Among the sites proposed by Europan 18, we chose to focus our efforts on the competition organized by the city of Trondheim for the construction of a new museum, bringing together the hybrid collections of the National Museum of Decorative Arts and Design (NKIM) and the Trondheim Kunstmuseum (TKM). The challenge for the municipality of Trondheim was to create a new cultural center on the site of an underground parking lot in a neglected neighborhood near the city center. By removing the entire intermediate slab floor while intervening specifically in the demolition of certain structural parts of the parking lot roof to allow natural light into the basement, atypical spaces emerged with impressive heights suitable for displaying monumental works. These “targeted” interventions preserve the original identity of the parking lot, with its ramps, raw concrete columns, and floors marked by vehicle traces and painted parking lines. Sometimes absorbed by a series of galleries of varying spatial dimensions, the generous column grid allows for great flexibility in the presentation of collections. The layout of the galleries creates interstitial spaces where alternative forms of exhibition are possible, particularly around the central patio. Brick volumes extend down to the ground floor, where the “permeability” of the museum connects with the city and its inhabitants. Like pebbles arranged in the middle of a stream, these brick volumes organize circulation within the museum while marking significant moments. Visitors can move freely through this open space under a vast roof that covers the entire museum. Composed of metal beams supporting a saw-tooth roof, the roof regulates temperature according to the seasons. In winter, its glazing is positioned to let sunlight warm the interior, while in summer, openings help ventilate hot air. The distinctive materiality of the floor, with its stone paving, seems to extend the street into the interior of the museum itself. Before becoming a public and cultural space, the museum naturally has two essential functions: to preserve and to exhibit. The manifesto of the artist Rémy Zaugg, “The Museum of Fine Arts I Dream Of, or the Place of the Work and the Human”, written in 1986, serves as our reference for finding the right balance between the openness and transparency of the museum to the city, and the very need to protect it from the external environment. To address this ambivalence, the exhibition spaces are integrated into the basement, a secure, quiet environment conducive to concentration. This subterranean space allows the artworks to fully express themselves. Entering this enclosed place involves a ritual process that sensitizes the visitor to their own presence and frees them from external temporal constraints. The gradual descent via the parking ramps facilitates this transition from a bustling world to a “sacralized” space, creating the illusion of eternal, suspended time. Both a refuge for the artworks, a meeting place for Trondheim’s inhabitants, and an urban activator, this museum draws its strength from the complementarity of its propositions.