The new Oslo National Museum is the latest mega project to open along the Norwegian capital\u2019s increasingly buzzing waterfront in the past couple of years. However, unlike its most recent predecessor, the kookily slanted-at-the-top Munch museum, its arrival and presence is more muted. And this despite its whopping 54,600...
Architect Klaus Schuwerk completes the Oslo National Museum, which prepares to open its doors to the public this weekendThe new Oslo National Museum is the latest mega project to open along the Norwegian capital’s increasingly buzzing waterfront in the past couple of years. However, unlike its most recent predecessor, the kookily slanted-at-the-top, its arrival and presence is more muted. And this despite its whopping 54,600 sq m size and impressive £510m price tag.
Lead architect Naples-based Klaus Schuwerk , credits the city he lives in, a place where there is no fake architecture, he says, and his architectural forefathers over thousands of years for the building’s design. In particular, he cites Leon Battista Alberti, Karl Friedrich Schinkel and Mies van der Rohe, without which this building would have been ‘unthinkable’.
A lot of the building’s allure and appeal is in fact its aura of calm and solidity in an urban area characterised by visual and architectural diversity and some messiness. The choice of an often local, sometimes noble, and always durable palette of materials plays an important role. A southern German shell limestone was selected for the floors of the public areas, while oak boards are used in the exhibition rooms.
Internally the exhibition rooms feature wooden floors and light-filled ceilings, while the central foyers or atriums on each floor have stone floors and textile ceilings. There are tantalising framed views through the galleries, into internal courtyards that contain sculptural works, or up long and elegant staircases, that provide a visual rest and change of pace, a necessity in a building with some 90 rooms, or 13,000 sq m, dedicated to permanent and temporary exhibitions.
Yet despite all the ‘noise’ around the project’s inception, the core idea and tone of the building are intact, inside and out. It’s a credit to both the architect’s determination regarding certain material and design choices , and the museum’s willingness to see it through, that this is the case. Most importantly, however, this is a building that feels comfortable and even inspiring to be in, and solid enough that it should still be here in hundreds of years’ time.
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