Edvard Munch Museum Gets Green Light

Edvard Munch

Construction of the new Edvard Munch museum will begin next year and is estimated to be completed in 2019; Oslo’s city council has finally given the go-ahead for a plan to build a new museum in the Norwegian capital, as reported in News in English. The museum is estimated to cost 2.8 billion Norwegian kroner or £260 million; the new building will replace the dated structure in the city’s Tøyen district.

Edvard Munch intensely evocative treatment of psychological themes built upon some of the main tenets of late 19th-century Symbolism and greatly influenced German Expressionism in the early 20th century. One of his most well-known works is The Scream of 1893. “Munch’s art is much more important abroad than many in Oslo realise,” stated Anne Siri Koksrud Bekkelund a city politician told News in English.

The announcement follows many years of political debate over the funding and location of the new construction, resulting in significant delays; construction was expected to begin in April of next year if funding was approved by government before September of this year. According to Oslo city culture chief Hallstein Bjercke, the delays will cost taxpayers an estimated 10 million kroner or £930,000 in increased construction costs for every month of delay.

Political dialogue has not been the only obstacle to the construction of the new museum; as earlier this month, a group of 20 prominent Norwegian artists opposed the new museum’s construction. after claiming that the planning committee for the museum excluded all Norwegian artists and member of the Munch Museum’s staff when selecting a design for the new building. They also claimed that the construction – which will stand next to the city’s opera house – is an inappropriate design, a contemporary glass structure not fitting to house the oeuvre of the great artist. But local officials have stated that temperatures and reflections will be regulated.

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