The new National Museum in Oslo opens its doors to the public this Saturday, June 11, in what will be the largest cultural building in the Nordic region.
On the eve of the opening, the museum hosted an official dinner with 200 guests. They included Queen Sonja, Crown Prince Haakon, Crown Princess Mette-Marit, Crown Princess Mary of Denmark, Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre (Labour Party), Culture Minister Anette Trettebergstuen (Labor Party), other members of the government and the architect Klaus Schuwerk.
“The new National Museum is the largest museum in the Nordic countries and is built to contain, preserve and display our amazing collection of visual arts, crafts, design and architecture dating back to ancient times and continuing to this day ,” explained the director from the National Museum, Karin Hindsbo.
With 13,000 square meters of exhibition space, Edvard Munch’s “The Scream” museum among 6,000 other works of art in its permanent collection.
Conceived 20 years ago, the building took more than eight years to complete on the fjord in central Oslo, at a cost of nearly €600 million.
The museum has suffered major delays – it was due to open in 2020 – and its architecture is not universally appreciated: it has sometimes been described as prison-like or hospital-like for its lack of windows.
But the inhabitants of Oslo have come to call it “the gray box”.
