New Viking Ship Museum plans
Danish architecture firm AART has been chosen to expand Oslo’s Viking Ship Museum on Bygdøy
Photo: AART Architects / Statsbygg / NRK
“Naust,” the design for the new Viking Age Museum, will incorporate the existing Viking Ship Museum.
Christopher Manion
The Local
The firm’s circular design, “Naust,” was chosen for the building on the Bygdøy peninsula in Oslo that will become the Viking Age Museum, it was announced on July 1.
“This contribution provides a very good solution to a complicated task,” Synnøve Lyssand Sandberg of the Norwegian Directorate of Public Construction and Property (Statsbygg) said.
“The building has good functionality for the public. Those who want a short visit will be able to get a good overview and an experience of ships and collection. At the same time there will be ample opportunity for further study and exploration,” she added.
The existing Viking Ship Building from 1926 will be incorporated into the new circular design.
Naust was one of three proposals presented by architectural firms that have been in negotiations with Statsbygg since April.
The new building will be 13,000 square meters, making it three times as large as the current museum.
“With its bold circular shape, the extension will create a new iconic signature for the museum, while making room for an intuitive flow of exhibitions and preserving the Viking Ship Building as a prominent, totally integral part of the new museum and the surrounding countryside,” the firm wrote.
Statsbygg said that the total price of the project remains unknown. “That will first come in the design phase, but AART came out on top when we considered fees and how they work. The economics also played in to the selection process,” Statsbygg communications director Hege Njaa Aschim said.
Norway’s education and research minister, Torbjørn Røe Isaksen, has said that construction can start at the earliest around 2020. He said there is full political backing for the project and was sure that the state would allocate money to preserve such an important piece of Nordic cultural history.
“These are our pyramids, a part of world heritage. Viking ships are also one of our major tourist destinations,” he said in a statement earlier this spring.
This article was originally published on The Local.
It also appeared in the July 15, 2016, issue of The Norwegian American. To subscribe, visit SUBSCRIBE or call us at (206) 784-4617.
