An Exclusive First Look Inside PoMo, India Mahdavi’s First Museum, in Norway

Ole-Robert grew up in Trondheim, where his grandfather ran a grocery store. The family business has since grown into a conglomerate comprising retail and real estate ventures, as well as Trondheim’s five-star Britannia Hotel; in 2023 the group’s combined turnover was NOK 130bn. “We are three owners—my father, my brother and I,” he says. “They call this my YOLO project—and it definitely is in many ways.” 

The building, says Monica, “is part of the history and fabric of Trondheim’s cultural and aesthetic identity.” Dating back to 1911, it was designed by Norwegian architect Karl Norum. A somewhat imposing granite facade is softened with arched windows and a pair of griffin-shaped lamps, now watching over Mahdavi’s “technicolor heather-pink” door. Look up to the roof, and a rainbow spelling out “Our Magic Hour”—a sculpture by Swiss artist Ugo Rondinone—sets the tone for the building’s new incarnation as a hub for modern and contemporary art. 

“We wanted to make this a joyful and welcoming museum,” says Mahdavi, whose past projects range from the Gallery dining room at Sketch, London, and the Hôtel du Cloître in Arles to Ladurée boutiques in Los Angeles and Tokyo. She brings both her experience of designing for hospitality and her signature playfulness of style and colour to PoMo, her first museum project. 

“It was a challenge to reconnect this building with its past as a post office—a point of connection between this city and the world—while giving it a new identity,” says Mahdavi. On the ground floor, the spacious main hall’s original columns are surrounded by pistachio-green- and pink-flecked terrazzo (a nod to the originally flooring), while benches are modeled after the post-office originals, crafted in local ash wood by Norwegian woodworkers Lium Møbelverksted. It’s a striking setting for a suite of large-scale sculptures by Austrian artist Franz West, centered around his wiggly, resin-coated metal-plate “Meeting Point” (2010). But it’s also offset by two of Mahdavi’s bolder statements: a sweeping steel staircase in a “very strong orange” and an all-over-pink shop, which references the local salmon. 

“We highlighted the in-between space—from the entrance door, to the shop, to the staircase, to the reading room and the lounge,” says Mahdavi. “They are visual stimuli that complement the whole experience.”

Two floors are dedicated to exhibition spaces. The inaugural show, titled “Postcards from the Future”, features works from the newly started PoMo Collection alongside a number of loans. “It’s a very diverse exhibition with many different artistic positions,” says curator Rasmus Thor Christensen, explaining how the selection considers the two sides of the postcard: front and back, public and personal.  

Highlights include a hanging, fabric Louise Bourgeois sculpture, Arch of Hysteria (2004) and a golden Simone Leigh Sphinx (2021); a room of Edvard Munch prints; and an monumental inflatable sculpture by Kuwaiti artist Monica Al Qadiri, located in an outside space with its own indoor viewing chamber. There are a number of technicolor mixed-media works by contemporary German artist Isa Genzken, photographs by Irving Penn and a newly commissioned installation by Congolese-Norwegian Sandra Mujinga.  

One room is curated by German artist Anne Imhof; it brings together her “scratch paintings”, created on aluminium coated in automobile lacquer, with 18th-century architectural etchings by Giovanni Battista Piranesi. Another combines several intricate and fantastical architectural paintings by Shanghai-based Cui Jie with Andy Warhol’s screenprinted Mao (1972), on loan from Denmark’s Louisiana Museum of Modern Art. 

“Our collection strategy is driven by principles, artistic quality, emotion, visuality and internationality,” says Monica. One guiding philosophy is to address the gender imbalance seen in most art institutions: 60 percent of acquisitions will be dedicated to women artists. 

For Mahdavi, one area she is particularly proud of is the basement: a coolly pared-back, steel and cement project space. “I like that it’s raw and masculine; that it says ‘I’m capable of doing this, too.’ India Mahdavi can surprise people—and she still does!” The sexy, selfie-ready toilets with their textural, liquid-like mirrored walls were created alongside Lebanese architectural designer Sébastien Gafari. 

Her scheme culminates in the top-floor reading room: a decadent “gesamtkunstwerk” where wooden loft walls are painted Dutch artist duo FreelingWaters—a contemporary take on traditional Norwegian folkloric decoration, with motifs of local flora and fauna—and the floor is covered in a vibrant green pixelated carpet. It’s a wonderfully whimsical final flourish in a museum that is creating  a new dialogue between fine art and interior design.