The National Museum of Art in Norway, also known simply as the National Museum, shortened NaM (Norwegian: Nasjonalmuseet for kunst) is a Norwegian state-owned museum in Oslo. It holds the Norwegian state’s public collection of art, architecture, and design objects. The collection totals over 400.000 works, amongst them the first copy of Edvard Munch’sThe Scream from 1893.
The National Museum was established in 2003 by the merging of the Museum of Architecture, The Museum of Industrial Art, The Museum of contemporary Art, the Museum of Decorative Arts and Design, the Museum of Contemporary Art, and the National Gallery of Norway. In 2022, the museum opened its new building at Vestbanehallen at the centre of Oslo, housing the entirety of the collections from these previous museums. The current director of the museum is Karen Hindsbo.
A new building to house the National Museum was constructed on Vestbanen in Oslo, and opened in June 2022. The National Gallery was closed temporarily from 13 January 2019 until the new National Museum opened. The gallery served as storage for the collections until its move to the new National Museum. The Museum for Contemporary Art was last open on 3 September 2017. A large portion of the collection will be shown at the new National Museum. The contemporary art will for the first time ever be presented in a collection in partnership with design, crafts, and older art. This will be the biggest and most important exhibited collection in Norway. Exhibits will be evaluated, photographed, and conserved before they are packed away and relocated to storage, and eventually to the new museum. This is extensive work and a large part of the preparations for the new National Museum. The Art Industry Museum closed on 16 October 2016 due to preparations for the relocation into the new National Museum.
In the spring of 2008 the government decided that the new building for the National Museum would be located at Vestbanen in place of the old Oslo West Station train station at Aker Brygge. It was originally planned to open in 2020. In November 2010 the German architecture company Kleihues + Schuwerk won the international architecture competition with the project Forum Artis. A cohesive new building was one of the preconceptions for the establishment of the National Museum in 2003. Just ten years after Norway’s first public art museum was completed, the museum’s administration realized the National Gallery’s building was too small, other museum buildings were also in need of bigger more satisfactory premises. The same thing goes for all the exhibitions of the National Museum: Art Industry Museum, the Architecture Museum, and the Museum for Contemporary Art. Architecture competitions for expansion at Tullinløkka were previously held in 1972 and 1995 but didn’t lead to anything. In spring 2012 the pre-project was completed and delivered to the culture department. The government presented the project on 22 March 2013 with a price of approximately 5.3 billion Norwegian kroner. On 6 June 2013 the Stortinget decreed the new building to be within a cost frame of 5,327 billion kroner. The new National Museum will have an exhibition area of 13,000 m² and will be the largest art museum in the Nordic Countries. The National Museum and Statbygg have together established the information centre Mellomstasjonen. Up until the museum opens you can get to know the building project and the plans for the new museum, as well as participate in breakfast meetings, artist’s discussions and many other things.
