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Will Jennings

Norwegian landscapes are sublime. Mirror-like fjords, romantic mountains, and craggy coastlines – all watched over by the shimmering dance of the Northern Lights – draw adventurous tourists and filmmakers alike, including those behind recent blockbuster Dune and the latest James Bond movie No Time to Die.
But what about tourists who prefer a more urban experience? Is it the country for them?
Norway is not in the top 50 tourist-drawing nations, ranking below Bulgaria and Belgium, and while it does have beautiful towns – Alesund’s art nouveau islands, Bergen and its Unesco-protected Hanseatic wharf and the moated fortress of Fredrikstad, to name three – the capital, Oslo, doesn’t stand out as a prime city destination.
Perhaps that is in part due to the high cost of food and drink compared with elsewhere in Europe, but it is also because, for many travellers, there is no singularly identifiable Oslo thing, like Paris’ romance, London’s urbanity or Amsterdam’s canals.

However, Oslo is forging a new iden­tity, led by culture and the contemporary architecture along the city’s fjord-facing edge, creating a walkable waterfront with a range of museums, galleries and cultural moments.
To the west, the Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, designed by architect Renzo Piano, has perched on its peninsula since 2012, holding a growing collection of contemporary art by the likes of Cindy Sherman, Damien Hirst and Andy Warhol. Commercial galleries, cafes and restaurants fill the surrounding streets.
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The Astrup Fearnley offers a useful starting point for an eastward walk along Oslofjord, passing the Nobel Peace Center, dedicated to the annual prize and worth a visit for an uplifting glimpse into humanity’s hopes. The building opened in 1872 as a railway station, but British architect David Adjaye has given it contemporary vibrancy through an experiential sequence of spaces entirely unexpected from its external politeness.
Wrapping around it is the gargantuan National Museum, due to open in June 2022. It will hold more than 5,000 works from the 15th to 21st centuries, as well as host touring mega-exhibitions in a cavernous roof space.
Following the water’s edge, walk through the shadow of the City Hall’s brick modernism, skirting the castle and passing moored cruise ships, to the glacier-like Opera House, designed by local architects Snohetta. A busy programme of opera and ballet fills its various auditoria at a range of ticket prices, but outside is no less performative.

An inclined roof leads up from the water, inviting the public to climb freely over the building. When it opened in 2008, Oslovites were pleasantly surprised by the expansive urban views, and it has been an iconic civic space ever since.
The surrounding area is packed with pop-up eateries, bars, floating saunas and urban beaches, and behind lurks the city’s newest architectural arrival, the Munch Museum. Proclaimed as a first-of-a-kind “vertical museum”, its 13 floors rise higher than the Opera House, with impressive views from the top-floor restaurant and bar, even if the venues themselves are not as inviting as those they look down on.
Its heavy cladding and airport-like interior have been criticised, but inside is a vast collection gifted to the city by Norwegian artist Edvard Munch. Three versions of his celebrated work The Scream hang alongside other priceless pieces and the vast “Monumental” paintings.



Escaping the Munch and turning inland, “Barcode” is a contemporary rhythm of hotels and corporate HQs. At the end, looking back at the Opera House and a perfect place to finish a tour of Oslo’s cultural waterside, is the Deichman Bjorvika library. It may seem an odd endpoint for our tour, but this is no ordinary library.
Everybody is allowed into the 2021 Public Library of the Year, to browse its open shelves and also listen to music, watch films, play games, or just people-watch with a cocktail. It is a library like no other, speaking to a public spirit and generosity found across Oslo – a city putting culture to the fore.


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Nordic nations

Edvard Munch’s The Scream times three, Andy Warhol, a library that serves cocktails – forget the fjords, Oslo in Norway plays the cultural tourism card

People pass by the painting “The Scream” by Norwegian artist Edvard Munch in the new Munch Museum in Oslo. Three versions of the  famous work are on show. Photo: Terje Pedersen/NTB/AFP

The Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, housing works by Andy Warhol, Damien Hirst and Cindy Sherman among others, has been joined on the Norwegian capital’s waterfront by the Munch Museum, and a National Museum opens in 2022. Photo: Getty Images

The Munch Museum is the city’s newest architectural arrival. Photo: Will Jennings

The soon-to-open National Museum in Oslo. Photo: Will Jennings

People pass by the painting “The Scream” by Norwegian artist Edvard Munch in the new Munch Museum in Oslo. Photo: Terje Pedersen/NTB/AFP

An exhibition space in the new Munch Museum, whose interior has been likened to an airport by critics. Photo: Beate Oma Dahle/NTB/AFP

The city beach in front of the Munch Museum. Photo: Will Jennings

Japan’s newest Unesco World Heritage Site, the Jomon prehistoric ruins, could draw tourists back to the Tohoku region, devastated by 2011 quake and tsunami

A woman’s skull from Japan’s prehistoric Jomon period, unearthed in Hokkaido, and a model face reproduced with the use of DNA technology. Photo: Getty Images

Visitors look at a reconstructed Jomon house at the Sannai Maruyama archeological site in northern Japan, one of 17 that have collectively been inscribed on Unesco’s World Heritage List. The listing has renewed hopes of reviving tourism in the Tohoku region. Photo: Getty Imags 

Remains of a large stone circle at the Oyu Kanjo Resseki site, part of the Jomon monument. Photo: Jomon Archives

An urn from around 2000BC in the Jomon Period of Japan’s prehistory. The cord-like patterns on Jomon pottery give the era and its people their name. Photo: Getty Images

An illustration of a Jomon period village. Photo: Getty Images

Reconstructed buildings at the Sannai Maruyama site. Photo: Getty Images

An earthenware bowl from the Jomon period. Photo: Getty Images

Yanqing near Beijing, a 2022 Winter Olympics venue, boasts natural beauty and a variety of attractions - we spent five days sampling them, and that wasn’t enough

Yeya Lake Wetland Park1.&#xA;[FEATURES] Photo / HANDOUT

Yudu mountain is just one of Yanqing’s natural beauties.

The bobsleigh venue for the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics at Yanqing. Photo: Getty Images

Yanqing is one of the three competition venue zones for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.

The lobby of the Marriott International in Yanqing.

The entrance to the Longqingxia Scenic Area in Yanqing.

The logo of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics on display in Yanqing. Photo: Getty Images

Yeya Lake Wetland Park in Yanqing.

A panoramic digital display of plants at the former site of Expo 2019. Photo: Elaine Yau

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The M+ issue

M+ opens at last, a museum of contemporary art and design for the world, amid a culture war in Hong Kong, where some wonder if it belongs

A night view of the M+ museum and the West Kowloon arts hub in Hong Kong. The museum opened four years late and in a very different political and cultural climate from the one at the time the district was conceived in 1996. Photo: Martin Chan

Chinese artist Ai Weiwei with Chinese contemporary art collector Uli Sigg, who donated his collection to M+, in Paris in 2019. Photo: Getty Images 

Uli Sigg with crates of the artworks he has donated as they are moved into M+ galleries for display in May 2021. Photo: M+, Hong Kong/Lok Cheng

“Whitewash” (1995-2000) by Ai Weiwei at M+. Photo: SCMP/Enid Tsui

CD insert for Lo Ta-yu’s “Capital” (1992).

“China Tracy & China Sun 01” (2009) at RMB City, a virtual city in the online world of Second Life, planned and developed by Beijing artist Cao Fei, on display at M+. Photo: SCMP/Antony Dickson

Suhanya Raffel, M+ director. Photo: M+/Winnie Yeung

Exhibition in the Things, Spaces, Interactions” exhibition of design and architecture from Asia in the East Galleries of M+. Photo: SCMP/Antony Dickson

Ikko Yokoyama, curator, design & architecture at M+. Photo: SCMP/Antony Dickson

Artist and educator May Fung Mei-wah says: “I think M+ is a bit detached from local people, maybe because they speak mainly in English.” Photo: SCMP/Xiaomei Chen

“Paddling Home” by Kacey Wong. Photo: SCMP/Dickson Lee

“Hammer and Sickle (Special Edition)” (1977) by Andy Warhol, on display in the Courtyard Galleries, M+. Photo: SCMP/Antony Dickson

“One Manipulates into Two, Two Integrates Into One No. 4” (2013) by Zheng Guogu on display in the Courtyard Galleries at M+. 

From Ai Weiwei’s whitewashed pots to Antony Gormley’s miniature terracotta army, 10 highlights of M+ museum’s opening shows in Hong Kong

Asian Field (2003), by Antony Gormley. Photo: Antony Gormley

Whitewash (1995-2000) by Ai Weiwei is one of stand-out works in the opening shows at Hong Kong’s M+ museum of visual culture. Photo: Enid Tsui

Whitewash (1995-2000), by Ai Weiwei. Photo: Enid Tsui

Screenshot from “Archigram 1967”, a BBC documentary about Archigram’s ideas that is shown as part of the opening exhibition at M+. Photo: Enid Tsui

Time Traveller (2014), by Sara Tse Suk-ting. Photo: Enid Tsui

Braiding (1998), by Lin Tianmiao. Photo: Enid Tsui

Rattan Chair (1950s-60s), by Kowloon Rattan Ware Co. Photo: Enid Tsui

Untitled pair of doors (2003), by Tsang Tsou-choi (aka the King of Kowloon). Photo: Enid Tsui

We The People (detail) (2011-16), by Danh Vo. Photo: Enid Tsui

Crucified TVs – Not A Prayer In Heaven (2018), by Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries. Photo: Enid Tsui

RMB City (2007-2011), by Cao Fei. Photo: Enid Tsui

Why a Tokyo sushi bar is a star exhibit at M+ museum in Hong Kong, reassembled as testament to the subtle minimalism of its designer

Kiyotomo, a former Tokyo sushi bar, has been rebuilt on the second floor of the M+ Museum in Hong Kong as a testament to the subtle minimalism of its designer, Japanese architect Shiro Kuramata. Photo: M+/Lok Cheng

Kiyotomo at M+ in Hong Kong bears no resemblance to the typical 1980s Tokyo sushi bar – part of its appeal to the museum’s curators. Photo: M+/Lok Cheng

The entrance to Kiyotomo on the second floor of the M+ museum in Hong Kong. Photo: M+/Lok Cheng

Kiyotomo was dismantled in 2014 by the company that originally built it, and reassembled by workers from the company at M+. Photo: M+/Lok Cheng

Chairs Kuramata designed for Kiyotomo, seen at M+. Photo: M+/Lok Cheng

Shiro Kuramata’s Miss Blanche chair, designed in 1988. Just 56 were made, and one recently sold at auction for €267,000. One of the chairs is on display at the M+ museum. Photo: Phillips 

The orange “noren” curtain at the entrance to Kiyotomo at M+. Photo: M+/Lok Cheng

Transparency and light were part of Kuramata’s design language. Photo: M+/Lok Cheng

Kiyotomo is rebuilt at M+. Photo: M+/Lok Cheng

Eleven workers from the company that built Kiyotomo, and dismantled it in 2014, travelled to Hong Kong and went through three weeks’ quarantine to rebuid it inside the museum. Photo: M+/Lok Cheng

M+ conservator Sara Moy works on Kiyotomo’s red door at M+. Photo: M+/Lok Cheng

Completing Kiyotomo meant, in some cases, preserving the patina of age. Photo: M+/Lok Cheng

Hong Kong’s long-delayed M+ museum opens, but it may not put city on the cultural tourism map given Covid-19 travel curbs and security law

As an addition to Hong Kong’s tourism portfolio, M+ will prob­ably be a hit – but it may not put the city on the cultural tourism map as firmly as once hoped. Photo: AFP

M+ in the West Kowloon Cultural District, Hong Kong. It will be free to enter for the first year. Photo: Martin Chan

Tourists enjoy a swim at Bai Chay beach in Quang Ninh province. Vietnam plans to restart international commercial flights with 15 countries from January next year. Photo: Getty Images

A tourist at Kuta beach in Bali, Indonesia. Quarantine for fully vaccinated visitors has been cut to just three days. Photo: EPA

Hong Kong had the King of Kowloon, eccentric graffiti artist. Yuan dynasty China had Ni Zan, king of Lake Tai and equally eccentric minimalist painter

Graffiti painter Tsang Tsou-choi, also known as the King of Kowloon, prepares for a solo exhibition in 1997. Photo: Dickson Lee

Ni Zan’s Six Gentlemen (1345), from the collection of the Shanghai Museum. Photo: Shanghai Museum

The graffiti artist known as the King of Kowloon, Tsang Tsou-choi, lectures police after being caught writing on the wall near Government House on the day British rule in Hong Kong ended. Photo: SCMP

Detail from a portrait of Ni Zan Portrait in the National Palace Museum, Taipei. Photo: National Palace Museum

Hong Kong dance company explores the question of whether to leave the city or stay, in modern dance theatre production Home Sweat Home

Hong Kong dancers explore home and identity in Home Sweat Home. CCDC’s Shirley Lok rehearses for the production. Photo: Lester Leung

CCDC dance artist Rick Lau (back), who is a co-creator of Home Sweat Home and dancer Jacko Ng. Photo: Lester Leung

Bruce Wong leads a rehearsal for Home Sweat Home. Photo: Lester Leung

With M+ museum collecting Hong Kong graffiti and neon art, we trace the roots of those words

Graffiti covers a a subway train in New York in 1980. Photo: Getty Images

Let There Be Language by Joe Banks and Zata Banks.

Untitled Pair of Wooden Doors by King of Kowloon Tsang Tsou-choi. Photo: Red Dog Studios

When West Kowloon Cultural District, home of M+ museum, was first proposed in 1999 and the arguments that followed about its construction

British architect Norman Foster stands next to a model of his winning proposal for the West Kowloon cultural and entertainment complex in 2002. His plan was scrapped in 2006 on cost grounds, but his firm won the tender to implement a revised blueprint in 2011. Photo: SCMP

The site of the West Kowloon cultural and entertainment complex in March, 2000. Photo: SCMP

New thinking about the Chinese contemporary art collection of Uli Sigg at the heart of M+, Hong Kong’s museum of visual culture

Yin Xiuzhen’s 2001 work “Portable City: Beijing” from the Uli Sigg collection of Chinese contemporary art catalogued in a 500-page book edited by Pi Li. Photo: M+ Sigg Collection, Hong Kong/Yin Xiuzhen.

The catalogue’s cover.

A still from Cao Fei’s 2006 digital video artwork “Whose Utopia”. Hans Ulrich Obrist, who brought the work of Cao Fei to international attention, contributes an essay assessing her art. Photo: M+ Sigg Collection, Hong Kong/Cao Fei

Ai Weiwei’s 1995 work “Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn” is the subject of an essay by Belgian art historian Chris Dercon. Photo: M+ Sigg Collection, Hong Kong/Ai Weiwei

How John Fung found his passion for photography after difficult teenage years in Macau and Hong Kong, and why he always lives in the moment

Hong Kong photographer John Fung at the IFC in Central, Hong Kong. He says living in the present is what informs his art. Photo: Antony Dickson

An image of the M+ museum in West Kowloon by Fung. Photo: John Fung

Whatever the heart sees and feels, it can photograph, says Fung. Photo: Antony Dickson

An image of Fung at his restaurant, the Black Sheep, in Sai Kung, in 1995, from the now defunct English newspaper the Eastern Express.

How museums – at first private, later public – spread in Asia and the man who lent them impetus in Hong Kong

Arnaldo de Oliveira Sales, long-time chairman of the Urban Council, was a key figure in the growth of museums in post-war Hong Kong. 

Arnaldo de Oliveira Sales, long-time chairman of the Urban Council, was a key figure in the growth of museums in post-war Hong Kong. Photo: SCMP

The Sarawak Museum in Kuching, Borneo, was established by Charles Brooke. Photo: Getty Images

Hong Kong’s City Hall, built in 1869, had a museum and an art gallery; the complex was demolished in 1933. 

Arnaldo de Oliveira Sales was the long-serving chairman of the (now defunct) Urban Council and a key figure behind the post-war growth of museums in Hong Kong. Photo: SCMP

From Whitney Houston’s dresses in Nashville to the most expensive Rolex in Los Angeles to a U$1 billion Egyptian archaeological showcase, the world’s newest museums

A trumpet belonging to Louis Armstrong is displayed at the National Museum of African American Music in Nashville. Photo: AP 


A 3,200-year-old pink-granite colossal statue of King Ramses II at the entrance of the the Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza, Egypt. Set to open in 2022, it is one of a number of new museums around the world. Photo: AFP

The Nakanoshima Museum of Art in Osaka, Japan. Photo: Shutterstock

The National Museum of African American Music in Nashville, Tennessee. Photo: Getty Images

The Humboldt Forum in Berlin. Photo: Getty Images

The Museum of Art Pudong in Shanghai, China. Photo: Getty Images

The art deco exterior of the Academy of Motion Pictures Museum in Los Angeles. Photo: Getty Images 

Installing the Big Clay #4 sculpture by Swiss visual artist Urs Fischer in front of GES-2, a former power station in Moscow. Photo: Getty Images

What do artists cook in their kitchens? A museum stays relevant during Covid-19 by creating cookbook of recipes provided by Ai Weiwei and others

Ai Weiwei’s contribution from Portugal to the Mori Art Museum cookbook - a photograph of ingredients - was more a concept than a recipe, but his fellow artists were more concrete with theirs. 

The cover of the Mori Art Museum cookbook.

Toeuk kroeung (spiced water) by Cambodian artist Sopheap Pich.

“Ecosystem of Life and Death in Nature, the World Around Us” by Ai Weiwei.

Michelin-star Korean chef on the joy of being in Hong Kong, his not-so-simple food and how seaweed works like MSG

Gim cup, sweet shrimp, potato, from Mosu at M+. Photo: Mosu Hong Kong

Korean chef Sung Anh is opening a branch of his Michelin two-star Seoul restaurant Mosu at M+ in Hong Kong.  Photo: Antony Dickson

Burdock bark, cultured butter, party mix from Mosu at M+, Hong Kong. Photo: Mosu Hong Kong

Tilefish, brassicas, dongchimi, from Mosu at M+. Photo: Mosu Hong Kong


Paris for romance, Amsterdam for its canals, Oslo for ... well, what? But wait, Norway’s capital is forging a new identity led by culture and architecture
Its waterfront boasts a contemporary art museum, the new Munch Museum, an opera house whose roof you can walk over and the 2021 Public Library of the Year



Norway is known for its fjords and mountains, but its capital hasn’t stood out - until now: Oslo is forging a new identity as a destination for cultural tourists.


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