Viking Age Museum at Bygdøy
Open international competition
2015
Honorable Mention (Innkjøp - 60 000 NOK)
Participants: 111 teams
The vision for a new Viking Age museum in Oslo was to create a globally leading center for the dissemination of knowledge about the Viking Age. The existing Vikingskipshus, designed by architect Arnstein Arneberg in 1913 was to be an integral part of the overall architectural solution.
The addition is given a secluded location, allowing for the existing Arneberg building to play the lead. This way the interconnection between existing and new can be done in a simple and rational way - against the wing of the Arneberg building that was last established and is least worthy of complete preservation, while space is freed for logistics and a large park at the entrance to the site.
The entrance to the museum is pulled back and located at a new space created between the new and the existing building, allowing for the visitors to experience the exterior of Arnebergs house and an adjacent park before entering.
The addition is broken up into gabled volumes playing at the sizes of the existing building and the buildings in the adjoining Folk Museum. The volumes relate to the orientation of the wings of the existing building, but they are offset relative to each other and given different widths.
Ships and other artifacts of the Viking Age collection are colorful and diverse, with an extreme level of precision. The addition is designed to form a robust, precise, elegant and subtle backdrop.