Akershus Fortress

Brief information

Akershus stands on a promontory that juts into the Oslo Fjord and divides it into two bays. From the very beginning, the castle functioned as a fortified residence: it protected Oslo, which became Norway’s capital at the end of the 13th century, and was built of brick and stone — noted in Norwegian architecture as the first such case.

Later, the castle changed both its appearance and its purpose. In the first half of the 17th century it was rebuilt in the Renaissance style and surrounded by a wall, and from the late 18th century it was used as a royal prison. For this reason, the interior is important not only for its ceremonial halls and official residences, but also for its prison cells: the museum presents a single building at once as a fortress, a palace space, and a place of confinement.

What to notice first

It makes sense to read Akershus through the traces of the functions that succeeded one another within the same walls. The small inner courtyard, surrounded by the castle buildings, shows the fortress logic of the entrance: the main passage first leads into an enclosed space, and only from there to the section open for viewing through the eastern wing, where there was a storeroom in the Middle Ages.

In the western wing, everyday life, service functions, and the hidden can be compared side by side. The remains of a baking oven and a fireplace in the wall recall the kitchen of Christian IV’s castle; nearby is a mention of the bailiff’s office, where goods and money from taxpayers were counted; a secret passage connected the northern and southern wings. Lower down, the same fortress becomes a prison: in the 17th century the dungeons were converted into four cells. One more brief key to the past is the remains of granite stone in three walls of the room, the only visible trace of the medieval central tower.