The concept for a brand-new museum in the heart of Trondheim, brings together the city’s Art Museum and Museum of Decorative Arts within two interwoven volumes. The proposal marks the studio’s second project in Norway, extending a portfolio of award-winning projects worldwide.
Named “to:en” after the Norwegian expression for “two in one”, the museum is conceived around the idea of two distinct institutions forming a larger cultural whole. The design explores how architecture can carry cultural knowledge through its spaces, materials and details using decoding methods. Local narratives and craft traditions inform the building’s geometry, circulation and façade, connecting Trondheim’s heritage with a contemporary museum experience.
Two interwoven ring-shaped volumes create a continuous spatial loop around a central glass tower, bringing art, craft, history and everyday urban life into a shared architectural framework. By embedding cultural memory into its architecture, the project itself becomes a cultural object, embodying the traditions, narratives and craftsmanship that shape its identity. The museum’s purpose extends far beyond exhibiting collections: it is conceived as an open civic platform that can become a focal cultural anchor for Trondheim.
The rings draw on Jörmungandr, the world-encircling serpent of Norse mythology, translating its circular form into connected exhibition spaces and routes of discovery. At the centre, the glass tower reinterprets Yggdrasil, the mythic tree connecting different realms. Accommodating vertical circulation and bringing daylight into the interior, the tower gives this cultural reference a practical architectural role, linking the museum’s levels and helping visitors orient themselves.
The same process of decoding shapes the proposed façade. Nordic timber is arranged in a spiralling, woven pattern inspired by nautical rope, Viking ship hulls and regional craft. Principles of weaving, binding and timber assembly become a contemporary design language, giving the building a tactile connection to its setting. For a museum bringing together art and decorative arts, the architecture itself becomes a way to encounter the relationship between future and cultural memory.
Inside, connected galleries allow visitors to explore permanent and temporary exhibitions through a choice of routes. The layout encourages encounters across the combined collections, creating opportunities to discover personal relationships between artworks, objects, techniques and periods. Movement through the museum becomes part of an educational experience shaped by curiosity and individual exploration, rather than a strict route.
As a new focal point for Trondheim, the museum would give art a more visible presence in citizens’ everyday lives. Shared public spaces would support gathering, informal learning and exchange, making the building a place to return to beyond a particular exhibition. The proposal positions the museum as a civic resource where engagement with art and craft can deepen understanding of the city’s cultural heritage and encourage new ways of seeing its present.
Occupying a former car park within Trondheim’s cultural district, the project would extend this role into the surrounding urban space. Pedestrian routes and gathering areas connect the museum with daily movement through the city, creating opportunities for cultural encounters as part of an ordinary walk, meeting or pause.
At ground level, the building follows the site’s topography, with low profiles recalling fjord contours and traditional turf-roofed houses. Its scale responds to Trondheim’s compact historic centre, grounding the proposed cultural landmark in the landscape and urban life from which its design takes shape.
The project has been selected as a finalist for IDPA Japan Design Award 2026 and the 2026 World Architecture Festival (WAF) with the results to be announced in November, followed by live presentations in Miami.
