An Irishman's Diary

WALKING ALL over the new Opera House in Oslo has become one of the city’s favourite pastimes, even at this time of year when dusk closes in early after another damp, dreary day. Because the really remarkable thing about this iceberg-like building is that its roof is a wide open public space – with not a nanny-state handrail in sight.

Some of the slanted marble surfaces are bush-hammered, but others are polished, particularly on the main plaza, so it seems like a sheet of ice in wet weather; it must look magical when the entire edifice is covered in snow during Oslo’s harsh winter. In summer, it becomes a sunny promenade with a west-facing stone “beach”.

Norwegian architects Snøhetta wanted people to enjoy their building, whether or not they were opera or ballet buffs, so they came up with the quite extraordinary idea of making the expansive roof – a sloping “carpet” of white Carrara marble – accessible to the public. You just have to watch your step while enjoying the experience.

The sculpted roof covers 18,000 sq metres (193,750 sq ft), roughly the area of three football pitches. It is irregularly paved, with different sized slabs, textures, inclines, cuts, crevices and angular steps to “make it more interesting at close quarters and articulate the carpet’s geometry”, as the architects say about their project.

Hundreds of people climb it every day, peering in through big picture windows to the foyer below or looking out over Oslo’s waterfront. And while the Opera House is nowhere near as monumental as Sydney’s, it does occupy a prime site in the harbour – cut off, for now, from the rest of the city centre by an ugly elevated highway.

But that relationship is about to change. Under Oslo City Council’s plan for Bjørvika, where the busy central station is linked to the Opera House by a pedestrian bridge, the highway is to be replaced by a tunnel and the land it occupies will be transformed by new buildings, street-running trams and a waterfront promenade.

Already, a cluster of “skyscrapers” 12 to 22 storeys high is rising next to the station; it is nicknamed “Barcode” because one of the office blocks has a facade that could double as one. Though controversial when it was first mooted, this architectural eruption was justified on the basis that it was one element of an overall plan.

The Fjord City plan is breathtaking in its scope. Recognising that Oslo’s relationship with the water is the key to its identity, it proposes to embark on a “comprehensive urban restructuring of the downtown area and the waterfront, which will express both to ourselves and to the surrounding world who we are and how we wish to appear”.

Nobody could say that Norwegians lack self-confidence. While much of the rest of Europe is gripped by uncertainty over the euro and some countries – including our own – are crippled by debt, Norway has amassed a “pension pot” of €400 billion from North Sea oil and has the luxury of being able to look after everyone’s needs.

But the Fjord City plan is being financed by releasing surplus land currently occupied by the highway, rather than by dipping into the government’s pension fund. Unlike the reckless profligacy of Charlie “When I have it, I spend it” McCreevy during Ireland’s boom years, these Lutherans know well how to manage their money.

They are also emotionally attached to the waterfront and especially to the 14th-century Akershus Fortress, which overlooks Oslo Fjord. Every day at dawn, a detachment of soldiers in ceremonial uniforms raise the Norwegian standard on the same flagpole from which the Nazi swastika flag was excruciatingly flown during the war years.

Despite having made their fortune from fossil fuels, Fjord City is to be developed as a “zero carbon” project by generating from renewables as much energy as it consumes. Throughout, priority is being given to pedestrians, cyclists and public transport to reduce car dependency and the unwelcome intrusion of “automobile traffic”.

Akker Brygge, west of Oslo’s emblematic city hall, gives a foretaste of what’s to come. All along its waterfront is a traffic-free zone, lined with restaurants, bars and shops with apartments or offices overhead, mostly built from the 1990s onwards.

Renowned architect Renzo Piano is adding a new contemporary art museum with a sail-like roof.

Oslo wants to be recognised as “one of the most environmentally friendly and sustainable capital cities in the world”. So its waterfront is to become part of the “greater common urban space which everyone can use”, along with parks, forests and mountains, in line with its motto: “The Blue and the Green, the City in Between”.

Of the €600 million Opera House, Archigram’s David Greene saw it as “a new sign for Oslo, a brand object whose value can only be judged by the number of postcards it appears on, so it can join that library of images of man-made landmarks destined to be a screen-saver or bumper-sticker”. But beware: even the cheapest seats cost €70.

Oslo is shockingly expensive. I was there for Europan 11, an international forum of cities and architectural juries from 14 countries, including Ireland, to select schemes by younger architects with new ideas. It was all very interesting, but the cost of eating out was exorbitant, with vin ordinaireat €50 per bottle. Eeek!