Both new buildings were built according to the designs of Norwegian architects, in the first case - by the Snohetta workshop (which won the corresponding international architectural competition in 2000), in the second - by the Pritzker Prize laureate Sverre Fen.
The new opera house is located on a small platform peninsula jutting out into the fjord. The volume of the building is outlined by energetic diagonal lines, the main of which is the silhouette of a roof that rises directly from the sea. It is faced with panels of Carrara marble, and on the facades of the building, glazing surfaces alternate with perforated metal panels. A series of public spaces have been created around the theater, facing the fjord and the city. The rigidity of the geometrized architectural composition of the building contrasts with the softness of the lines of its interiors. The panoramic window of the wood-paneled foyer offers breathtaking sea views. In the center of the lobby is the theater bathroom complex, designed by the artist Olafur Eliasson.
The auditorium is designed in a democratic spirit: there are no boxes. Its general structure is based on the decision of the Dresden opera house of Gottfried Semper, but the decoration of the curved planes of the hall with wooden panels is certainly very far from this neo-Baroque prototype.
The new complex of the architecture department of the National Museum of Norway (formerly the Norwegian Museum of Architecture) is no less interesting, but much more modest in size. Sverre Fehn was commissioned to renovate the Norwegian Bank building, built in 1830 by the prominent Norwegian architect Christian Grosh, and to complement it with a small exhibition pavilion named after the patron Jens Ulthwait-Moe. In this way, a dynamic contrast was created between the neoclassical monument and the mean forms of the new concrete and glass building. However, its closed forms are quite consistent - in spirit - with a bank building: indeed, its monolithic walls store no less treasure than banknotes and gold bars. The first exhibition in the new museum was a retrospective of the works of Sverre Fehn himself.
