Do not judge the National Museum by its poor location

The New National Museum is shamefully hidden behind an old Train station. You can almost miss it when you pass the Town Hall.

Understand me right; I love the museum, maybe not so much the exterior, and it is blocked behind the Old train station, which today is the Nobel peace center. In my opinion, it could have been so much better if they at least had pulled down the house next door to the Peace center. Then the entrance would have been much more welcoming, and when sitting in the museum cafe, you could view the Oslo fjord and Akershus Fortress.

Merger of four museums

The four museums were The National galley, The art industry museum, The Architecture Museum, and the Museum of contemporary art. The National Museum opened in 2022 and is the largest museum in the north of Europe. We are very proud of the new museums, especially since we also got the new Munch museum just a year earlier. Therefore, for art lovers, there are at least two excellent reasons for coming to Oslo now.

The Art Industry Museum

When you first enter the building, you realize how grand it is. Huge exhibition rooms. Since I work within the theatre business and costumes were a part of my education, The Art Industry Museum was my favorite of the previous four museums. Also, its collection of the domestic design was one of my favorites. I loved the old museum, so I was skeptical of their move to this house and feared that they should be a less prominent part of this new museum.

I was certainly not disappointed when I first saw how a large part of this new house was dedicated to the old museum. The fashion display is nicely put together, and the royal collection is a dominant part of the exhibition. It is so much to see only here, so I needed more than one visit to see this, even though I had seen much of it before. I love it.

The National Gallery

The old National Gallery had many paintings that greatly influenced Norwegian art history. So many of the images from the 20th century are woven into the Norwegian folk-soul, and we learned about them from school books. In this post, there is no point in showing all the paintings of importance, because I want you to go and visit the museum yourself.

I will only point out one specific painting in this post: Brudeferden på Hardangerfjorden, by Tidemand and Gude. This is one of Norway’s most famous paintings from the national romantic period. What is notable here is that Gude paints the landscape, and Tidemand the people in this painting.

The National Museum

The collection exhibition presents some 6,500 works from Norway’s most extensive collection of art, architecture, and design – from antiquity to the present. Norwegian art, design, and architecture are shown here internationally. This building has so many treasures; you must see it yourself.

The museum has an extensive library of books on art, magazines, and information on museums worldwide. You also find a big shop on the ground floor, a large cafe, and in the summer a roof terrace. What more can one expect from a museum? I will be happy to show anyone around this fantastic building.