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When Norway dissolved its union with Sweden in 1905 and became an independent state, the question of how a nation expresses itself in stone and timber was not abstract.
Oslo has been known by three different names over the course of its history. Each change reflects not merely administrative preference but a shift in political power.
The fire that destroyed medieval Oslo in 1624 was not merely a disaster. In the hands of a determined Danish king, it became an opportunity to erase a city and replace it.
Oslo did not grow because it was pleasant. It grew because timber, iron and fish had to pass through it on their way from the Norwegian interior to the markets of Europe.
Long before the city existed as a formal settlement, the geography of the Oslofjord made the region at its head a point of convergence for maritime traffic, trade and political power.
Norway built in timber for a millennium before concrete and steel arrived.
