Our Mission:

To connect the United States and contemporary Norway through arts, business, and culture

About Norway House

Norway House started out as a dream of prominent Norwegian Americans in the Twin Cities who strongly felt that Minnesota’s rich Norwegian culture needed a living monument—a central hub for a thriving community. The organization was officially founded on May 17, 2004. At the time, the metro region had more than 100 different Norwegian organizations without a permanent public home.

The Albert H. Quie Education Center opened its doors in 2015, adjacent to Mindekirken—the last surviving Norwegian-speaking church congregation in the United States. In 2022, Her Majesty Queen Sonja of Norway cut the ribbon on the K.A.H.R. Foundation Innovation + Culture Center, expanding the campus across the entire block and solidifying the moniker “the Norway Block.” We’re thankful to have support from both the State of Minnesota and the Kingdom of Norway, and proud to call His Majesty King Harald V of Norway our official Royal Patron.

20 years later, Norway House has grown into a forward-thinking nonprofit organization serving as a contemporary venue for all aspects of Nordic business and life in America. We are dedicated to establishing, renewing, and advancing connections between contemporary Norway and the United States through education and partnerships.

A Home for Our Communities

On any given day, guests to Norway House can enjoy a social time in our Kaffebar—a vibrant lunch café serving a full list of hot and cold coffee drinks, wine and beer, homemade soup and baked goods, vaffler (Norwegian waffles), and pølse med lompe (lefse hot dogs). Norway House partners with Ingebretsen’s Nordic Marketplace, a more than 100-year-old institution in Minneapolis, to provide an eclectically curated gift shop.

The Mondale Galleri at Norway House features a rotation of art installations and exhibits about Norwegian culture and business. And regardless of whether you can make it to the Norway Block in person, our very own newspaper, The Norwegian American, is available to a global audience with updates on happenings in Minnesota, the wider Norwegian community in North-America, and Norway.

Norway House is also home to Concordia Language Villages in the Twin Cities, Global Translation & Interpreter, NorCham-Minneapolis (the Norwegian Chamber of Commerce), Trollhaugen Tours, the Minnesota Institute of Horn of Africa Studies, and the Norwegian Honorary Consulate in Minneapolis.

Many other organizations also call Norway Block a home, including: Lakselaget, Bygdelagenes Fellesraad, Daughters of Norway — Pauline Fjelde Lodge, and several Sons of Norway lodges.

Mindekirken—the Norwegian Lutheran Memorial Church, our neighboring institution, offers weekly services in Norwegian and Norwegian language classes (online and in-person), along with the ever-popular Tuesday Open House luncheon seminars.

Norway House is located in the Ventura Village neighborhood in Minneapolis, just a few blocks south of the US Bank Minnesota Vikings Stadium. As evidenced by the 100-year-old Norwegian church, Mindekirken, this area was once home to many Norwegian immigrants in Minnesota following the mass migration from Europe beginning in 1825.

This neighborhood has continued to be a cultural home for immigrants from many backgrounds and the heart of the urban Native American communities in Minneapolis.

 

A Few of Our Neighbors

Land Acknowledgement

Norway House is located on the ancestral and contemporary lands of Indigenous peoples, in the heart of Minneapolis' American Indian Cultural Corridor--one of the largest concentrations of urban Indigenous peoples in the United States. "The Norway Block" resides on Dakota land ceded in the Treaties of 1837 and 1851, and we acknowledge the complex and layered history that links Norway House to this space and time. The purpose of this acknowledgment is to continue to educate our campus and community about this land, and our relationships with it and one another. We are committed to ongoing advocacy for our American Indian neighbors and combatting the erasure of native peoples worldwide.


RESOURCES:
The Minneapolis American Indian Center
Bdote Memory Map
Dakota Land Map - Twin Cities
Why Treaties Matter
Learning from Place - Bdote Walking Tour
On Being - NPR Resources