Bjørvika Guide: Oslo Opera House, MUNCH and Deichman Library

Twenty years ago, the waterfront just east of Oslo Central Station (Oslo S) was cut off from the city by a noisy elevated motorway and container cranes. After burying the highway in a subsea tunnel beneath the fjord, Oslo created Bjørvika, a striking cultural quarter where three landmark public buildings stand within a three-minute walk of each other around the mouth of the Akerselva river.

Walking the marble roof of the Oslo Opera House (Operahuset)

Designed by Norwegian architecture firm Snøhetta and opened in 2008 to resemble a fractured glacier sliding into the water, the Oslo Opera House was built with a radical democratic idea: the entire angled roof of 36,000 white Italian Carrara marble stones is an open public square that anyone can walk up 24 hours a day for free. Textured ridges and horizontal steps cut into the stone give your shoes grip as you climb from the water's edge to the upper terrace for a 360-degree panorama over the Oslofjord islands, floating saunas and the geometric high-rise row of the Barcode Project behind the station. Step inside the lobby for free to admire the undulating oak-slatted wave wall enclosing the main auditorium (and use the immaculate free public toilets).

MUNCH: Three versions of The Scream and Monumental Canvases

Directly east across the small harbour inlet rises MUNCH, opened in 2021 in a 13-storey perforated aluminium tower designed by Estudio Herreros with a characteristic forward bow at the top. Holding the entire estate of more than 26,000 works bequeathed by Edvard Munch to the city of Oslo upon his death in 1944, the museum dedicates eleven gallery floors to his life:

• Floor 4 (Infinite) and The Scream room: houses landmark masterpieces including Madonna, The Dance of Life and Vampire. At the centre sits a dimly lit hexagonal chamber holding three distinct versions of The Scream (a tempera painting on cardboard, a pastel drawing and a lithograph). Because paper and cardboard pigments are extremely sensitive to light, automated shutters open to display one of the three versions at a time in a rotating 30-minute cycle so you can always see a version of The Scream during your visit.
• Floor 6 (Monumental): a double-height gallery built specifically to house Munch's giant 50-square-metre studies for the University of Oslo Aula murals, including the blazing rising sun of The Sun (Solen).

Deichman Bjørvika Public Library

On the opposite side of the Opera square stands Deichman Bjørvika, Oslo's six-storey main public library (voted Public Library of the Year globally). Completely free to enter without a library card, its cantilevered upper floors feature reading alcoves facing the fjord, a subterranean cinema, neon installations and Future Library's silent cedar-lined room holding unread manuscripts locked away until the year 2114.