Norwegian Maritime Museum

Feb 24

Norwegian Maritime Museum – Exploring Norway’s Seafaring Heritage

The Norwegian Maritime Museum (Norsk Maritimt Museum) in Oslo’s Bygdøy peninsula is a must-visit destination for anyone interested in Norway’s rich maritime history and seafaring traditions. With its fascinating exhibitions on shipbuilding, navigation, Arctic exploration, and modern shipping, the museum offers an in-depth look at how Norway’s relationship with the sea has shaped its culture and economy.

A Journey Through Norway’s Maritime Legacy

Founded in 1914, the Norwegian Maritime Museum showcases Norway’s long and proud maritime history, from the age of Viking ships to today’s advanced shipping industry. Visitors can explore historic boats, interactive displays, and multimedia exhibitions that bring Norway’s maritime past and present to life.

Highlights of the Norwegian Maritime Museum

1. Full-Scale Historic Ships and Boats

🚢 See original Norwegian wooden boats, traditional fishing vessels, and Arctic exploration ships.
⚓ Learn about Norway’s role as a leading maritime nation throughout history.

2. The Film Experience – “The Ocean – A Way of Life”

🎥 Immerse yourself in a stunning panoramic film showcasing Norway’s breathtaking coastline and seafaring traditions.

3. Ship Models and Navigation Exhibits

🛠 Explore detailed models of historic ships, including Viking longships and 19th-century steamships.
🌍 Learn how Norwegian sailors navigated the world's oceans using early maritime tools and techniques.

4. Underwater Archaeology & Shipwrecks

🌊 Discover Norway’s hidden underwater treasures through displays of shipwrecks, salvaged artifacts, and underwater archaeological discoveries.

5. Norway’s Modern Shipping Industry

🚢 Understand Norway’s role in global shipping today, including offshore oil exploration and sustainable maritime innovations.

Practical Information

📍 Location: Bygdøy, Oslo
🕒 Opening Hours: Typically 10:00–17:00 (varies by season).
🎟 Tickets: Available at the entrance or online (free with Oslo Pass).
🚆 How to Get There:

Bus 30 from Oslo city center to Bygdøy.
Fjord ferry from Aker Brygge to Bygdøy (summer only).

Why Visit the Norwegian Maritime Museum?

✅ Explore Norway’s deep connection to the sea through history, exploration, and innovation.
✅ See real ships, boats, and shipwrecks up close.
✅ Enjoy interactive exhibits and stunning maritime films.
✅ Great for families, history enthusiasts, and anyone interested in Norway’s seafaring heritage.

Whether you’re fascinated by Viking ships, Arctic explorers, or modern maritime technology, the Norwegian Maritime Museum offers a captivating experience for visitors of all ages. 🌊🚢✨ Set sail for adventure and explore Norway’s maritime past today!

By sea

The exhibition "By sea" showcases our open traditional boat collection and archaeological wrecks and findings from Oslo in the 1500s and 1600s. The exhibition is located in the Boat Hall, the iconic building of the Norwegian Maritime Museum from 1958.

The exhibition focuses on the interaction between humans and the sea, emphasizing nature, resources, technology, and imagination. Drawing from the museum's rich boat collection, the museum looks back while also posing questions and highlighting upcoming challenges in the management of fish, climate, oceans, environment, and pollution.

On the ground floor, the exhibition showcases the life of the Norwegian coastal population in the 1800s. On the mezzanines, we present an archaeological exhibition about ships and maritime activities in the Oslo harbor in the 1600s, featuring boat findings and other artifacts from the major excavations that have taken place in Bjørvika in Oslo over the past decade.

Over 1000 chalk pipes were found gathered in this way in the clay where Barcode stands today. Beate Kjørslevik

The Boat Collection

At the heart of the exhibition are 13 traditional boats from the 19th century. The museums boat collection is Norway's most important nationwide collection of open traditional boats. The focus of the collection dates from the second half of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century. The entire coast is represented, so the main division between the building styles in Eastern, Western, and Northern Norway is clear. The core of the collection was acquired by Bernhard Færøyvik.

Various uses and local adaptations have manifested themselves in building styles as a variety of boatbuilding traditions or dialects. The collection possesses strong aesthetic qualities, and the boats are magnificent examples of craftsmanship traditions.

The Boat hall at Bygdøynes

The Boat hall was the Norwegian Maritime Museum's first building and exhibition hall at Bygdøynes. In 1958, it opened with traditional boats from all over the coast and exhibitions on Norwegian shipping during the sailing ship era.

The boat hall and the museum's main building were designed by Trond Eliassen & Birger Lambertz-Nilssen. The hall repeats the Fram Museum's (1936) boat shape, but on a smaller scale. The hall has approx. 736 m2 exhibition area on the ground floor and 150 m2 on the mezzanine.

Båthallen på Bygdøy åpnet i 1958 og er tegnet av arkitektene Trond Eliassen & Birger Lambertz-Nilssen. Beate Kjørslevik

See here for what you can expect

Join us as we step in to KLINK boat builder work shop and the Boat Hall

About the Norwegian Maritime Museum

The Norwegian Maritime Museum (NMM) is a national museum with the responsibility to collect, research, and teach our Norwegian maritime cultural heritage. The museum has a wide range of indoor and outdoor exhibitions, placed in a unique maritime environment.

The Norwegian Maritime Museum was founded in 1914. Its initial collections were donated from the large centennial exhibition in Kristiania (Oslo) the same year. Since 2015 it hasbeen part of the Norsk Folkemuseum foundation, which includes the Bogstad Manor, the Bygdøy Royal Manor, Eidsvoll 1814, the Ibsen Museum, and the Norwegian Museum of Cultural History.

Today, the NMM is a cultural history museum as well as an archaeological administrative museum with responsibility for maritime cultural heritage in eight out of Norway’s 15 counties. The museum is involved in historic vessel preservation. You can book a trips on some of our museum vessels, including the schooner Svanen, built in 1916, and the renaissance boat Vaaghals, a reconstruction of an archaeological find from Bjørvika in Oslo.

The museum is located alongside the Fram Museum and the Kon-Tiki Museum at Bygdøynes on the Bygdøy peninsula in Oslo.

Collections

The Norwegian Maritime Museum has an extensive collection documenting Norwegian maritime history, maritime trade, and coastal culture. The collection consists of artefacts of cultural and historical origin, works of art, vessels, photographs, ship and boat drawings, private archives, charts, books and periodicals.

Kompass

The core of the museum’s collections consists of objects collected for the 1914 Exhibition in Kristiania (Oslo), which marked the 100th anniversary of the Norwegian constitution. The exhibition intended to highlight Norwegian technological and economic development at the time where shipping played an important role. The seafaring and fishing pavilion was located at Skarpsno Park until the fall of 1914. When the exhibition was dismantled, many of the objects were given to the Norwegian Maritime Museum, which was officially founded on 2 December of the same year.

Today, more than one hundred years after its founding, the Norwegian Maritime Museum collections reflects the technological and cultural development through the past 150 years. In addition to collections of historical and archaeological artefacts, works of art, models, navigational instruments, tools and souvenirs, the museum also documents Norwegian boatbuilding traditions. These collections include a boat collection, floating vessels such as the schooner Svanen, the rescue vessel RS 1 Colin Archer, and the yacht Venus. Furthermore, there are survey drawings of Norwegian traditional boats by Bernhard Færøyvik and Arne Emil Christensen, and construction drawings by well known Norwegian naval architects Colin Archer, Johan Anker, Bjarne Aas and Jan Herman Linge.

Collection management at the Norwegian Maritime Museum includes collecting, preserving, documenting, and registering artefacts, as well providing analysis of their cultural and educational value. It is our goal as a museum to make all our collections accessible to the public. Parts of the collections are available at DigitalMuseum and Europeana, with more items added successively.

Viking Age boat builder

The Norwegian Maritime Museum exhibits one of the Viking boats from the Gokstad find! In KLINK boatbuilding, we are constructing a replica of the boat.

The Viking boat is exhibited in collaboration with the Museum of Cultural History, while the Viking Ship Museum remains closed.

Beate Kjørslevik

Exhibition and boat building

With a focus on Viking-era and boat building, we invite you in to the exhibition and boat building workshop KLINK. In the exhibition "Viking Age boat builder" you can see one of the original boats from the "Gokstad" discovery. The Viking boat builders produced high-speed craft with greater craftsmanship than ever before.

In our cinema you can see two short films about the Viking Ships, showing every 15. min.

The main part of the exhibition is a reconstruction of one of the boat from the "Gokstad" discovery. The reconstruction work is being carried out with scientific and experimental methods that can provide unknown knowledge about the Vikings' vessels. On selected days the public will be able to see boat building and experimental archeology up close.

The replica will be used for dissemination and experiences for a long time to come, and will be a lasting investment in the future development of the museum environment on Bygdøy.The boat building project is supported by Sparebankstiftelsen and the UNI Foundation.

Meet the Viking age Boat builder

Join us when we build a replica of one of the Viking boats for the Gokstad find.

Every last Saturday of the month

Follow the construction of the Viking boat:

The new museum of the Viking age

The Viking ship museum in Bygdøy is now closed to make way for a fantastic new museum building. In the Norwegian Maritime Museum is the only opportunity to see one of the Viking boats from the Gokstad discovery. This exhibition is a collaboration with the Cultural History Museum and will show for four years, while a new museum building is being built for the existing collections at the new Museum of the Viking Age.

Read more about the new museum of the Viking Age

Explore the ocean

In the exhibition "Explore the ocean," you encounter myths, monsters, and heroes of the sea. The stories about the sea are exciting and diverse. We want you to fall in love with the ocean!

Join us as we discover the sea! Dive into the underwater cave, explore anemones and kelp forests. Take a trip to the plastic laboratory and aboard the amazing submarine!

Here, you'll learn not only about the sea's many mythical creatures and newly discovered species, but also about the consequences of plastic pollution. We offer insights into the use of the sea over 500 years, from the emission-free era of sailing ships, through steam power and the age of oil, towards future green solutions.

The exhibition aims to appeal to senses, emotions, and intellect, by showing what is happening to the sea. We want you, as our visitor, to fall in love with the ocean, learn about how dependent we are on it, and understand what it takes to reverse the destructive trends.

"The Trash Wave" is one of the main installations in the exhibition, showcasing waste from different time periods over 500 years; from archaeological findings to visible evidence of plastic pollution.

At Sea!

"At Sea!" is an exhibition about people at sea, from the Viking Age to the present day.

Experience the lives and everyday routines of individuals from places like the sterncastle and poop deck, galley and hearth, rigging and engine room. Through them, you become acquainted with Norwegian and international maritime history.

What were the duties of the 15-year-old cook's boy who went to sea in 1874? What was life like as a pirate in the Middle Ages? What did the ship's captain do in 1890 if any of the crew became seriously ill?

And what about the slave, sold in triangular trade in 1768? What was it like to be a female telegraphist in the 1960s or a boatswain on a warship in 1648? What significance and role did Norwegian sailors have during World War II?

From the museum's extensive collections, cannonballs, tools, personal effects, clothing, and souvenirs are presented. Alongside paintings, photographs, diaries, letters, and films, visitors are brought close to the drama and everyday life at sea.

A dedicated children's trail showcases animals and insects that have accompanied sailors throughout history.

Archaeology

Through our expertise in maritime cultural history and underwater methods, the Norwegian Maritime Museum (NMM) is responsible for managing maritime cultural remains in ten of Norway's southernmost counties.

Diver surfacing with boat part Norsk Maritimt Museum/Jostein Gundersen

The NMM's administrative region covers the southern coastline of Norway from Åna-Sira to the Swedish border, including any inland freshwater bodies within this area. Our archaeology department currently employs seventeen archaeologists in permanent positions, in addition to a number of project employees.

Our administrative region covers the following counties:

Østfold, Akershus, Oslo, Hedmark, Oppland, Buskerud, Vestfold, Telemark, Aust-Agder and Vest-Agder

Archaeological projects and news

What we do

The NMM's archaeological department works with maritime archaeological remains both on land and under water. Click the following links to read about some of the things we do:

Import and export of maritime cultural heritage

Importing and exporting cultural remains is regulated by the Cultural Heritage Act. Anyone wishing to export a vessel, part of a vessel or any other maritime cultural object older than fifty years must have an export licence. The Directorate for Cultural Heritage is the decision-making institution for export of whole vessels or large parts of vessels (e.g. a deckhouse), while the NMM is the decision-making institution for export of any other maritime objects and loose parts of vessels.

More information on import/export of cultural heritage and the relevant application forms are available from Arts Council Norway (scroll down to find information in English).

Please send inquiries about exporting maritime cultural objects to fellespost@marmuseum.no

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