PROJECT 202

"VIKING AGE MUSEUM"

Aart Architects

The ambition of the new Viking Age Museum is to create a new signature, forward-looking setting for one of the most visited museums in Norway, focusing on the preservation and dissemination of the museum’s unique collection of cultural history. To fulfil this ambition, the extension will deploy a bold circular structure to add a new dimension to the experience of the museum, at the same time harmonising perfectly with Arnstein Arneberg’s historic Viking Ship Building from 1926.
 
The extension will be a natural continuation of the Viking Ship Building’s existing wings, at once preserving the cultural-historical values of the place and connecting them to modern forms of dissemination and experience. With its bold circular shape, the extension will create a new iconic signature for the museum, while making room for an intuitive flow of exhibitions and preserving the Viking Ship Building as a prominent, totally integral part of the new museum and the surrounding countryside.
 
So visitors will still arrive via the Viking Ship Building. The extension will reach out towards the countryside, and its circular shape will connect the north and west wings of the Viking Ship Building. The ridge of the roof will converge with the gables of the wings, creating a convex, circular spatiality around an inner courtyard. The courtyard will be ideal for breaks and open-air exhibition activities and will act as a new pivotal point, around which the museum’s activities and exhibitions will take place.

AART architects website: www.aart.dk