Finally, the Norse gods must've smiled upon Jamie W. and me because we were in Oslo just in time to visit Norway's new national museum. Just opened in June after a decade of construction, it's a mammoth, windowless gray slate building next to Aker Brygge near the harbor. It merged four existing institutions into one building: the National Gallery, the Museum of Architecture, the Museum of Decorative Arts and Design, and the Museum of Contemporary Art. No wonder there was a lot of furniture on display. The result was pretty overwhelming with over 6,500 objects in 87 separate galleries.
It's divided into two floors covering over 140,000 square feet. The first floor was organized into themes grouped by discrete periods in Norwegian history. I suppose that was why there were so many costumes and decorative items on display. The second floor was focused on paintings spanning six centuries. There were not just Norwegian artists represented but the likes of Rodin, Picasso, and Monet. There was also an intriguing section of contemporary art with a particular emphasis on multimedia. The museum amounts to the Norwegian equivalent of the Smithsonian. Admission is 180 NOK ($18.35).
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