Emanuel Vigeland Museum

Oslo


Emanual Vigeland, brother to the more famous Gustav, began construction on this large, vaulted space in 1926, with plans to make it a museum. The dimly lit space is today covered in a figurative work that depicts the cycle of life and the libidinous urge that is at its centre. Vigeland's work is in turns highly erotic, moving and disturbing; the 20-year fresco project was intended as his own tomb (his ashes indeed do rest here, in a characteristically symbolic egg-shaped urn).