Astrup Fearnley Museum

Renzo Piano's contemporary art museum on the Tjuvholmen waterfront — twin sail-like timber roofs sweeping over a canal, with sculpture, a boardwalk, and a small beach spilling out toward the fjord. Piano gave the city a museum that reads as part of the harbor itself, its glass and wood and water blurring the line between gallery and shoreline. The collection inside is strong on international contemporary art. For visitors, it's a double pleasure: serious art within, and one of Oslo's loveliest pieces of waterfront architecture without, ideally combined with a walk along the Tjuvholmen promenade and a pause at the beach.