Edvard Munch himself initiated a discussion about a future Munch Museum with Jens Thiis, the director of the National Gallery, back in 1927. The City of Oslo made its decision to build a Munch Museum in 1946. Discussions about where to locate it started from day one. Should it be placed in the Vigeland Park in the Frogner District or downtown behind the Royal Palace? Or maybe it should be built at Grünerløkka, where the artist had spent important years of his childhood?
In the mid-1950s the Oslo City Council decided to build the museum in Tøyen in eastern Oslo. In May 1963, a hundred years after the artist's birth, the museum opened in architects Gunnar Fougner and Einar Myklebust's – by contemporary standards – very modern building.
An increasing number of visitors come to the museum and additional space is needed in order to exhibit more of the collection. The Munch Museum has long outgrown its current premises. In May 2013, after years of debate, the Oslo City Council voted to build a new Munch Museum in Bjørvika in the Oslo's harbour area, close to the Opera. Spanish architects Herreros Arquitectos won the design competition and the new museum will be completed in 2019.
