This elective will pursue archival research to investigate the building history of the Munch Museum in Tøyen, designed by architects Myklebust and Fougner and completed in 1963. The work will culminate in an asBUILT publication. The book will cover the entire life span of the building, from its inception, after Edvard Munch bequeathed his estate to the city of Oslo in the 1940’s, to its final phase through its fifty-five-year history as a museum and research institution. The book will use the building as a lens for investigating cultural and political decision-making in post-war Oslo. Moreover, as well as a commentary on the contemporary drive towards centralization of culture manifest in the decision to move the museum to Oslo’s newly developed harbour area in 2019. Just as other notable examples of post-war architecture in Norway, the Munch Museum stands on the threshold of an uncertain future and the book will aim to raise awareness of the qualities of the original design and the historical importance of the building.

The material available in the archives span the entire procurement and construction processes, including early tender documents; specifications; original and annotated drawings documenting extensions in successive interventions; correspondence between the architects, the city and the museum’s director, and extensive reference material from museums around the world. These physical and material archives are a treasure throve of historical evidence and offers a unique insight into how the building was conceived, amended, expanded and ultimately left behind in the political processes of the last decade.