The project developed by Kleihues + Schuwerk Architects presents a horizontal character that introduces a change of scale in the urban area, providing the building with uniqueness in contrast to the verticality generally found in the area. The building houses 13,000 square meters of spaces dedicated to permanent and temporary exhibitions, as well as a wide program of services to the community.
Using solid and natural materials resistant to the passage of time, seeking to allow the building to age with patina and dignity, such as slate, bronze, limestone, oak or marble, the building represents the importance that the National Museum wants to express, using warmer materials in window frames, doors, furniture, coverings or floors inside the museum.
The National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design of Norway by Kleihues + Schuwerk Architects. Photograph by Annar Bjørgli.
Project description by Kleihues + Schuwerk Architects
On 11 June 2022, the largest art museum in the Nordic countries will open in Oslo. In the new National Museum, you can experience older and modern art, architecture, design, crafts, fashion and contemporary art. The new National Museum will be a place for new ideas, inspiration and great cultural experiences.
The National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design was established in 2003 through the merging of the National Gallery (est. 1836), the Museum of Decorative Arts and Design (est. 1876), the Museum of Contemporary Art (est. 1988) and the National Museum of Architecture (est. 1975). In 2005, the National Touring Exhibitions also merged with the National Museum.
In the new premises of the consolidated museum, the collections from the former institutions are gathered under one roof. With its large exhibition rooms, the National Museum can now present more of the collection than has ever before been possible, in addition to presenting a rich programme of temporary exhibitions with works by Norwegian and international artists.
“The Collection” presents some 6,500 selected works from Norway’s largest collection of art, architecture and design – from antiquity to the present. Here you will find not just iconic works, but also surprises and groundbreaking artistic statements that have helped to shape our lives and society.
Chronologically arranged, the presentation shows in broad outline the history of the visual arts, design and crafts in Norway, together with major international works from the collection.
There are opportunities for participation, dialogue and reflection. For instance, the benches in the collection presentation are more than just benches. They are also learning stations equipped with objects and dialogue cards that provide new perspectives on the art.
With the new National Museum, Norway will for the first time have a unified museum for art, architecture, and design. One key reason for building a new museum was to create more room for the collection and to facilitate the telling of a more comprehensive story about the history of art, architecture, design, and craft.
With 54,600 square metres of floor space, the museum is the largest art museum in the Nordic countries. The building includes 13,000 square metres of exhibition areas for permanent and temporary exhibitions, various workshops where visitors can engage with art, a publicly accessible art library, several cafés, a museum shop, an auditorium and several rooms for meetings and gatherings. Most public areas are located towards the front of the building.
The part of the building furthest from the harbour houses, among other things, offices, conservation studios, various workshops and a photographic studio. The art storage units are also in the museum building and are a short distance from the conservation workshops and exhibition rooms.
The new museum is designed by Klaus Schuwerk, Kleihues + Schuwerk Architects. The company Kleihues + Schuwerk, which was established for the architectural competition for the National Museum, consists of the Naples-based architectural office Klaus Schuwerk and the Berlin-based Kleihues + Kleihues. The main architect is Klaus Schuwerk.
In 2008, the government decided to build the new National Museum at Vestbanetomten, next to Aker Brygge (wharf) in the centre of Oslo. The ground was partly owned by the state and partly by Oslo Municipality. The area had previously been the main station for Oslo’s westbound train lines. The station closed in 1990, after which the area was used as a parking lot, among other things. The two older yellow buildings in front of the museum are heritage-listed. The station building currently houses the Nobel Peace Centre, and the Station Master’s House, which belongs to the National Museum, has a museum shop and café.
In 2009, an open international architecture competition was announced. The competition programme was developed by the National Museum in collaboration with Statsbygg, the Norwegian government’s building commissioner. Of the 237 approved proposals, six proceeded to the second phase. The following year, ‘Forum Artis’ by Klaus Schuwerk was announced as the winner.
The competition particularly emphasised two functions:
• The memory function: flexible and appropriate rooms and facilities that can enable the museum to preserve the collections and keep them secure. This specifically applies to storage spaces for the collections and to functional conservation and workshop facilities.
• The meeting place function: functional and flexible rooms for exhibitions and the public – rooms that enable the museum to present a representative selection of visual art. These rooms should make it possible to display more of the museum’s collections than ever before.
The jury’s justification for the winning proposal states that the horizontal character of the building introduces a scale-shift in the urban area, giving the National Museum a uniqueness that balances well in the composition with Oslo City Hall and Akershus Fortress. The illuminated hall, the project’s dominating visual element, contributes to making the museum a monumental building, the elegance of which is its horizontality, in contrast to the verticality otherwise found in the area. The jury furthermore states that the project has a simplicity that gives the large area stringency and dignity. The museum’s simple expression stands in contrast to the urban area’s visual diversity.
Materials and Design
The architect Klaus Schuwerk emphasises the use of materials as essential for the National Museum’s expression: ‘The materials should stand the test of time, so that the building can age with patina and dignity.’ Solid and natural materials have been used, for instance slate, bronze, limestone, oak and marble. The museum’s facade and vestibule are clad with slate from Oppdal. The slate covers 24,000 square metres. Norway has a long tradition of using slate, not least for roofs. But in contrast to what is most common, the slate on the National Museum’s facade is cut across rather than along the grain. This has resulted is a rough surface that brings out the stone’s decorative qualities. Every stone is hand-selected and cut in blocks of varying height and width.
Marble is found several places in the building, for instance, around the windows in the exhibition areas. The window casings throughout the whole building are made of bronze. Bronze is also used for doorhandles and fittings. Oak is another prominent material in the new museum. In addition to slate, the vestibule walls are covered with panelling of stained oak. These are designed with an absorbent core to ensure good acoustics in the public spaces. Stained oak is used for doors and wall panels throughout the whole museum, and it is also used in the furnishings in the public areas and the library.
The flooring for the public areas consists of a sandstone called muschelkalk, from a quarry in southern Germany. In the exhibition rooms for the museum’s collection, the floor is made of oak. The architect has chosen to lay the floor boards with varying breadth. The wood comes from German oak forests and is processed in Denmark. Oak floors are also found in the library, the auditorium and other rooms in the museum.
The building’s signature element is the Light Hall, a 133-metre-long open hall that will be used for temporary exhibitions. The hall has 2,400 square metres of floor space and a ceiling height of about seven metres. The outer wall is made of panels of marble glass in varying sizes. The marble glass allows daylight to enter, but it is not completely transparent. The material consists of four-millimetre-thick sheets of marble laminated between two sheets of glass. The marble originates from Portugal. After dusk, the facade will be lit by interior LED lighting (ca. 9,000 diodes).
The architect Klaus Schuwerk has said he wants the mental picture of the National Museum to be that of a temple (the Light Hall), which sits atop a Norwegian mountain (the slate-clad part of the building), like the Parthenon atop the Acropolis in Athens:
“A museum is of course in a sense the temple of our time – and it sounds pretentious – but I’ve always wanted to design my own Parthenon. When I sat down to draw, I had an idea about a base, which is what the temple stands on, and which, in the new National Museum, is constituted by the stone facade. Inside this base would be a classic museum, a perfect building with a good order of rooms with good proportions”.
Klaus Schuwerk, quoted in translation from Ken Oppran, Nasjonalmuseet. Et monumentalbygg blir til, Forlaget Press, 2020, p. 20).
While the other exhibition areas in the museum are designed with classic floor plans, the Light Hall’s open and flexible solution represents what is modern about the museum building. On the inside, the large hall is divided only by two staircases. The rest of the room will vary depending on the temporary exhibitions that will be presented there. It is possible to divide the hall into two or three separate exhibition areas. The Light Hall fills the whole top floor of the front of the building.
