The Art Nouveau town of Ålesund

Last modified 20.03.2022 | Published 04.06.20122010's, Norway, Norway Places

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In the night of January 23rd 1904 practically the entire wooden town centre of Ålesund on the Norwegian West Coast was destroyed in a fire.

 

The disaster hit the news headlines all across the world and a major restoration effort took place. In the following three years they rebuilt the entire city centre. This time they used stone as the building material. The architecture was mainly “Art Nouveau” style with turrets, spires, gables and fantastic ornamentation.

Join me on a walk through the town, and on to the panoramic view above it. 

 

This video shows the street scene as of 2012, still very much like it was rebuilt more than a hundred years ago. A beautiful city.

 

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I started out making a mini-series of short videos from the western coast of Norway – the fjord country – on my YouTube channel. The videos are a combination of textual narrative, video clips, animated photos and music from Norway. Here is the YouTube playlist. I then decided to include the videos and selected photos as entries on my blog, along with short descriptions. Some of the articles have been developing over time and now include much more.

Get an overview in the introduction article to Norway and the article about Towns and places of Norway.

Find images from Ålesund on my Norwegian website, Sandalsand Norge.