Snøhetta Unifies Vesterheim Cultural Campus in Iowa with New Commons

Unifying a Campus 

Snøhetta and Vesterheim have unveiled a new building and landscape for the storied Vesterheim campus in Decorah, Iowa. A new 8,000 square-foot building, known as The Commons, and collection of outdoor spaces, establish a dynamic new entry point and gathering space for a cultural campus containing a museum, folk art school, and other community-oriented facilities. Aside from anchoring the site, the new Vesterheim Commons project threads together Vesterheim’s Heritage Park with Water Street, the city’s main thoroughfare. ​ 

Marked on the street by a soaring wooden canopy, the new building’s public reception lobby mirrors the cozy and sheltered outdoor rooms of the surrounding park. Flexible upper-level galleries, including state-of-the-art digital facilities and a new production studio, create spaces where visitors can explore a rich collection of artifacts and artworks. The lobby is bathed in light from above by a wood oculus while a flexible event space and new circulation areas create interior connections to the Westby-Torgerson Education Center and Vesterheim’s Folk Art School. A second-floor gallery feeds the new digital workspaces and offices, including a new study room for the focused observation of Vesterheim’s astounding collections. Taken together, the project allows Vesterheim to draw in local residents and visiting groups from around the country so that new stories can be told through multicultural experiences bridging time and place. 

An Evolving Woodland Park 

Snøhetta’s master plan for Vesterheim, completed in 2019, set in motion a unified campus composed of historic structures, outdoor classrooms, and revitalized commercial buildings set within a wooded landscape. In addition to offering a new public green, Vesterheim’s Heritage Park creates a dramatic setting for year-round public access to a variety of immigrant-built structures brought to Decorah from across the Upper Midwest region. ​ 

Heritage Park’s urban woodland, inspired by the surprisingly similar Driftless region of Northeastern Iowa and the wooded landscapes of Norway, extends throughout the outdoor spaces, bringing together two unexpectedly rugged landscapes on the site. Here, plantings frame woodland clearings to provide obvious thresholds and edges defining Vesterheim’s grounds. In turn, The Commons’ outdoor classrooms and interpretive spaces are framed by diverse regional plant species intended to adapt and evolve alongside the institution and its programs. ​ 

“We began working with Vesterheim in 2018 to envision a campus master plan that reunites and enhances the museum and educational facilities through a memorable campus landscape,” explains Michelle Delk, Snøhetta Partner. “By adding new outdoor gathering areas that extend Heritage Park to Water Street, Vesterheim Commons creates new interior and exterior public spaces where people can come together to enjoy the museum’s vibrant collections.” 

Shaped by Traditional Craft 

Built using locally sourced brick, wood structure, and textured concrete walls, The Commons links the museum collection and the Folk Art School to Norwegian craft traditions through honest and humble materials. This tactile and time-honored sensibility extends to skillful forestry practices necessary to nurture Heritage Park into the future. ​ 

“As a Norwegian-American company, Snøhetta is grateful and excited to play a part in recontextualizing ​ the experiences, art, and crafts of Norwegian immigrants here in Iowa,” said Craig Dykers, Snøhetta Founding Partner. “We hope and expect that The Commons and Heritage Park will create new opportunities for considering and understanding the experience of immigrants to the United States.” 

With its mass timber wood frame fabricated in Albert Lea, Minnesota and exterior walls built of brick from Adel, Iowa, The Commons extends a long tradition of using local materials to give shape to the life and culture of Decorah. The project’s distinctive yet respectful outward appearance creates multiple opportunities for Vesterheim visitors to experience and appreciate Decorah’s downtown architecture and the region’s verdant landscapes. ​ ​ ​ 

Construction on The Commons began in March 2022; The project is scheduled to be completed in Summer 2023. 

Vesterheim Commons Fact Sheet

Project timeline and team

About Vesterheim 

Vesterheim, the National Norwegian-American Museum and Folk Art School, in scenic Decorah, Iowa, explores the diversity of American immigration through the lens of the Norwegian-American experience and showcases the best in historic and contemporary Norwegian folk and fine arts. This treasure is also an educational center, offering a wide variety of online and in-person folk-art classes, exhibition programs, and tours to Norway.