Oslo’s Viking Museum is planning a new building that will triple the size of the present building, which focuses on Viking ships that have been excavated and preserved.
The new building, nearly circular, will connect to the existing building and will allow the museum, which is operated by Oslo University, to show a much wider slice of its collections, and to host more temporary exhibitions. A Danish firm’s design proposal was chosen in competition.
The new building, whose cost is not yet known, will start construction by 2020. The museum, on Oslo’s Bygdoy peninsula, is not only an important tourism attraction, it also plays a key role in Norway’s sense of itself. Torbjorn Roe Isaksen, the Minister of Education and Research describes it: “These are our pyramids, a part of world heritage. Viking ships are also one of our major tourist destinations.”
