Why Oslo’s Vulkan district makes it Europe’s most liveable city break
Two decades ago, the Vulkan district beside Oslo’s Akerselva river was little more than broken glass and graffiti. Today it is held up as a model for how a European capital can be sustainable, stylish and effortlessly liveable — and it helps explain why Oslo, barely a two-hour flight from Heathrow, makes such a compelling case for a short city break.
“Kids were not allowed to play here,” recalls Sverre Landmark, a former commercial director at developer Aspelin Ramm, of the site before redevelopment. “Glass windows were damaged, there was a lot of graffiti, drug addicts were hanging around. It was really nasty.” The land had a longer history than its decline suggested: a trading hub since medieval times, it became a manufacturing centre in the 19th Century and later housed the Vulkan Factory, from which the neighbourhood takes its name.
When developers Aspelin Ramm and Anthon B Nilsen bought the blighted site in 2004, they set out to build “a city within a city”. National contemporary dance venue Dansens Hus opened there in 2008; Mathallen, Norway’s first food hall, followed in 2012 inside a former cast-iron foundry and now houses more than a dozen restaurants, bars and bakeries. Next door, the 950-capacity Vulkan Arena has hosted acts including Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon, Mercury Rev and Downset.
Crucially, the whole 9,400 sq m site — barely a single city block — was built to be self-sufficient. Geothermal wells sunk 300m beneath the square, paired with rooftop solar panels, supply most of its own heating and cooling, while the 149-room Scandic Vulkan hotel is Norway’s first to achieve the EU’s top energy efficiency rating. Even the rooftops contribute: a pair of 3m beehives installed in 2014 have helped repopulate bees along the river, with the honey served fresh at Mathallen.
“Vulkan arrived as something entirely new, in a hidden spot in Oslo, and helped to make the city larger while shortening the distance,” says Landmark. Locals feel the effect has spread well beyond the square itself. “Vulkan is part of the new Oslo vibe,” says Fredrik Remøy, who works in finance and has made the city his home. “It’s very relaxed and international. It’s offered a bit of warmth and a buzz to the city.”
That ethos extends across the Norwegian capital, which has set itself a target of carbon neutrality by 2030 and net-zero emissions by 2050. Walking its compact centre, visitors notice strikingly little car traffic — trams, buses and cyclists dominate instead, lending even busy streets an unusually calm, open feel. Nearby, the newer Bjørvika district offers its own version of Oslo’s design-led urbanism, built, like Vulkan, around density and creative reuse of space; it’s also where visitors can book a floating, wood-sided sauna on the Oslofjord, alternating between nearly 80C heat and a cold plunge into the fjord itself, within sight of the Munch museum’s lights.
It all adds up to a city whose 2024 tourism campaign urges visitors to “life-see” rather than “sightsee” — and after even a single day exploring Vulkan and its surroundings, it’s a slogan that starts to make sense: clean air, a slower pace, and a genuine blueprint for how cities might work in future.
Source: BBC News