Explore Reykjavík

Hafnarhús is the harbourside branch of the Reykjavík Art Museum, in a former office and warehouse of the Port of Reykjavík built in 1933–39 to designs by Sigurður Guðmundsson. Converted by Studio Granda in 1998–2000, it shows changing exhibitions of contemporary art and a permanent display of works by the pop artist Erró.

The Settlement Exhibition lies beneath Aðalstræti 16 in central Reykjavík and is part of Reykjavík City Museum. At its centre is the excavated ruin of a Viking Age hall, found in 2001 and lived in around 930–1000, beside a wall dated to about 871. Finds from digs in the city are shown, and a passage leads on to Aðalstræti 10.

The National Gallery of Iceland holds the national collection of Icelandic art. Founded in Copenhagen in 1884, it has occupied since 1987 a former cold-storage building of 1916 by Guðjón Samúelsson at Fríkirkjuvegur 7, beside Tjörnin pond, where four halls on two floors show its collection and changing exhibitions.

The National Museum of Iceland, founded in 1863, has occupied its building on Suðurgata in Reykjavík since 1950. Its permanent exhibition, Making of a Nation, traces Icelandic history from the settlement to the present with about 2,000 objects, among them the carved medieval church door from Valþjófsstaður.

Whales of Iceland is a natural history museum in the Grandi harbour district of Reykjavík, opened in 2015. Its hall holds life-size models of 23 whale, dolphin and porpoise species recorded in Icelandic waters, alongside skeletons, baleen, interactive displays on whale biology and a small cinema.

Perlan is a glass dome set on six hot-water storage tanks on Öskjuhlíð hill in Reykjavík, designed by architect Ingimundur Sveinsson and opened in 1991. It houses a nature museum with a man-made ice cave, a planetarium show about the northern lights and a replica of the Látrabjarg bird cliff, and an observation deck runs around the dome.