In the Norwegian coastal city of Trondheim, an elegant art nouveau post office building from 1911 has been transformed into a new 4,000 sq m museum for modern and contemporary art. Named PoMo – short for ‘Posten Moderne’ (meaning ‘Post Office Modern’) – the structure was reimagined by French-Iranian architect and designer India Mahdavi, in collaboration with Norwegian architect Erik Langdalen.
‘We wanted to make this an inclusive, joyful space,’ says Mahdavi, who with PoMo marks her first museum project. Alongside this ambition lay the responsibility and desire to honour the heritage of the Grade I-listed building. Originally designed by Norwegian architect Karl Norum, the four-storey building is clad in rusticated granite and mint green-painted plaster with a crowning corner turret.
Tour PoMo Museum, a revived heritage building with a contemporary collection
When the post office building opened over a century ago, it was a place where Trondheim’s residents came together, and connected to the rest of the world. This spirit of international engagement, and of a civic hub, underpins PoMo as it seeks to bring locals and visitors together, as well as art from Norway and the rest of the world.
Mahdavi and Langdalen navigated the restrictions of the listed architecture to create a new bright pink entrance door, alongside an adjacent wheelchair-accessible entrance, clad in shiny copper. Perched on the roof, a beacon for the museum, is an illuminated rainbow sculpture by Ugo Rondinone, bearing the words of its title, Our Magic Hour (2003).
Once inside, visitors are welcomed into the main hall – an arcaded yet free-flowing space with high ceilings. It is bright: painted white, with new pale terrazzo flooring, and lit by abundant windows, as well as an octagonal illuminated skylight. Arranged around the space are large and playful sculptures by artists such as Franz West and Katharina Fritsch.
The hall’s original columns – some of which required restoration – bear highly decorative, carved iconic capitals, featuring symbolic heads of kings and a postal horn motif. A wooden public bench wrapped around one column recreates original post office seating.
Mahdavi has saturated the entrance corner of the hall salmon-pink for the gift shop, one of many pops of colour throughout PoMo. Another is a large, bright orange spiral staircase, immediately visible upon arrival. With sweeping steel curves, this punchy and sculptural gesture is the primary connection for the four public floors. Its form references spiral package chutes, while its hue was inspired by vernacular, painted houses nearby.
The staircase and accompanying lift occupy a space that was originally a courtyard but was filled in after the post office closed in 2011 and the building was used as private offices. Langdalen and Mahdavi removed floors and installed a glass roof to create a bright, unifying space dedicated to circulation.
In the basement, a flexible project space features a gridded, illuminated ceiling, stainless steel wall panels and hulking concrete columns. It is a more contemporary and minimalist design than the rest of the museum, void of bright colours; Mahdavi calls it 'dramatic and cinematic'.
Ascending to the first floor, a sequence of gallery spaces is punctuated by a new ‘bridge’ insertion. Featuring a panoramic window, the corridor-like space invites observation of an outdoor artwork and completes a circulation loop, transversely connecting the tips of the otherwise U-shaped floor plan.
Gallery spaces continue on the second floor, with the journey concluding in a show-stopping reading room, where Mahdavi has leant into her love of colour. An attic space clad in pine wood, the walls and ceilings have been painted by Dutch artist duo FreelingWaters with colours and images reflecting local nature, as well as Nordic folkloric art: fish, squid, crustaceans, flowers, shells and books, in green, pink and yellow. The domestic atmosphere, enhanced by soft seating designed by Mahdavi, contrasts with the traditional formality of a museum.
PoMo’s opening coincides with the launch of an adjacent theatre, designed by Skibnes Arkitekter. With both owned by Trondheim resident entrepreneurs Monica and Ole Robert Reitan, the ambition is set to activate this block of the city into a buzzing cultural quarter.
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