Norway has announced the date for opening the gates of its new National Museum to public .The new museum will be the largest art museum in the Nordic region. The Museum in Oslo, officially called National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, will now open on June 11, 2022.
The museum has been under construction for seven years. It was initially scheduled to open in 2020 but due to the covid restrictions, the opening was delayed.
The new museum will showcase the collections of three of Norway’s most important art institutions—the former Kunstindustrimuseet, the Museum of Contemporary Art, and the National Gallery—under one roof. Among its gems are an impressive selection of work by Edward Munch, including The Scream.
The $273 million expansion includes a space of 54000 square meters, including 13000 square meters of exhibition space. It makes the institution the largest museum in the Nordic region, bigger than international counterparts such as the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and the Guggenheim Bilbao.
Ahead of its official opening, the museum—eager to commune with the public after a year of delays—has opened its doors early to allow visitors to venture inside while the art is being installed. “We are inviting visitors to join us and have a look inside while the art is being mounted and the museum is taking shape,” the museum’s director Karin Hindsbo said in a statement.
The new museum is designed by German architects Kleihues and Schuwerk. Public can view the interiors of the new museum after local public-health restrictions are lifted.
The new national museum will display more than 5,000 artworks spanning antiquity to the present. The collections now housed by the museum have been inaccessible to the public for years: the former Kunstindustrimuseet closed in 2016; the Museum of Contemporary Art closed in 2017; and the National Gallery closed in 2019.
The vast new building has two stories and 90 galleries, cafés, a shop, and the largest art library in the Nordic region. But its architectural hallmark is a spectacular new illuminated exhibition space on the roof called the Light Hall. The 2,400-square-meter space will be reserved for temporary exhibitions, the first of which will be a survey of Norwegian contemporary art. The museum also boasts an open-air roof terrace looking out over Oslo’s harbor, promenade, and fjord.
Built by Norway’s government building commissioner Statsbygg, the museum has also prioritized sustainability, designed to emit 50 percent less greenhouse gasses than current building standards.