Nobel Peace Centre

Narrator 
If you’re standing directly in front of the Nobel Peace Center, you’re situated in the relatively quiet Brynjulf Bull square, named after a former mayor of Oslo.  

Here is Martin Braathen, curator at The National Museum, to tell us more... 

Martin Braathen  
The Noble Peace Center opened in 2005, and behind it, the National Museum opened in 2022.  

But, if you go 50, or perhaps even 100 years back in time, you would currently be standing in a very busy forecourt of one of the city’s two railway stations called “Vestbaneplassen”.  

This building was the portal to Kristiania (and Oslo) for travelers from the south and west of Norway. 

The neo-romantic railway station was designed by the city architect Georg Andreas Bull and was completed in plastered brick in 1872 at an intersection of streets located here – one of which, Engens gate, has since disappeared...  

Narrator 
If we go even further back in time, we would be standing in the middle of a shallow bay called “Pipervikens Strandlere” in an area called Pipervika.   

Martin Braathen 
For a long time Pipervika was a suburb of the city with informal settlements and very poor conditions.  

It stretched from what is today known as Aker Brygge – named after the industrial giant Akers Mek which was established there in the mid-1800s – all the way to Akershus Fortress.  

In the last half of the 19^th century, it was also a popular leisure area, filled with people swimming in the summertime, and ice skating during the winter.  

Narrator 
The attractive location of Vestbaneplassen – facing the fjord, with the city hall and the fortress – has meant that it has had many historical pasts and even more unrealized futures...  

Martin Braathen 
For example, for a long time, the location of The National Museum had also been earmarked for the city's new concert hall before that was finally built on a neighbouring street after some political horse-trading.  

And, following the eventual decommission of Vestbanestasjonen in 1980, both Norway's new opera house and Oslo's new main library, designed by the Dutch OMA with the Norwegian Space Group, were also originally planned to be built at this location. 

Photo: Nasjonalmuseet / Ina Wesenberg