The sloped roof
Marble carrying you from water to summit.
Rafał Konieczny — CC BY-SA 4.0 · kallerna — CC BY-SA 4.0 · kallerna — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Ryan Hodnett — CC BY-SA 4.0
The design (Norwegian firm Snøhetta) intended the roof as a public terrace from day one — no late exception: the marble is engineered for thousands of daily feet, the slope calculated for safety, not mere ornament. The idea is openly stated: the opera belongs to the people, touched literally, not merely watched from afar.
Sign in to write your review of this place.
No reviews yet — be the first.
Oslo's Opera House is the only building on earth designed to be walked on top of, not only in front of: white Italian marble sloping straight from Oslo fjord's water up to the roof in a gentle rise — so you climb its surface barefoot in summer or sledding in winter, ticketless and unquestioned, the summit opening a complete panorama of city, fjord and islands. The building (2008, winner of Europe's Mies van der Rohe Award) houses the national opera and ballet — its main hall's acoustics designed for thousands of seats, performances booked ahead, though backstage tours (Norwegian and English) show stages, workshops and costumes without attending a show. In the neighbouring water floats She Lies — a glass ice sculpture that actually melts as sea levels rise over decades, a climate reminder as art — and the surrounding harbour walk links it to the Munch Museum and the whole modern Bjørvika district: a complete city theatre, ticketless.
Marble carrying you from water to summit.
A glass sculpture melting as the sea rises.
Kirsten Flagstads plass 1, 0150 Oslo