Nydalen station consists of a detached entrance pavilion at street level, while the 110-meter long platform area itself lies 12 meters underground. The pavilion’s architecture is expressed through a composition of horizontal and vertical levels and planes, which are dynamically cast off in relation to each other. The walls are faced in black basalt or in large sheets of transparent white, yellow, black, opalescent and tinted glass.

Installed around the escalator, closed on three sides by opalescent glass panels, are 1800 neon lights and 44 loudspeakers. The “Tunnel of Light” is a work of art where light, music, technology and architecture create an integral and unified whole. With the assistance from sensors it also dynamically interacts with the public using the escalator. The creation is a theme around different experiences of travel; travel in time and travel in space. Each season has its sounds and light, and there are sound and light moods for all phases of life. The idea for this installation was conceived by Kristin Jarmund. The light-system is developed by Intravision, software by Yngve Sandboe and sounds composed by Bjarne Kvinnsland.

Kenneth Frampton, quoted: “The station … amounts to a particularly compelling synthesis of both space and light. What is striking about this civic set-piece is the way in which its form is deftly superimposed on a triangular site through the juxtaposition of a series of parallel planes.”