The National Museum – Architecture

Narrator
Not all museums have their own vault… 

This early 19th century whitewashed building – now home to The Museum of Architecture – was originally designed for an entirely different purpose rather than displaying Norway’s architectural heritage.  

Here’s Eirik Bøhn, curator at the National Museum, to tell us more… 

Eirik Bøhn 
The building is a masterpiece of classical architecture. Its austere, classical style was in keeping with its intended function.  

It was originally built to home Norway’s recently founded National Bank – a practically and symbolically important institution for the country – that in 1814 had ceded from its union with Denmark and established a parliament.  

The building was designed by the country’s first professionally trained architect, Christian Heinrich Grosch.  

Grosch had trained in Denmark and established Norway’s first proper architectural practice, and later became the country’s first superintendent of public works and city planning.  

The building was completed in 1830 and housed the National Bank until 1906, when the State Archives moved in. At this point, the building was expanded with an archival wing designed by the architect Henry Bucher.  

At the beginning of the new millennium, the renowned Norwegian architect Sverre Fehn was tasked with converting the building to The Museum of Architecture. Fehn added a new pavilion in glass and concrete, and the museum opened its doors to the public in 2008. 

Narrator
Norway’s National Gallery was established in 1842. But, it was only in the 1970s that a museum of architecture got underway…

Eirik Bøhn
The institution sprang from within the field of practicing architecture, rather than art history. And, in 1975, the National Association of Norwegian Architects established the first architectural museum. It occupied different spaces throughout the city before settling here in 2008. 

Narrator
The museum shows temporary exhibitions about architecture and, with more than 300,000 artifacts, has Norway's largest collection of architectural drawings and models, spanning from the 1830s to the present day. 

Eirik Bøhn 
In its own right, the museum building is a meeting of important periods in Norwegian architectural history.  

Contrasting yet reflecting each other, the 19th century building, and its 21st century pavilion, reflects both a young nation’s strife for independence and national monuments, and the last work of perhaps the first Norwegian architect to be widely celebrated outside of the country, Sverre Fehn.  

Bilde: Nasjonalmuseet – Arkitektur. Photo: Ina Wesenberg / Nasjonalmuseet