Move the National Theater to a museum – and build a new one – VG

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The government announced in the revised national budget that they will take a break in the renovation of the National Theater. They will use the break to review and re-evaluate the project.

Former Oslo mayor Fabian Stang (H) says that the building is not suitable to become either a good museum or theater, even after an expensive renovation.

– I feel so sorry for that theater. It stands to reason, says Stang in an interview with the VG podcast Giæver og Gjengen.

– What if you took down the National Theater, saved on the best and most important antiquarian pieces and moved them to the Folk Museum. Then you could start on a completely virgin plot with a new, fantastic National Theater that would have all the possibilities, says Oslo’s former mayor.

Hear Fabian Stang himself explain why he wants to move the National Theater to a museum:

– Sounds violent

Stang’s own mother, the actress Wenche Foss, is standing on the shelf outside the building. But his proposal receives immediate criticism from several of today’s actors at the theater.

Actor legend Mari Maurstad has been employed at the National Theater since 1981, and has played in over sixty roles.

– I hope it is not a common opinion. It’s cultural history, plus it’s possible to fix the old. I do not understand the idea. We actors fight with beaks and claws to preserve it, says Maurstad.

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Exit actor Jon Øigarden was permanently employed in 2012, but had then worked for a long time at the theater.

– Tear down the National Theater? New, huff. It is entirely possible to renovate something old, he says to VG.

– It sounds violent then. If Fabian Stang with «bad reason» thinks that the building can sink, and the is correct, yes – then we have a problem. But I do not know anything about that, so it will be a view on my part. If it does not votes, so I think it’s weird to tear down the whole house and put on something else.

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Old building

The price tag for the rehabilitation of the National Theater was NOK 1.9 billion in 2017.

The most recent cost estimate is NOK 4.4 billion. This estimate is under quality assurance.

– We are concerned with good theater that works with modern technology. I’m worried about whether there is room in that theater for both modern technology and the historical, says Stang.

– Already today it is the case that there are so many floodlights in the ceiling that parts of the painting are covered. There are even floodlights inside the foreign lodge where the diplomats sat and I have seen technical installations in the royal lodge, he continues.

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He wants to build a new National Theater on the same plot.

– Then you would be free to go in depth and it would be architecturally very exciting also with something from our time also in the center. And then I think it would provide a better working environment and then I think it would provide better facilities for the public, says Stang.

– This building is much more than a theater. It is a national icon. Ibsen and Bjørnson sat on the building committee and it is a symbol of our heyday. Your mother is standing on the shelf. Would not this be tearing out the heart of the national feeling and having to tamper with the National Theater? asks Anders Giæver in the podcast.

– Yes, I think many will say so and rightly so. But what worries me is that we will get an extremely expensive solution, which provides neither a good museum nor a good theater. There will be none of the parts because we are so afraid to make changes, he says.

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