The new Museum of the Viking Age opens in 2026.
Norway’s new global attraction: In 2026 a new Museum of the Viking Age will open on the Bygdøy peninsula in Oslo. It will be built as an extension of the present Viking Ship Museum.
The Viking Ship Museum on the Bygdøy peninsula has been one of Oslo’s most visited attractions right from the very beginning in 1926. The present location of the ships doesn’t provide good enough conditions, but the new building will be able to secure the museum’s unique artefacts for future generations and to display the Viking ships and other Viking Age collections in a more visitor-friendly manner.
The new Museum of the Viking Age will be three times the size of the current museum and will provide a more complete picture of the Viking Age in its entirety, with the three magnificent ships still as the main attraction.
In addition to tripling the size of the exhibition areas, the new museum complex will include a restaurant, a lecture hall, a museum shop, a museum park, a dedicated area for visiting students, laboratories that are open to the public and a research centre. The museum is part of the University of Oslo (UiO).
New name and logo
The Museum of the Viking Age has been chosen as a new name because the museum will provide a complementary picture of many aspects of society that characterized the Viking Age. Based on the world’s foremost Viking Age collection, the public will gain insight into everything from daily life to major societal changes that characterized this period, says museum director Håkon Glørstad.
The main attraction at the new Museum of the Viking Age will still be the world’s three best-preserved Viking ships. They symbolize many important aspects and characteristics of the Viking Age, and the museum’s new logo therefore shows three stylized Viking ships.
The Norwegian name is Vikingtidsmuseet.
The museum will be closed to the public for a certain period of time in the construction period. It has not yet been clarified when and for how long the museum will be closed.
This piece was prepared online by Panuruji Kenta, Publisher, SEVENSEAS Media