Best part of my readings today
Sep. 14th, 2012 03:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stalkerbunnyReading about the mining town Røros in Norway, which is a Unesco world heritage site. It's handling as a kultural object is a long story, starting with a famous author who was raised there and used his experiences in his writing, Johan Falkberget (1879-1967). When the mining activity began to wane in the early 1900s, tourism was seen as a survival strategy, but the definition of what was actually worth seeing... well.
At first, it was only the church and another building which were considered at all worth keeping, later, in 1020s five of the "common" houses were marked as such (funnily enough, these houses had earlier been portrayed by a painter and the paintings put up at the National Gallery in Oslo). One of these houses, regardless, was demolished and sent to Norsk Folkemuseum in Oslo, where they couldn't afford to built it up and it was left in pieces in a warehouse. On it's place in Røros, there was built a gas station.
As 1930s rolled on, the mining activity was stopped entirely, and Riksantikvariet found yet new interest in Røros, marking all of 80 houses as well as the old street views as kultural heritage. BUT, they felt the houses as they were just weren't "authentic" enough, so most of them were more or less taken down and rebuilt. As a result, the Røros of today is perhaps very pittoreque, but not very authentic at all.
Now, guess what happened to that house sent to Norsk Folkemuseum, Per Amundsagården? They'd never gotten to building it up, but in 1970s the 20s gas station was demolished, and Per Amundsgården was sent back and built to it's original site, ironically as one of the best preserved buildings in the town, having been sent away before it was "preserved".
Meanwhile at the Norsk Folkemuseum, on the site where Per Amundsagården had originally supposed to have stood, the museum built a... 1920s gas station. xD
At first, it was only the church and another building which were considered at all worth keeping, later, in 1020s five of the "common" houses were marked as such (funnily enough, these houses had earlier been portrayed by a painter and the paintings put up at the National Gallery in Oslo). One of these houses, regardless, was demolished and sent to Norsk Folkemuseum in Oslo, where they couldn't afford to built it up and it was left in pieces in a warehouse. On it's place in Røros, there was built a gas station.
As 1930s rolled on, the mining activity was stopped entirely, and Riksantikvariet found yet new interest in Røros, marking all of 80 houses as well as the old street views as kultural heritage. BUT, they felt the houses as they were just weren't "authentic" enough, so most of them were more or less taken down and rebuilt. As a result, the Røros of today is perhaps very pittoreque, but not very authentic at all.
Now, guess what happened to that house sent to Norsk Folkemuseum, Per Amundsagården? They'd never gotten to building it up, but in 1970s the 20s gas station was demolished, and Per Amundsgården was sent back and built to it's original site, ironically as one of the best preserved buildings in the town, having been sent away before it was "preserved".
Meanwhile at the Norsk Folkemuseum, on the site where Per Amundsagården had originally supposed to have stood, the museum built a... 1920s gas station. xD
