By: Chris ⎜ Last updated

The Nobel Peace Center in Oslo
The Nobel Peace Center in Oslo

The Nobel Peace Center is a small museum. You should plan on spending about 60 to 90 minutes here, or closer to two hours if you're joining the free weekend guided tour. While the size is modest, the curation is good.

The Peace Center is located on Rådhusplassen in the old Vestbanen railway station from 1872, in front of the National Museum and looking straight at Oslo City Hall where the Peace Prize is awarded every December 10th. 

The Nobel Field

On the second floor, this room is the highlight of the museum. Here you find about 100 small LCD screens, one per Peace Prize laureate, sitting among roughly a thousand small fibre-optic lights in a dimly lit hall. Every so often a recording plays an excerpt from one of the Nobel lectures, and the temperature of the room changes. 

The Medal Chamber

This is a single small room, which is easy to walk past, but worth seeing. The medal in the case is the original 1921 Peace Prize medal awarded to Christian Lous Lange, the first Norwegian laureate, and has been on loan from his family since the museum opened. 

The current laureate's exhibition

This is usually the most emotional part of the museum, and it changes every year. The current exhibition opened on 11 December 2025, the day after the ceremony, and is featuring photographs of the Venezuelan refugee crisis taken by Turkish photojournalist Emin Özmen. It celebrates the 2025 Peace Prize which was awarded to Venezuelan democracy leader María Corina Machado, who was here and opened the exhibition herself.

The free guided tour

Weekend tours are included in the admission ticket and last about 30 minutes. The guides may tell stories about the prize's controversies, why certain laureates were surprising picks, why Oslo gets the Peace Prize when every other Nobel Prize is awarded in Stockholm, and how the five-person Nobel Committee shortlists candidates. You should register at the front desk when you arrive as there is a cap on the number of participants. 

The current schedule of English tours is at 12:00, 13:00 and 14:00.

Every Friday at 12:00 noon during the summer (roughly May to October), a live peace dove is released from a window of the Peace Center. As it crosses City Hall Square and flies back to its loft in eastern Oslo, John Lennon's Give Peace a Chance plays from the city hall bell tower. 

Tickets and the Oslo Pass

Admission to the Nobel Peace Center is included in the Oslo Pass.

2026 prices

  • Adults: 180 NOK
  • Students: 100 NOK
  • Children 0-17: free
  • Oslo Pass holders: free
  • Audio guide: free, you use your own phone, available in Norwegian, English, Spanish, French and German

Walk-up tickets are usually fine, but you can also pre-book through the official site.

Pairing your visit

The Peace Center, Oslo City Hall and the National Museum are within 200 metres of each other on Rådhusplassen (City Hall is where the Peace Prize ceremony takes place), and the National Museum is the most time-consuming attraction of the three. Aker Brygge is 100 metres away with plenty of restaurants for lunch or coffee in between.

http://www.nobelpeacecenter.org/

Best time to go

Wednesday evenings after 5pm for extended hours until 8pm plus included debates, film screenings, and talks with local intellectual atmosphere. Otherwise, weekday mornings Tuesday-Thursday 11am-1pm for fewer crowds. The museum works year-round, but visiting in December or January shows the fresh annual laureate exhibition dedicated to that year's winner.

Time needed

45–90 minutes

Getting there

Nearest central public-transport points are Nationaltheatret Metro station and the Aker Brygge tram stop, almost at the doorstep. From Nationaltheatret it´s a 5 minutes walk.

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