Visit to the National Museum and Nordic Cuisine

Saturday September 23 was a beautiful sunny day with a high of 15C.  We decided to take the nearby tram to the new location of the National Museum, located in the neighbourhood of Aker Brygge on the waterfront near City Hall.

En route to the tram--lots of folks having brunch in our neighbourhood

The  National Museum was established as an institution in 2003, as a result of the consolidation of the National Gallery, The Museum of Architecture, The Museum of Decorative Arts and Design and the Museum of Contemporary Art.  A new home for the National Museum  opened on June 11, 2022.  It is the largest cultural centre in the Nordic countries.  Works from the museum's collection are seen on the first and second floors.  Temporary exhibitions are shown in the large Light Hall on the 3rd floor.  The Collection presents 6500 selected works from Norway's largest collection of art, architecture and design- from antiquity to the present.  There are more than 90 rooms and halls.

Outside of the Museum

Entrance way

We spent a few hours viewing the Collection. I am only going to show a few highlights. The Museum is very interactive, and there are a number of places people can take a break.  The Museum also showcases Norwegian artists and designers.

There was a very interesting piece in the lobby by a Sami artist.  Pile o' Sápmi Supreme alludes to 'Pile o' Bones', an event that symbolises the oppression of indigenous people in North America.  The caption on the installation notes that "in order to drive out native Americans, European settlers slaughtered their buffalo herds.  The title invites us to view Sami history as part of a global oppression of indigenous peoples."  Reindeer skulls with bullet holes in the forehead make up the piece and it is a protest against Norwegian policies that impact reindeer herding and land rights in Sápmi (the only municipality in Norway where Southern Sami is an official language).

Máret Ánne Sara (b. 1983), Sápmi, Norway, Pile o'Sápmi Supreme, 2007

One of first rooms contained antiquities from Egypt, Greece and Rome.  "Face to Face" contained many sculptures of emperors and mythological figures.  

There was one modern piece interspersed with the sculptures.

Annelise Josefsen (b. 1949) Sápmi, Norway, War Dance, 2009

Places in the galleries where one can draw the sculptures displayed

There was a very large design and craft section encompassing a number of galleries.  Fashion, furniture, ceramics, glassware and other objects.

Signage for Design and Craft section

There was a section called "Two Queens Meet" that focused on the fashion of the two Queens that Norway has had since the dissolution of the union with Sweden in 1905.  Maud from 1905-1938 and Sonja since 1991. As spouses to ruling kings, they hold a symbolic position.   

There was also a room featuring modern Norwegian designers along with accompanying videos.

Gown worn by Queen Maud

Edda Gimnes (b. 1991, Norway), Manuel Vadillo (b. 1970, Spain), Maren dress, Ninni hat, Emily shoes, Ingeborg handbag, 2017

Gerrit Thomas Rietveld (1888-1964), The Netherlands, Chair, Red and Blue 1917

In the mid 1950's, Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden joined forces to promote design from Scandinavia.  Their international marketing campaign lead to successful exhibitions in the US, Canada and Australia.  Scandinavian Design was the name given to this movement.  Critics of this approach staged a symbolic burial of the concept in 1980.

Lots of Scandinavian design

Time for a Break- garden illusion- tranquil space to chill

View out the window to the Nobel Peace Center which is closed and under renovation

Coffee area 

Section with art from 1550-1900

We went to the Munch section.  Some of his best works are found in the National Museum rather than the Munch Museum, which also has a lot of gems.

Thorvald Torgersen, 1882

The Sick Child, 1885-86  This is considered Munch's breakthrough work.  

Self-portrait with Cigarette, 1895, painted when Munch was 31 and already famous.  
He is very confident in this picture.  One of my favourites.

The Dance of Life, 1899-1900

The Scream 1893 (Tempera and crayon on cardboard).  Munch exhibited this in Berlin the same year he painted it, with the title Despair.  He later produced several other versions, both as paintings and prints. (other versions are in the Munch Museum, which we saw earlier in our trip).

Self-portrait with the Spanish Flu, 1919. (Munch was a healthy 56 year old at the time, and recovered from his bout of the Spanish Flu)

We then wandered through the section of Art from 1960 to the Present, which featured many Norwegian and Scandinavian artists.

Lena Cronqvist, (b. 1938, Sweden), Tango III, 1986

 (She turned to male-female power relationships in the 1980s-- here older men and younger girls)

Giulio Paolini (b. 1940, Italy) L'altra figura (1979-1980) (work from the Arte Povera movement)

Gustav Vigeland (1869-1943, Norway), Two Boys Running, 1927-1930 (a group designed for the Vigeland Park in Oslo, the largest park of its kind devoted to the work of a single artist).

The Frenchman Fernand Léger and the Norwegian Thorvald Hellesen both produced paintings that were a reflection of industrialization, the machine age, automation and speed.

Thorvald Hellesen (1888-1937, Norway), Composition, c.1920

Thorvald Hellesen, Composition 1920.  

After going through most of the Collection on the first and second floors, we headed up to the Roof Terrace for some fabulous views of Oslo.

View of City Hall (Bell Tower on the right being renovated)

The  harbour and Fort in the distance

We tried a selfie

Looking back at the Museum from the roof

After our visit to the Museum, we stopped at Bollebar for a famous Norwegian treat- the bolle is a sweetened bun that is as essential to Norwegians as the croissant is to the French.  Bollebar serves the traditional Bolle with a modern twist.

  

Smaller part of the building on the right is the back of Bollebar-- tables in the back

Inside Bollebar

We shared our lemon meringue bolle out front in the sun with a delicious coffee
(Tim Wendelboe beans).   Definitely worth the lactose pill.

One last harbour photo

We continued our meandering.

View of the Grand Hotel in the sun

More public art

Telegrafen building now used for spaces and events. (Opened in 1924 as the head office of Telenor and  Norway's administrative centre for its telecommunications and radio industry until 1962).  
A Nordic Art Nouveau building.

Beautiful fresco inside by Alf Rolfsen  (1895-1979) (done in 1922 prior to the building opening in 1924). A private wine tasting event was about to take place

As our dinner reservation was not until 8:30 p.m., we decided to head over to the Opera/Ballet House and walk to the top on the outside ramps and then check out the inside.

The Opera/ Ballet House on a sunny day with lots of people wandering around it

The iceberg sculpture in the harbour

Heading up the outside ramp

Allan

Moi

Talking to the bird

View of Public Library building from the Opera grounds

Inside the Opera building

While we were sitting in the lobby, a crowd came out for intermission for La Traviata, on opening night.  We hadn't even realised there was a performance underway until the crowd came out.

Poster for La Traviata

It was then time for dinner.  We went to Arakataka, which celebrates Nordic cuisine.  We ended up sharing a four course set menu.  The servers were excellent about making the items dairy free.  There was definitely enough food for us and the flavours were fabulous.  Service was good, but definitely a lot of preparation went into each dish, so we had lots of time between courses. 

Looking one way in the resto (long, narrow room)

Mural at one end of the restaurant

Allan had a glass of Italian red and I had a glass of a German white

Delicious bread served on top of a bed of seeds (maybe fennel?)

The picture does not do the dish justice- it had small amounts of halibut and shrimp wrapped in kohlrabi -very tasty- hard to know how it was cooked.

Monkfish, zucchini and lovage--fermented, and beautifully done.  A delicious citrusy flavour.

Chicken from Holte and Swiss Chard with chanterelles  (another delicious sauce)

For dessert we had a light meringue over some candied pears with sorbet in a light lemongrass sauce.  Unbelievably good!   Unfortunately, my photo didn't turn out.

We walked back to the apartment.  Lots of people out on a Saturday night as we made our way to the 'hood.   Luckily,  our section of our street is mainly residential and very quiet.  We got back just after 11:00 p.m.  Of course, we stayed up tracking the ups and final down of the Blue Jays game (yes, Romano does drive me crazy).  It was a wonderful day in Oslo.   

We have also noted the abundance of electric cars and electric car dealerships (a number from China and Korea)  in many small showrooms in the city centre.  Our Free Tour guide and others have confirmed that around 60% of Norwegians now own electric vehicles. 

We also learned that prior to the discovery of oil in 1969, Norway was a very poor country.  It is now one of the wealthiest through the building of a large equity fund from oil revenues.  Ethical guidelines were attached to the fund a number of years ago and a large portion of the fund goes to infrastructure improvements.  The health care system and education system are also well funded.  There is a strong middle class and labour is highly valued.  Oslo itself has undergone a real transformation in the last 10 years.  Many new modern facilities (Opera, Library, Museum), commercial buildings along with new residential areas have sprung up but there is still lots of green space.  Oslo was the European Green Capital in 2019.

No wonder Norway ranks high on quality of life measures.  There is very little unemployment and less income disparity than other countries.  Buildings like the Public Library and even the Opera/Ballet building are publicly accessible and are meeting places for the community.  We are really enjoying this vibrant city.