What's the deal with Norway and Munch? Lambda and institutional dispositif

Sammanfattning: This research emerges from an ongoing debate about the plans of building a new Munch Museum in Oslo, Norway. In 2009 the proposal Lambda won the architectural competition issued by Oslo Municipality, and since then a conflict has accumulated regarding the architectural design, if the building fulfills the normative functions of an art museum, and what role the art museum plays as a knowledge-based institution. In 2011, Lambda was discarded by Oslo City Council, however the debate continues. This research investigates the conflict concerning the functions of the art museum in light of Foucault’s understanding of the institutional dispositif. The institutional dispositif is in this research defined as ways the institution articulates and materializes discourse. First, the study examines established functions of the art museum as the basis for art museum discourse. Second, using the method of hermeneutics, arguments pro et contra the Lambda alternative are analyzed in order to find a possible coherency between the debate and the institutional dispositif. This study finds that a coherency can be found in terms of knowledge: the participants of the debate are disagreeing with whether or not Lambda materializes art museum discourse, namely in communication of knowledge, articulation of knowledge value, and articulation of knowledge accessibility.