When Jonas Gahr Store, Norway’s prime minister, opened the new National Museum in Oslo this summer, he admitted that the final bill, more than half a billion pounds, was “an awful lot” of money. But there is no doubt his country could afford it.

Clad in slate tiles and capped with translucent marble, the largest gallery in Scandinavia is the latest example of how Norway’s oil and gas wealth has transformed parts of its capital into a Nordic take on Qatar or Abu Dhabi.

A short walk away along the waterfront, an imposing 13-floor museum dedicated to the artist, Edvard Munch, best known for The Scream, opened last year — a snip at under £200 million. Several other examples of modern architecture have sprung

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