Munch Museum

Listen first. Gulls call over the water. Somewhere behind you, a tram hums along the harbour road, and the fjord slaps softly against the stone edge of the quay. Now look up. Above you rises a tall, narrow tower wrapped in a pale metallic skin. Its top section leans forward, as if it is bowing toward the sea. This is MUNCH, the museum that Oslo built for the work of its most famous painter, Edvard Munch.

The building stands in Bjørvika, a part of the waterfront that was once docks, rail yards and busy port roads. Over the past two decades, the city has rebuilt this area as a district for culture. The white marble slopes of the Opera House sit a short walk away. The public library stands nearby. MUNCH opened here in October 2021, and its arrival changed the skyline of the harbour. From the water, you can pick out the bent top of the tower from far away.

The design came from the Spanish architecture firm estudioHerreros. Look closely at the facade. It is not solid metal. It is made of perforated aluminium panels, many of them recycled, and they are slightly translucent. The panels change with the weather. On a grey day they look silver and soft. In low winter sun they can turn almost gold. At night, light from inside glows through the tiny holes. So the tower never looks quite the same twice.

Why does the top lean? The architects wanted the building to tilt toward the city and the fjord, rather than stand stiff and upright. Some people love the gesture. Others found it strange when it first appeared. Oslo argued about this museum for years — about its location, its height, and its look. That debate is part of the building's story. Today many locals simply call it by its short name, MUNCH, written in capital letters.

Now, the man behind the name. Edvard Munch was born in 1863 and grew up in what was then called Kristiania, the old name for Oslo. His childhood carried deep loss. His mother died when he was a small boy, and an older sister died a few years later. Illness and grief appear again and again in his work. He painted sick rooms, deathbeds and anxious faces. But he also painted forests, beaches, summer nights and strong, bright suns.

Here is something many visitors do not know. This museum exists because of a gift. When Munch died in 1944, during the German occupation of Norway, he left the works still in his possession to the City of Oslo. It was an enormous body of art — paintings, prints, drawings, sketchbooks, letters and photographs, numbering in the tens of thousands of items. Most of it had stayed in his house for decades. He had kept many of his best pictures for himself.

The city first housed this collection in an older museum in the Tøyen district, which opened in 1963, the centenary of Munch's birth. That building served for more than fifty years. But it grew too small for such a large collection, and it struggled to protect the art. In 2004, thieves walked into the old museum in daylight and took two famous paintings off the wall. Both were later recovered, but with damage. The new tower was built with far stronger security and climate control.

Inside, the museum spreads its galleries across many floors. Some rooms are devoted to Munch, and others host exhibitions of other artists, often in conversation with him. The changing displays mean that a visit next year may feel quite different from a visit today. Pay attention to how the rooms are lit. Many of Munch's works on paper are very sensitive to light, so curators keep the lighting low and rotate fragile pieces in and out of display.

And that brings us to the picture everyone asks about. The Scream. Munch did not make just one. He created several versions, in paint, in pastel and crayon, and as a printed lithograph. One painted version hangs in Norway's National Museum, across the city. This museum holds others. Because they are so fragile, they are not all shown at once. They take turns, each one displayed for a short time before the next appears. So the version you see depends on the moment you arrive.

Stand in front of whichever Scream is showing, and notice how small it feels compared with its fame. The swirling orange sky, the blue-black fjord, the long bridge railing, the figure holding its face. Munch connected the image to an evening walk, when he felt a great scream pass through nature. The scene is often linked to a hill above Oslo, near Ekeberg, with a view down over the fjord. You are standing beside that same water now.

Do not leave without the huge works. Munch painted some pictures on a monumental scale, including studies connected to his famous murals for the University of Oslo's ceremonial hall. The best known shows a giant sun rising over a rocky Norwegian coast, its rays spreading across the canvas. Standing in front of these paintings, you understand a second side of Munch. Not only anxiety and night, but light, energy and hope. Many visitors arrive for The Scream and leave talking about the sun.

As you move between floors, take the escalators that run along the outer wall. They climb inside the glass edge of the tower, and each landing gives a wider view. First the harbour and the Opera House roof. Then the islands of the fjord, and on clear days the green hills beyond. Near the top, the whole city opens below you. It is one of the finest free-moving viewpoints in Oslo, and it comes as a quiet bonus between the galleries.

Outside again, look toward the water's edge. A large bronze sculpture by the British artist Tracey Emin kneels near the museum, facing out across the fjord. She called it The Mother. Emin has spoken of Munch as a strong influence on her own art, so the figure feels like a guardian placed beside his collection. Its scale is surprising. Walk around it slowly, and notice how it seems to watch the boats coming and going.

Before you leave the quay, turn back once more. Look at the leaning tower, the shifting metal skin, the light catching on its surface. Inside are the pictures of a man who painted his fears and his hopes with the same open hand. Out here are the same things he looked at all his life — the fjord, the sky, the changing northern light. As you walk away, watch the colour of the evening sky. You may start to see it a little the way Munch did.