Walk up the Akerselva from the city centre and, just past the waterfall at Nedre Foss, you reach a long brick hall with tall industrial windows. A century ago the noise inside came from hammers and casting moulds. Today it comes from espresso machines, knives on cutting boards and a few hundred conversations at once.
That building is Mathallen Oslo, the food hall in the Vulkan quarter. It opened in 2012 as Norway's first food hall, and it remains one of the easiest places in the city to eat well, shop for local produce and see how an old industrial riverbank turned into something new.
It is also a good lesson in Oslo street history, because almost every brick around it once had a different job.
Before the food: a riverbank built for industry
The Akerselva drops steeply on its short run from Maridalsvannet to the fjord, and for centuries that fall was the city's free power supply. The stretch where Vulkan now stands once held a sawmill, a copper hammer and a bark mill, all driven by the river.
The sawmill closed in 1840 and was restarted in 1853 as Bagsaas Brug. Around the same time the site had a cement works, a brickworks and a chair factory. It even had Oslo's first public shower bath, a small sign of how crowded and working-class this part of town had become.
If you have walked the river further upstream through Grünerløkka and its old mill buildings, you will recognise the pattern. The Akerselva was Oslo's factory corridor long before it became a place for weekend strolls.
Vulkan Jernstøberi and the bridge workshop
In 1873 the iron foundry Vulkan Jernstøberi took over the site, and the name stuck to the whole area. The foundry made a wide range of heavy goods: scales, safes, steam engines, boilers and the cast-iron staircases found in many of the apartment blocks going up across the city.
Its real speciality became steel bridges. Vulkan was the first works in Norway to produce steel bridges on an industrial scale, and several hundred bridges and steel structures for railways and roads were made here. One of its more unusual jobs was the dome of the old Colosseum cinema.
The bridge workshop itself, Gamle Broverksted, went up in 1908, with an extension added in 1936. In the early 1960s around 250 men worked in the building. The foundry shut down for good in 1968 and the company moved out to Furuset, leaving the halls to a long run of small tenants.
How Vulkan became a new neighbourhood
For decades the old buildings drifted. A sports hall opened in one of them in 1996, the same year the state property agency Statsbygg bought the site with plans for production spaces for national theatre and touring arts institutions. Those plans never happened.
In 2003 the land was sold to Vulkan Eiendom, a company later wholly owned by the Aspelin Ramm property group, and LPO arkitekter drew up a masterplan. The idea was to keep as many of the historically valuable buildings as possible and give each one a new purpose. Construction started in 2009, and the last phase was finished in 2013.
The result packs a lot into a small area. Dansens Hus, the national stage for dance, moved into a converted building in 2008, and the concert venue Vulkan Arena opened in 2010. A school, two hotels, offices, flats and the Bellona environmental foundation's headquarters followed.
A slim steel footbridge across the river, built in 2010–11 and named in 2013 after Anne Holsen, a teacher and early campaigner for women's right to vote, ties Vulkan to Grünerløkka on the other bank. In 2012 the state's urban environment prize went to Oslo for its renewal of the old industrial land along the Akerselva, with Vulkan singled out as a strong example.
Mathallen opens in the old bridge hall
The bridge workshop was saved for food. LPO arkitekter restored the brick hall, removed part of the 1936 extension and inserted mezzanines so the space could hold stalls on several levels. The planners allowed for around 35 kitchens of different sizes inside.
The models were the great market halls of Europe. Borough Market in London, the Mercat de Santa Caterina in Barcelona, Östermalms Saluhall in Stockholm and Torvehallerne in Copenhagen, which had opened in 2011, were all named as inspiration. Norway had never had anything quite like it.
Interest was obvious from the start. During a preview weekend in March 2012, somewhere between 30,000 and 35,000 people came through in two days. Mathallen officially opened on 2 October 2012 with just over 30 food shops, eateries and other businesses.
The owners estimated that at least half a million people visited in the first three months. By its fifth birthday in October 2017, Mathallen had counted six million visitors. In 2014 it received the Olavsrosa, a Norwegian heritage award, for giving a protected industrial building a sustainable new use while respecting its history.
What you will find inside the food hall
The ground floor is a busy square of counters and stalls, with tables in the middle and more seating on the mezzanine above. The mix covers the basics of a good market: fish, meat, cheese, fruit and vegetables, bread and baked goods, coffee, tea and desserts.
The original idea was to give space to independent shops and small Norwegian producers rather than chains, alongside specialist importers. That still shapes the feel of the place. You can buy a wedge of Norwegian cheese, cured meat or fresh fish to cook later, or sit down for lunch at one of the eateries.
Several counters double as small restaurants, so it works just as well as a casual lunch spot as a market. Some favourites have been around for years. The hall itself still singles out the Stange sandwich as a long-running classic.
Upstairs, Kulinarisk Akademi runs cooking courses for different levels and groups, and the hall also hosts tastings, fairs, competitions and food festivals through the year. Each October it marks its birthday with a cake competition that anyone can taste their way through afterwards.
Coffee, pastries and a slow afternoon
Mathallen is a natural stop on a food-focused walk. Coffee is easy to find inside, and if you want to go deeper, our guide to the best coffee in Oslo and the history of its café culture covers the roasters and cafés worth seeking out across the city.
The bakery counters are a good place to try a cinnamon bun or a cardamom bun while you sit by the windows. For a fuller picture of what to look for, see our list of Norwegian pastries to try in Oslo, from skolebrød to the buns that fill every bakery window.
Like most food halls, it is busiest at mealtimes and at weekends, so come a little early if you want an easy seat on the main floor.
The building's quieter green details
Some of the most interesting parts of Vulkan are easy to miss. Mathallen houses the energy centre for the whole Vulkan area, which heats and cools the buildings with geothermal heat pumps, waste heat from refrigeration and solar heating.
On the roof between Mathallen and Dansens Hus, the Vulkan apiary opened in 2014 with beehives designed by the architecture firm Snøhetta. Between them they held around 160,000 bees at the start.
Look at the wall of the hall too. A blue plaque from Oslo Byes Vel, the society behind the city's blue history signs, tells the short story of the bridge workshop that once filled the building.
Practical tips for visiting Mathallen Oslo
Mathallen sits at Vulkan 5, between St. Hanshaugen to the west, Grünerløkka to the east and Alexander Kiellands plass to the north. The nicest approach is on foot along the Akerselva path, crossing the river at the footbridge if you are coming from Grünerløkka.
At the time of writing, the hall opens Tuesday to Saturday from 10:00 to 20:00 and Sunday from 11:00 to 18:00, and it is closed on Mondays. Some restaurants stay open later. Hours can change around holidays, so check the hall's own website before a special trip.
Give yourself time to walk around the rest of Vulkan as well. Five minutes outside the doors you can see the waterfall at Nedre Foss, the old industrial buildings and the river path, and it is easy to see why this corner of Oslo works so well as a place to linger rather than just pass through.
About Sofia Berg
Sofia Berg is a lifelong Oslo resident and travel writer with a passion for uncovering the city's hidden gems. She has been exploring and writing about Oslo for over ten years.