Oslo Opera House — opera house
Jorge Franganillo · CC BY 4.0

Oslo Opera House

  • 2 min read
  • 59.907° N 10.754° E

Interesting facts

  • The building contains about 1,100 rooms spread over some 49,000 square metres of floor space.
  • It was finished around 300 million kroner under its budget of about 4.4 billion Norwegian kroner, a rarity for a major public building.
  • About 1.3 million people visited the building in its first year after opening.
  • The marble comes from the La Facciata quarry at Carrara, chosen because it keeps its brightness even when wet.
  • Monica Bonvicini's floating sculpture She Lies is a three-dimensional take on Caspar David Friedrich's painting The Sea of Ice.
  • Pae White's stage curtain measures roughly 23 by 11 metres and weighs about half a tonne, despite looking like a sheet of foil.
  • Besides the main hall, the house has two smaller stages seating about 400 and 200, used for chamber opera, dance and experimental work.
  • The main stage is 16 metres wide and 40 metres deep, with the stage tower rising above the sloping marble roof.

Why it is worth it

The Oslo Opera House rises out of the fjord like a sloping white iceberg, and its roof is a public square. That was the core of Snøhetta's winning design, chosen from some 350 entries after the Norwegian parliament decided in 1999 to build a new national opera house in Bjørvika, a former harbour and industrial area at the head of the Oslofjord. The building was completed in 2007 and opened on 12 April 2008, and it is the largest cultural building constructed in Norway since Nidaros Cathedral around 1300.

Its angled planes of white Italian Carrara marble and white granite run right down to the water's edge, so that anyone can walk up from the quay to the top and look out over the city and the fjord. The paving of the roof was worked out with the artists Kristian Blystad, Jorunn Sannes and Kalle Grude, with small ridges, cuts and changes of texture that make the marble landscape more than a flat surface. The stage tower above is clad in white aluminium perforated in a pattern that recalls old weaving.

Inside, the contrast is deliberate: the cool white exterior gives way to warm oak. The foyer is enclosed by glass walls about 15 metres high, and a great undulating oak wall wraps the main auditorium, a horseshoe-shaped hall with around 1,360 seats lit by a large chandelier of some 5,800 crystal elements. The stage curtain by Pae White looks like crumpled aluminium foil but is woven from wool and cotton, and Olafur Eliasson designed illuminated perforated wall panels in the foyer. Out in the water floats Monica Bonvicini's She Lies, a stainless steel and glass sculpture that shifts with the tide and the wind.

The building won the culture award at the World Architecture Festival in 2008 and the EU Prize for Contemporary Architecture in 2009, and was listed as a protected monument in 2012. Evening is a good time to come, when the roof fills with people watching the light fade over the fjord.

Getting there

The Opera House stands at Kirsten Flagstads plass 1 in Bjørvika, about 600 metres, or a short walk, from Oslo Central Station. Oslo Airport Gardermoen (OSL) is about 37 km away, with the Airport Express Train reaching the Central Station in around 20 minutes. The roof is open to walk on.

Plan your visit

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Nearby places

On these lists

The Most Beautiful Places in Norway 38The Most Beautiful Modern Theatres 5The Most Beautiful Modern Opera Houses 7The Most Beautiful Opera Houses 21The Most Beautiful Theatres 35The Most Beautiful Modern Buildings 50The Most Beautiful Buildings 286

From the encyclopaedia

The Oslo Opera House is the home of the Norwegian National Opera and Ballet, and the national opera house in Norway. The building is situated in the Bjørvika neighbourhood of central Oslo, at the head of the Oslofjord. It is operated by Norwegian Directorate of Public Construction and Property, the government agency which manages property for the Norwegian government. The structure contains 1,100 rooms in a total area of 49,000 m2 (530,000 sq ft). The main auditorium seats 1,364 and two other performance spaces can seat 200 and 400. The main stage is 16 m (52 ft) wide and 40 m (130 ft) deep. The angled exterior surfaces of the building are covered with marble from Carrara, Italy and white granite and make it appear to rise from the water. It is the largest cultural building constructed in Norway since Nidaros Cathedral was completed circa 1300.

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