the cave: an underground museum proposed for Norway
In Norway’s Sunnfjord, where the slope drops down to the water, PAX Architects imagines a cave museum which seems to disappear underground.
The proposal, called The Cave, is a 1,500 square meter visitor center for Astruptunet, the former home and working landscape of painter Nicolai Astrup, and was selected as a finalist in an open competition that attracted 164 entries.
The design of the Danish studio integrates the built space into the slope and not next to the existing museum complex. From Astruptunet, the new volume is destined to disappear behind the ground and vegetation.
From the nearby village and country road, it reads as a narrow cleft in the landscape, a small incision where glass, stone and planting begin to suggest an interior beneath the hillside.
visualizations © PAX Architects
a museum entered through a crack in the landscape
THE group at PAX architects derives the concept of the museum from Nicolai Astrup’s painting The Cave, using the idea of a hollow landscape as both a spatial guide and an atmospheric reference. Visitors enter through a low opening in the ground, where the local stone continues from outside to inside, forming parapets, thresholds and places to sit.
The approach maintains Astruptunet as the main cultural marker on the site, while the new museum functions underground, almost as a second layer to Astrup’s world above it.
Inside, the visitor center is organized around a central foyer reached by two entrances. Exhibition rooms and the café are located on either side, allowing for the security of the gallery spaces, while the café can still host gatherings.
The design follows the gradient through a series of internal platforms, so movement within the building brings a gradual shift in level, ceiling height and view. Ramps and an elevator make the three floors accessible, folding universal access into the cave-like path rather than treating it as an additional technical solution.
The cave’s visitor center is built into the hillside above Jølstravatnet
Pax architects frame views from exhibition spaces
Common areas open to the landscape through large horizontal windows, turning the lake and mountains into framed images. These views do more than give the museum a picturesque setting.
They place Astrup’s paintings in direct conversation with the landscape that shaped them, so that the visitor can move between artwork, rock, vegetation and water without losing their connection.
The exhibition spaces are darker and more sheltered, with small light cracks bringing in narrow traces of daylight. PAX Architects describe the gallery as a flexible black box, where works can be hung on cave-like walls or arranged via mobile systems.
Near the exhibition space, small alcoves allow visitors to look back across the landscape, creating pauses between the paintings and the place they come from.
PAX Architects proposes a museum that appears as a narrow crevice in the landscape
stone, vegetation and the heat load of the soil
The material strategy keeps the building close to its surroundings. Local stone forms pathways, walls, seating and interior floors, while excavated stone is proposed for reuse within the building.
In-situ concrete walls are mixed with excavated stone, clay plaster adds a tactile surface, and micro-perforated raw metal ceilings aid acoustics while evoking the texture of rock.
The project is designed as a passive house, using a highly insulated envelope, triple glazing, geothermal heating, heat recovery and the thermal mass of the ground to stabilize the internal conditions.
A green roof planted with local species stores water and helps the building remain visually absorbed by the slope. Controlled lighting protects artwork, while natural ventilation can support the foyer and café through a stack effect on warmer days.
the interior follows the gradient through changing platforms and framed views
considering a cultural landscape
Around The Cave museum, PAX Architects designs pathways with a light touch, connecting the bus stop, lower entrance, cafe terrace, upper entrance and Astruptunet through gravel, grass and local stone. Rest points along the route give visitors time to look out over the fjord and hillside before entering the arcades.
The landscape remains the primary experience, with the building acting as a way to move through it, see it, and return to Astrup’s paintings with renewed attention.
The proposal is part of a wider shift in museum architecture, where cultural buildings increasingly work with fragile environments rather than competing with them. At Astruptunet, PAX architects respond to the site with a building that lowers its profile and uses architecture as a lens.
The visitor center becomes a passage between art and ground, shaped by stone, shadow and the changing weather over Jølstravatnet.
Local stone and vegetation help the building sink into the ground
