Bildmuseet
Contemporary art and visual culture in a seven-storey timber-clad museum on the Umeå riverfront.
Bildmuseet belongs to Umeå University and shows contemporary art, photography, architecture and visual culture. Founded in 1981, it moved in 2012 into a new building on the Umeå Arts Campus beside the Ume River, designed by Henning Larsen Architects. The seven-storey block is clad in larch that has weathered to a soft grey, with a full-height glazed end wall that turns the stair and the top-floor gallery into a viewing platform over the water.
Admission is free and the programme changes several times a year, mixing international contemporary art with projects rooted in northern Sweden and Sápmi. The museum works closely with the university's art, design and architecture schools, and runs daily guided tours, talks, film screenings, workshops and a long-running exhibition of the year's Swedish picture books. The building shares its campus with the Umeå Institute of Design and the Academy of Fine Arts.
Highlights
- Larch-clad building by Henning Larsen Architects on the Ume River
- Top-floor gallery with a glazed wall looking over the water
- Free admission and a changing programme of contemporary art
- Annual Swedish Picture Book of the Year exhibition
