Everyday Life in Christiania S.G. Abel Enters the Public Spotlight

Abstract

At the end of September, 1816, big brother Hans Mathias Abel also came by boat to Christiania, and everything points to the fact that Niels Henrik was there to meet him. Christiania with its 11,000 inhabitants was not a big city. But nonetheless a panorama of the main square would show street crowds surging around the stalls, with horses, wagons and animals everywhere. On an ordinary promenade outside the ramparts of Akershus Fortress, the city’s beauties showed themselves off to advantage in the latest fashions, while young men engaged them in conversation and conducted “Undisguised Flirtation”. The scene was splendid on this occasion as well: the blue fjord toward the south; to the west one looked down on Piperviken (where Oslo City Hall is located) and the long valley of Bislett Brook; from there, which today is part of the heart of the city, the countryside began, beyond the vacant lots and scattered buildings. Around the elegant stone-walled house with fishponds at Tullins Ruseløkke were a number of small wooden dwellings, some of them under construction with piles of plank ends and wooden blocks cast around helter-skelter. Row upon row of steep hilltops were all that was to be seen in the area in which the Royal Palace later would be built. Rosenkrantzhaven was located on the south side of Drammensveien, with greenhouses and an old-fashioned main building that had galleries and a mansard roof.