New pavilion offers a taste of New Nordic City Nature

Image Credit: Nasjonalmuseet and Ina Wesenberg

The “New Nordic” exhibition at the National Museum in Oslo takes visitors from the Michelin kitchen out into the urban realm. On the museum square, a specially designed pavilion offers a taste of New Nordic City Nature.

The exhibition “New Nordic – Cuisine, Aesthetics and Place” has just opened at the National Museum in Oslo. The cross-disciplinary show explores how New Nordic Cuisine evolved into a global phenomenon in dialogue with parallel movements in architecture, design, craft, photography, and art.

Image Credit: Nasjonalmuseet and Ina Wesenberg

Rooted in the local landscape and place-based ingredients, the New Nordic food movement reflects a growing societal interest in ecology, nature, and place identity – an evolution the exhibition brings into focus.

As part of the exhibition, the nature-based design studio SLA and Dyvik Kahlen Architects have created a special pavilion on the museum square, where local and edible plant species play a central role.

“The New Nordic food movement revolutionized Nordic cuisine. In the same way, New Nordic City Nature is reshaping how we design our cities. That’s what we want to show with this pavilion,”

E.C. Forfang, Lead Designer and Associate Partner at SLA.

Planting from Oslo’s shores and forests

The pavilion consists of four main elements: a long wooden shelving structure, a large roof, a beach landscape, and a forest landscape. The planting features local species from Oslo – many of them edible, and among those used in New Nordic cuisine.

The pavilion’s roof hosts coastal vegetation found along Oslo’s shores and islands – including sea kale, angelica, and wild garlic.

Image Credit: Nasjonalmuseet and Ina Wesenberg

The other side of the pavilion is a hilly landscape that covers a root cellar. Its vegetation is inspired by the Oslo forests and includes rowan, heather, pine, and ramson.

The choice of species is no coincidence:

“Just as the food movement has shown the value of the local and rooted, we aim to do the same in the urban realm – with nature as co-creator. It’s not just about aesthetics, but about building places that strengthen biodiversity, make our cities more resilient to climate change, and support people’s connection to nature,”

E.C. Forfang, Lead Designer and Associate Partner, SLA.


‘New Nordic’ events all summer

Throughout the summer, the pavilion will host a rich program of events, including foraging tours, lectures, and meals prepared by renowned chefs. The events aim to provide opportunities for learning, experience, and reflection.

“This pavilion doesn’t just look back at the past 20 years – it also points ahead. In many Norwegian cities, urban space design is still marked by old habits, with little room for local and wild nature. Here, we hope to inspire a new kind of urban nature – more sensuous, more place-specific, and more life-giving,”

E.C. Forfang, Lead Designer and Associate Partner, SLA.

The exhibition “New Nordic – Cuisine, Aesthetics and Place” is open to the public until 14 September 2025.

The pavilion is designed by SLA and Dyvik Kahlen Architects and built by landscape contractor Skaaret Landskap.

Photography credits: SLA unless otherwise captioned

About Damian Holmes 3697 Articles
Damian Holmes is the Founder and Editor of World Landscape Architecture (WLA). He is a registered landscape architect (AILA) working in international design practice in Australia. Damian founded WLA in 2007 to provide a website for landscape architects written by landscape architects. Connect on Linkedin at https://www.linkedin.com/in/damianholmes/