The Oslo City Hall. Photo by Kjetil Lenes, Public Domain. Wikipedia Commons.
The Oslo City Hall—
Monumental Architecture with a Human Touch: Applied Art and Design at the Middle of Last Century Norway
by Jon Pettersen
T
he Oslo City Hall, completed in 1950, is one of the milestones of the twentieth-century architecture of Norway. From the very first plans, which were presented about 1918, the ambitions where to show that the new independent nation could afford and defend its new role. As such, the building, placed at the very entrance from the sea to the capital, should underline Norway´s importance as a shipping and ship-building nation. The architects were Magnus Poulsson (1881-1958) and Arnstein Rynning Arneberg (1882-1961). They studied both at the Den kongelige Tegneskole (Now Oslo National 4
Academy of the Arts, KHiO) and at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. Their influence as professionals came from the more continental Sweden and the growing national self-confidential art movement in Norway. Poulsson grew up in Christiania with Fridtjof Nansen and Gerhard Munthe as close neighbors, while Arneberg moved with his parents from Fredrikshald (Halden) to Lysaker, where other influential artists where part of his environment. The city halls in Copenhagen and Stockholm were strongly influenced by the city-states of Italy during the renaissance, when the power was expressed, not only by the Vesterheim