughly 90 rooms, making it, by some measures, the largest museum in Scandinavia. Works include paintings by favorite son Edvard Munch and models by Norwegian Pritzker Prize winner Sverre Fehn. But not everything is Nordic. Monet, Van Gogh, and Degas are also represented. The museum’s architect, German-born, Naples-based Klaus Schuwerk, won the competition in part, he believes, because his structure treats two older buildings on-site “with dignity.” 

Norway’s National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design.

Iwan Baan

Light hall, the largest space, is dedicated to temporary exhibitions.

Iwan Baan

Yet as it steps up the hill from Oslo’s waterfront, the new building makes its presence known. The biggest room is a 425-foot-long space for temporary exhibitions covered in a layer of marble thin enough to be translucent. At night the glowing box will be a beacon—fitting for a city where darkness lasts up to 18 hours in winter. Schuwerk, who partnered with Kleihues + Kleihues of Germany and Dyrvik Arkitekter of Norway on the project, was determined to make the building green. And there’s no better way to do that, he observes, than to use materials that can survive hundreds of years. “I fought to make the building strong,” says Schuwerk, comparing it to ancient edifices in his beloved Italy. “Now,” he adds, “it will last as long as the people of Norway want it to.” nasjonalmuseet.no