Viking Age Museum

With the world's most valuable collection from the Viking Age, including the world’s oldest and best-preserved Viking ships, the Viking Age Museum in Oslo has been hailed as one of the world’s most important museums. It contains Norway’s most important contribution to our world’s cultural heritage, and with the coming expansion and remodeling of the museum, it will be further elevated from a national museum to a leading international knowledge centre for the dissemination of knowledge about the Viking Age.

The expansion project fulfils the vision of elevating Norway’s cultural heritage and adding a new dimension to visiting the museum. To achieve that goal, a circle-shaped building, with roof and facade clad in locally extracted Norwegian slade, will be added to the existing museum, designed by Arnstein Arneberg in 1926, thereby uniting the new with the old in a clear, distinctive concept. The existing, cross-shaped building will take a prominent position in the unified building by simultaneously being the beginning and the end of the visit. Drawing a circle around the museum will open it up to its surroundings and create an inner courtyard, while also creating an iconic signature for the museum and thereby providing new opportunities to attract visitors. In fact, the project, once completed, is expected to double the visitor count to over 1 million per year.