How do you design for democracy? This was the key question for Team Urbis, a consortium led by Nordic Office of Architecture (and including Haptic Architects, Scenario, and i-d. Interiørarkitektur & Design), when they won the competition to transform Oslo’s New Government Quarter, just six years after the terrorist attacks of July 22, 2011 tore the area apart. Eight people were killed, and at least 210 were injured by the blast from a powerful bomb, planted in a car park under one of the government buildings. A further 69, mostly 16- and 17-year-olds, were killed by the same man two hours later, on the island of Utøya, where a summer camp for the youth wing of the Norwegian Labour Party was taking place. Gro Brundtland, Norway’s former prime minister (and its first female PM) had been on the island just a few hours before the massacre.
“When you are faced with a task like this, you feel a profound respect for the dead and for all the people who have suffered,” Gudmund Stokke, founding partner of Nordic Office of Architecture, told Azure. “We are designing something that is very important for the nation, and it’s going to stand there for hundreds of years. It’s almost a sacred task.”
The initial development phase involved the planning and construction of two brand new buildings, A-Block and D-Block, as well as the 22 July Centre, an expansive public museum and learning space that tells the story of the attacks. The entire museum is set below ground, with the only visible part being the entrance pavilion. The project also included the reorganization of public plazas and the renovation of the 1958 Høyblokken — the High-Rise Building or H-Block — which was badly damaged but survived the bombing.
From day one, it was about creating a place where people would feel safe and welcome, Stokke recalls, “a place to walk, sit, protest and remember.” Security is tight if you want to enter government buildings, but the two existing public squares — Johan Nygaardsvolds plass and Einar Gerhardsens plass — are now fully accessible and car-free. Pedestrian and cycling routes between the adjacent Hammersborg neighbourhood, the city centre and the fjord have also been re-established.
The New Government Quarter brings together more than 4,000 civil servants across multiple ministries on a historic city‑centre site. To enhance inter-departmental communication, Nordic devised a loop of high-level walkways, ‘the ring of ministries’, into which all buildings, both new and old, will eventually be connected. “Climate policy intersects with energy, transport and finance, for example. Likewise, digitalization affects security, welfare delivery and regulation,” explains Knut Hovland, Nordic’s Head of Design. “We are hoping there will be fewer emails, and more face-to-face meetings to foster cross-disciplinary collaborations. This is what lies at the heart of our democracy.”
Despite the project’s smooth delivery, on time and under budget, it has not been without controversy. The Erling Viksjø-designed Y-Block, built in 1969, needed to be demolished because of the extensive damage it had sustained. Raised on pilotis and shaped like the letter ‘Y’, the building was considered a landmark of modernist architecture. Its concrete surface furthermore featured two large-scale sandblasted murals, The Fishermen and The Seagull, based on 1969 drawings by Pablo Picasso adapted by Norwegian artist Carl Nesjar in 1970. After much pushback from art professionals and preservation groups, the murals were saved and have been relocated on and within the new A-block.
A-Block’s light-filled foyer, called the “pyramid hall,” reaches a towering 51 metres above ground, dwarfing the nearby Trinity Church. It stands as a shiny new beacon of Norway’s enduring democratic values. AAhkA (Mother Earth), a site-specific artwork by Sámi-Finnish artist Outi Pieski, adorns the cantilevered wall of the new atrium, greeting everyone who enters. Its intricate timber patterns depict a figure wearing a traditional ládjogahpir, the Foremothers’ Hat of Pride, and a bejeweled hand — expressed through gold rings — grasping a spear.
Timber, sourced from Nordmarka, the large forest region in northern Oslo, is used amply inside, rendering the interior warm and textured, even homey. A sculptural staircase, dexterously shaped into a double-curve form by local boatbuilders Risør Båtbyggeri and Biko, scoops visitors up to the upper level as if with a giant pair of hands. A landing links this building to the mid-century H-Block next door, where informal meeting spaces await.
The new A-Block and D-Block have been designed to be adaptable for decades to come, with modular floorplates and plenty of shared meeting zones. They are also designed to be as energy-efficient as possible, integrating, for example, seawater-based heating and cooling. Low‑carbon concrete has been used to reduce operational energy demand. “Dignified, enduring, beautiful, and friendly are the key words that we use to describe our architecture,” Stokke says proudly.
Central to the redevelopment was a commitment to preserving the site’s layered history. A square piece of sandblasted concrete, cut from H-block’s façade to create a link to the building next door, has been placed inside a new communal meeting space as if it were a piece of sculpture, with two chairs in front of it. Some of the pilotis from H-Block suffered extensive damage from the 22 July attack and have been carefully preserved inside metal casings, which express their original design detail within. Timber-framed windows from the demolished Y-Block have been used to replace broken ones on H-Block.
Inside, walls have been removed to create more light and space. Around 20 per cent of the approximately 15,800 furniture items have been repurposed from previous government buildings, and Nordic has gone the extra mile to faithfully replicate some of the original interior pieces, such as lamps, by seeking out the same companies that had produced them. All new pieces are by Norwegian designers, from classics by Torbjørn Afdal, Rastad & Relling, Sverre Fehn and Fredrik A. Kayser to contemporary designs by Andreas Engesvik, Anderssen & Voll, Jonas Stokke, Tron Meyer and Daniel Rybakken.
Art also plays an important role in the restoration of Norway’s democratic faith. More than 300 new and re-sited artworks have been placed by Koro (Public Art Norway) across buildings and open spaces, including some that speak to or possibly even bear visible traces of the 2011 attacks. Two mural-sized works by Norwegian artist Vanessa Baird, made in pastel and watercolour, are hung inside D-Block. Originally commissioned by Koro in 2010 for the Ministry of Agriculture and Food and the Ministry of Health and Care Services, they had been removed in 2013 after some interpreted them as allusions to the bombing. One, for instance, depicts papers and documents strewn in the air, and people reacting in shock and confusion. But it seems more an expression of anger and frustration at the lack of support citizens receive in their fast-paced modern lives. Government officials should perhaps — the work implies — pay more attention.
Outside the new Prime Minister’s office in D-Block, a freshly commissioned work by Norwegian artist Elise Storsveen, Kys mik (which means “Kiss me” in Old Norse), graces the wall: a colourful tapestry of 150 ribbons woven into bands using a traditional local technique. “Some of the ribbons are ornamental. Others are decorated with Norwegian words written in the Latin alphabet. I also used runes, Morse code, obscure alphabets and symbols from different cultures,” Storsveen explains.
Upholding by Norwegian artist Matias Faldbakken is a 12-metre-high mosaic monument in the central Johan Nygaardsvolds plass. It won the international open call held in 2023 to honour the victims of the 22 July attacks and was unveiled earlier this year. Its 300,000 hand-laid stone pieces form an image of a fragile wader bird — the common greenshank, native to the bogs of Norway — reflected in the calm waters of the Tyrifjord, the lake surrounding Utøya. The names and ages of the 77 victims are inscribed on the rig’s base, facing the square. Small holes have been made for flowers.
Other artworks include Sebastia by Berlin-based Palestinian artist Jumana Manna, who collected stone offcuts from municipalities across Norway to create the 800-square-metre patchwork paved surface — a literal “city floor.” An interactive online map reveals where each of the stones has come from.
London-based South Korean artist Do Ho Suh’s anti-monumental Grass Roots Square, in which 50,000 miniature bronze figures have been embedded in the paving stones of Einar Gerhardsens plass, offers a counterbalance to Picasso’s monumental The Fishermen, now attached to the southwest facade of A-Block (The Seagull has now been mounted inside the main entrance lobby).
Tucked underneath the main public square, the 22 July Centre shows its scars from the attack, including a broken clock face from a nearby tower and H-Block’s eastern pavilion. Amongst the exhibits are the police garments, boots and weapons used by the perpetrator. Another room replays news coverage from the day. In a video, a girl describes seeing her friend being shot, then being shot herself: “I didn’t feel any pain,” she says. There is an education section with a temporary exhibition on social media’s role in cultivating extremist views. “Never again starts with understanding” is the museum’s mission statement. In the last room, a circular groove holds a mound of stones and an invitation “to build a cairn, stone by stone.” Daylight streams in via clerestory windows, through which Faldbakken’s mosaic can be seen.
There are two more buildings still to come, which will complete the “ring of ministries” as well as a public park. The New Government Quarter in Oslo sets a new benchmark for a principled way of designing — or what Stokke calls “quiet monumentality.” In other words, the project has successfully transformed a site of national trauma into a renewed expression of the very values the attack attempted to undermine.
Yuki Sumner is a London-based writer and critic on art and architecture.
Oslo’s New Government Quarter Reclaims a Site of Terror Through Architecture
Integrating remnants of the 2011 terrorist attacks with preserved historic buildings and new construction, Nordic Office of Architecture reimagines a future for the civic campus without erasing its past.