October 22, 2021
A Tower for The Scream: Oslo's New MUNCH Opens
After years of delays, Oslo opened a vast 13-storey waterfront museum in 2021 to house the world's largest collection of Edvard Munch's work.
Leaning slightly at its top, clad in shimmering perforated aluminium, the new MUNCH museum rose 13 storeys over Oslo's Bjørvika waterfront. It opened in October 2021 after more than a decade of delays and debate.
The building holds the world's largest Munch collection — over 26,000 works the artist bequeathed to the city, including versions of 'The Scream' and 'Madonna' — across galleries that finally do justice to Norway's greatest painter.
Critics quarrelled over its dark, looming silhouette, but few doubted the ambition: to place Munch, and his restless explorations of love, anxiety and mortality, firmly at the centre of his capital.
Image: “2025-09-28-Munch-Museum-Bjorvika-Nye-Munchmuseet-Oslo” — Gunnar Klack, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.