Kon-Tiki Museum

The museum

Layout

The Kon-Tiki Museum (Norwegian: Kon-Tiki Museet) is a museum in the Bygdøy peninsula in Oslo, Norway. It houses vessels and maps from the Kon-Tiki expedition, as well as a library with about 8000 books.^[1] It was opened in a provisional building in 1949. In 1957, the current building—designed by architects F. S. Platou and Otto Torgersen—was opened.^[2] In 1978, an extension of the museum designed by Torgersen was opened.

The museum was originally built to house the Kon-Tiki, a raft of balsa wood of pre-Columbian model that Norwegian adventurer Thor Heyerdahl used to sail from Peru to Polynesia in 1947. Another boat in the museum is the Ra II, a vessel built of reeds according to Heyerdahl's perception of an ancient Egyptian seagoing boat. Heyerdahl sailed the Ra II from North Africa to the Caribbean after a previous attempt with the reed boat Ra failed.

The Kon-Tiki Museum is situated near several other museums, including the Fram Museum; the Norwegian Museum of Cultural History; the Viking Ship Museum; and the Norwegian Maritime Museum.

References

1. "Om Museet" (in Norwegian). Kon-Tiki Museum. Retrieved 22 March 2011.
2. Tvedt, Knut Are, ed. (2010). "Kon-Tiki Museet". Oslo byleksikon (in Norwegian) (5th ed.). Oslo: Kunnskapsforlaget. pp. 312–13. ISBN 978-82-573-1760-7.

External links

• Official website

Coordinates: 59°54′13″N 10°41′53″E / 59.90361°N 10.69806°E