Behind Bryggen

The hidden, thriving life behind the postcard motif

Ceramic Vikings stand to attention on shelves and tables, surrounded by vases, artworks, and tools covered in clay. Somewhere among them, a stereo plays a cello concerto, quite loudly at that. “I need music for my work,” says Elin Brudvik from deep within the room, as she turns the music down. She was just shaping a bowl of wet clay on a potter’s wheel. The atmosphere in the pottery is that of an intimate and private workshop, just as much as an open shop.

The space that Brudvik shares with a fellow artisan is located in one of the few stone buildings on Bryggen in Bergen – once the main hub for trade between Norway and the Continent, going back nearly a thousand years.

Up in flames

“We are open all year. There are a lot of small, exciting events going on that even locals should pay more attention to,” says Brudvik, who stresses that she does not adapt her style to serve the tourists in summer. “I don’t make souvenirs. I do my own thing.” Brudvik is one of many local artists who work in Bryggen. Yet just some 50 years ago, the story was rather different.

“Bryggen has a tremendously original community and its own, distinct identity. But it is nearly a miracle that it turned out like this,” says Eric Saudan, proprietor of Bryggen Tracteursted, a restaurant that played a key role in reinvigorating the area back in the 1970s.

Through nearly a millennium of trade and commerce, the area teemed with life and vibrancy. By the mid-1900s, however, the traditional merchant houses and storerooms stood abandoned and in poor repair, outpaced by history. When the last in a series of large fires broke out in 1955, the general mood was to let the whole place burn to the ground.

“Today it has become a center of creativity, full of genuine people who care about what they’re doing,” says Saudan. Bryggen went from the brink of destruction to being a cultural leader and a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Something fishy

The history of Bryggen goes back to about the year 1070, shortly after the Viking Age. Located at an easily defendable position, it was still within reach of ships from both the far north, Iceland, and mainland Europe. Bergen became an important Nordic trade hub. About 300 years later, the Hanseatic League established its office here, and had a huge influence on the city for hundreds of years to come.

Back then, the sweet scent of tar among the wooden structures would have been overpowered by the heavier odour of dried fish. Tonnes and tonnes of it. The German Office had secured a monopoly on the export of dried and salted cod from the rich Norwegian coastline to the north.

In exchange, it imported grains and cereals, salt, and more luxurious wares, to be distributed up the coast and into the country.

Bergen was never an official Hanseatic City, but the foreign traders claimed the entire wharf area for themselves. For the next several hundred years the settlement grew ever larger. At its busiest, some 2,000 Hanseatic tradesmen lived and worked here. The office was active till 1754, when Norwegians finally took over.

Brimming with charm

In one of the narrow alleys, visual artist Katrine Lund has her own gallery. Outside, the footsteps and murmur of a thousand tourists and travellers can be heard. Life has returned. “The history is in the walls,” says Lund. “Every day when I go to work through the alley, I consider the sort of life which would be here in Hanseatic times. It’s amazing, really.”