Nordic Museum

In the US city of Seattle for almost 40 years, the Nordic Museum – formerly called the Nordic Heritage Museum – had finally been housed in a new home, built specifically to honour the heritage of the Nordic peoples, who over the years have chosen to live the American dream. Previously, and since 1980, the museum was housed in a school building in Ballard, a neighbourhood built by immigrants, but its new nigh-on 5300-sqm building, which opened last May, is a giant step forward, not only in terms of capacity, functionality and modernity, but also in terms of design.

 Absolutely everything, from the shape of the building to the guided visitor experience, is closely linked to the culture, tradition and landscapes of the five Nordic countries – Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden – and to the people who came from there.
The museum’s new design, according to Mithun, the architecture firm responsible for the project, is «organised around a linear fjord», which weaves together stories from the Nordic region and the Nordic American experience. A vertically-striated zinc skin wraps the exterior of the building, while, inside, facetted white walls evoke the glacial environment. Within this fjord there is a narrative, written by exhibition designers Ralph Appelbaum Associates (RAA): bridges connect Nordic and Nordic-American exhibits, and at the centre, the Fjord Hall connects all the museum’s exhibits and features, as if they were tributaries, greeting visitors with a map display. Heading out from the Fjord Hall, visitors discover a number of exhibition areas. If the Nordic Orientation Gallery explains what it means to be Nordic or Nordic American, the Sense of Place Gallery’s Nordic-inspired seating offers the perfect place to watch films about the region’s environment. For its part, the Nordic Region Gallery presents artefacts and key historic moments from all five Nordic countries and explores how immigrants built their lives in America. The last area, the Nordic Perspectives Forum Gallery, reveals contemporary life in America and the Nordic region and the way they connect with each other and with the past. In total there are around 1740 sqm of permanent exhibitions and 345 sqm of temporary exhibitions, housing 580 artefacts, as well as a storage area of about 230 sqm, a café and a shop. A performance and gathering hall adds a further 390 sqm and room for 374 people. The landscaping around the museum is an integral part of the facility, displaying not only a few exhibits of its own, but also a century-old Finnish sauna that the museum hopes will one day be functional.
The Nordic Museum, on Market Street, the heart of Ballard, thus creates a link between the Nordic region and the experience of the Nordic Americans, in the past and present. According to the RAA (Ralph Appelbaum Associates), this museum and cultural centre, «allows us to reach back into the distant past as a means of exploring more recent times».