Located on Oslo’s waterfront, MUNCH is the new home to the world's largest collection of works by Norwegian artist Edvard Munch. The new Munch is not only a facility to safeguard and exhibit a fundamental heritage in the history of Norwegian culture. With its attractive day-to-day activities such as concerts, lectures or children workshops the new MUNCH has already become an attractive destination for tourists and citizens alike, anchoring the museum in the new neighborhood of Bjørvika. Since its opening in October 2021, the new MUNCH has been visited by more than 1,5 million visitors, representing an extraordinary success.
Its ascending itinerary connects the public foyer which houses recreational, commercial, cultural and gastronomic uses, with the rooftop terraces/observatory/club, which parallel to the discovery of Edvard Munch’s work offer views onto the different historical strata of the city of Oslo. This gesture of conceiving the vertical communications system as a public space/ascending vantage point is the essence of the heterodox character generated by developing a museum vertically. There is more, however: on this itinerary the visitors discover other types of facilities, namely restaurant and café, administrative offices, the research library, restauration, and education departments, which denote a programmatic complexity that goes beyond the conventional idea of the museum as a set of exhibition spaces to be visited and a series of invisible facilities from which the institution is managed.
The new MUNCH contributes to the creation of a collective environmental awareness through architecture reinforcing its role as a device for communication and construction of a better future for everyone, confronting climate change as a global issue. Complying with requirements on passive house level with half the greenhouse gas emissions compared to a conventional building, the construction of the new MUNCH has been based on aspirations such as lightness, use of low-carbon concrete, recycled materials, and applications of natural ventilation and passive cooling techniques.
The façades of the new MUNCH, finished in recycled perforated aluminum with different degrees of transparency give rise to an enigmatic, evanescent perception of the building, which reacts to the slight stimuli generated by Oslo’s extraordinary light conditions, thereby creating very different images depending on the time of day.
CREDITS
ARCHITECT: estudioHerreros (Juan Herreros – Jens Richter)
CLIENT: Oslo Kommune, Kultur- og idrettsbygg (KID)
PROJECT DIRECTOR: Gonzalo RivasPROJECT TEAM: Beatriz Salinas, Carlos Canella, Andrea Molina, Paola Simone, Carlos Ramos, Iván Guerrero, Ana Torrecilla, Alberto Sánchez, María Franco, Raúl García, Frank Müller, Víctor Lacima, Carmen Antón, Ramón Bermúdez, Margarita Martínez, Luis Berríos-Negrón, Spencer Leaf, Verónica Meléndez, Xavier Robledo, Ricardo Robustini, Paula Vega
CONSULTANTS: Local Architect: LPO Arkitekter. Facades: Bollinger + Grohmann, ARUP (concept design); Sustainability: Asplan Viak; General Engineering: Multiconsult, Hjellnes Consult, Brekke & Strand Akustikk; ICT: Rambøll Norge; Security: COWI.
SURFACE: 26.300m2
- NAN Award 2012. Best International Project
- Urban Project Category Project Award. XI Spanish Biennial of Architecture and Urban Planning 2012
- German Design Awards 2020. Special Mention. Architecture Category
- OPAL Award 2021. Platinum Winner.
- FAD International Award 2022.
- Oslo bys Arkitekturpris. 2022. Honorable Mention.
- COAM Award.2022. 1st Prize.
