Introducing the 2026 Oslo Architecture Triennale, Line Ramstad laments: ‘Too often nature comes last.' Her simple response as chief curator for the global event, which just opened its doors in the Norwegian capital, became its theme: ’What if nature came first?’ At Oslo’s Sofienberg church, which rises over the city’s diverse, lively Grünelokka neighbourhood, 32 international exhibitors have responded.

Dive into the 2026 Oslo Architecture Triennale

Since 1877, people climbing the small hill to the church have sought higher visions. The triennale now offers an updated one, which, as Ramstad outlines, is to ‘imagine our built environment on nature’s terms’. It couldn’t be more timely as we race towards climate tipping points. Buildings contribute almost 40 per cent of CO2 emissions, and the construction industry generates a third of all waste. Reuse rather than demolition, rethinking waste, natural materials and addressing wider effects on territory are architecture’s new front lines, and they all take centre stage in Oslo.

Filling the church’s nave, displays are mounted on wooden structures, built quickly and set to be dismantled for reuse just as fast. The first encounter is with a curious quilt-like band of square panels in red, tan and black hues. They come from the Upcycling Wool Ecology project of Harvard University’s Grinham Research Group, which addresses our annual two million tonnes of wool production, half of which is wasted.

From sheep farming to the making of keratin-rich construction panels from their wool, the project is explained by a fascinating but text-heavy presentation.

By contrast, no words accompany the acrylic paintings by artist Gitta Saetre, which vividly document the construction of Norway’s new Rv.555 Sotrasambandet highway.

Another artistic contribution, about territory, from Galena Sardemova and Paris Bezanis, shows three enchanting copper plates in mud-moulded pewter frames, etched with images of mud bathing in the Black Sea.

One of the many messages on advocacy group HouseEurope!’s single-sentence posters reminded us that ‘We (architects) are practising in a system that puts profit over people and planet’. Nevertheless, architects at the triennale present projects that take sustainability to radical levels, such as Danish architecture studio Pihlmann’s maximal reuse to transform Thoravej 29, a Copenhagen factory – ‘most of the buildings of the future are already standing’, they note.

Norway’s Architects Without Borders (AUG) show projects from across the planet in their ‘Building with What Exists’ display, complete with material samples, from biomaterials to reused oil pipes. Around the church exterior, waste reuse is demonstrated by projects such as Ask Holmen’s sculptural benches made from granite quarry offcuts.

Beside the church’s entrance, there is a small sauna house. This fresh wooden structure with colourful roofing surprisingly complements the soaring brick church and offers saunas to triennale visitors and locals. Inside, temperatures surpass 80°C, and the cold shower to follow is outside, shaded by trees. Open Sauna is run by sauna association Oslo Badstuforening, an associate of the triennale that has facilities around the city.

In Oslo’s polluted harbour waters beside one such facility, local practice Transborder Studio (which is also exhibiting its Ready Clay One proposal for a house built from the Oslo clay beneath it, with rammed-earth walls) has submerged a 9m x 9m wooden platform (a project titled Oslo Badebotaniske) to give biodiversity a new chance, and it’s already a thriving marine garden.

The triennale’s legacy will emerge as architecture takes the call to put nature first. That brings us to Paradigme, a handsome book edited by Nora Ulrikke Andersen and Ingrid Haga. Through the triennale, they issued an open call for projects from young Scandinavian architects. Thirty-six were selected, from the whimsical House for a Troll by Martin Hopland (trolls were big Norwegian folklore creatures long before the online variety) to Jens Hansen’s practical reuse of demolished concrete rubble, which retains compressive strength good for columns.

Ramstad says that ‘if the system is broken, fix it’. The triennale highlights the system’s problems and demonstrates solutions, but ultimately, the hope of building in balance with nature lies with young architects, like those that Paradigme spotlights.

oslotriennale.no, until 1 October 2026

Once a month for the past two months, a curious crowd has descended upon Oslo’s arthouse theatre, Cinemateket, to witness a special union of film and fashion. They’re gathered there for a programming series called Fabricated Frames, organised by the International Library of Fashion Research (ILFR) – a burgeoning resource for historians and researchers since its launch in 2020.

The inspiration for the series came during a particularly ferocious blizzard that battered Norway in January 2025. The library had organised a screening of the 2012 ARTE documentary Antifashion, and as the wind and snow whipped around the capital, people emerged from the whiteout to see the film. ‘It was a dramatic moment,’ recalled the ILFR’s founding director, Elise By Olsen, during a recent visit to the library. ‘We wanted to develop that idea further. We understood that screenings were quite popular for our audience.’

At the first event of the new series, over 140 people packed into the theatre for the 2019 documentary Martin Margiela: In His Own Words, accompanied by a post-screening discussion with the film’s director, Reiner Holzemer, and producer, Aminata Sambe. ‘Not everyone could get in, so we had to do a second screening,’ Olsen told Wallpaper*. ‘It was a big luxury problem.’ A month later, the poet Arve Kleiva introduced Notebook on Cities and Clothes, Wim Wenders’ experimental 1989 doc on Japanese fashion designer Yohji Yamamoto.

The film series is more than just a monthly meeting point for Oslo’s cinephiles and fashion obsessives; it’s also a major step toward expanding the influence of the project Olsen has spearheaded for the last five years. ‘An institution today doesn't need to be so physically bound to our headquarters,’ she said. ‘I like to say that a very small part of what we do is collecting and archiving, and a very big part of what we do is mediating and making the objects come to life.’ It’s a modest proclamation, given the countless hours that she and the team of librarians and guest researchers have poured into establishing and cataloguing the vast archive of materials, which dates back to the 1970s.

The ILFR began not in the Norwegian capital, but in the one-bedroom New York City apartment of Olsen’s mentor, the late cultural theorist Steven Mark Klein. Olsen and Klein were born nearly five decades and a continent apart, but the pair bonded over a love of fashion and print. Olsen became the youngest-ever editor-in-chief of a print publication when she launched her Recens at 13, and went on to produce ten issues of the fashion criticism publication Wallet – culminating in a Gucci-designed box set to send off the magazine in high style. Klein, meanwhile, was a Brooklyn-born hospitality brand consultant and fashion industry gadfly who had been collecting decades' worth of magazines, fashion show invites and other printed material for decades. ‘Steven saw the parallel between promotional fashion ephemera and the tradition of the artist book very early. That's become a blueprint for my work with the library,’ Olsen explains.

After being offered the collection in 2019, it took three years for Klein’s two tons of printed matter to find its home in the historic Station Master’s Building in front of Oslo’s sprawling new National Museum. Since opening its physical space – after first launching as an online database in 2020 – the ILFR has become an integral resource. ‘We’ve had the design team of Balenciaga, Burberry, [and] Norwegian fashion brands coming to do research and inspirational trips. We’ve had industry people and the regular person next door,’ Olsen said. The archive has ballooned to encompass several thousand items, thanks to donations by a mix of private sponors and fashion brands like Acne Studios, Comme des Garçons, Maison Margiela, Jil Sander, and Gucci.

As I sat with Olsen drinking coffee, boxes of Margiela ephemera stacked next to me, three guest researchers sat around a table methodically cataloguing over 200,000 film slides donated by former Swiss trend forecaster Sonja Hugentobler, documenting Paris, Milan, and London Fashion Weeks from 1992 to 2004. ‘There are a lot of very beautiful discoveries. I even found a photo of Martin Margiela’s face in there when I went through it,’ Olsen remarked. It wasn’t an easy ‘yes’ for the ILFR; its collecting mandate usually excludes photo archives (along with VHS and DVD recordings of fashion shows) because the skeleton staff simply doesn’t have the capacity to catalogue it all.

‘The two other people on the core team and I have been working pro bono for five years. It’s not sustainable,’ Olsen said, referring to the head of communications, Else Skålvoll Thorenfeldt, and design director Morteza Vaseghi. ‘I’ll be honest. I’m often overwhelmed and pessimistic, but this space makes me very happy. I get a lot of energy from being around this material,’ she continued, adding with a laugh: ‘I’m hoping one day a brand will sponsor a sabbatical year for me so I can actually sit and read, because I have not had the time since opening the library to just flip through things.’

Running the library has (to put it into fashion terms) meant wearing ‘many, many different hats’ for Olsen. ‘There are some big challenges and some small, daily challenges. The big one is that we’re going to need more space within the next five years,’ she says, hinting at ‘some absolutely amazing donations coming this fall’ that will require more shelves. The team has also been busy applying for grants beyond the project-based public cultural funding they receive, which would secure longer-term operational funding. While these logistical issues loom, the more immediate goal is to complete the film series and develop additional programming that exists both within and outside their physical space.

The library has recently hosted, in collaboration with the National Museum of Norway, a conversation on fashion criticism with Francesca Granata, the Parsons School of Design’s associate professor of Fashion Studies, and the ‘Most Beautiful Swiss Books’ exhibition, showcasing 20 of the most visually outstanding Swiss books published in 2024. Next on the docket is a screening of Frederick Wiseman’s 1982 doc, The Store, paired with a panel discussion between Fredi Fischli & Niels Olsen, the curator duo behind the 2021 book Retail Apocalypse, followed by Veruschka - Poetry of a Woman, fashion photographer Franco Rubartelli’s rarely screened 1971 film on the mononymous European supermodel.

Although the slate of films has skewed toward deep dives, and the series is limited to those who happen to be in the Norwegian capital, this focused approach to excavating fashion history suits Olsen’s slow approach to building an audience. It also, in a way, rebuffs the larger industry trend of ‘nostalgia fever’ that has seen designers at major brands mine the house archives and reissue bygone pieces, from the Chloé Paddington bag to the Alexander McQueen skull scarf.

Fashion is looking backwards, but while many of these revivals feel like cash grabs catered to Gen Z’s ‘vintage Y2K’ obsession, the ILFR’s focus is on more than just showing new audiences some old-fashioned films. ‘The library is a jumping-off point and springboard,’ Olsen noted. ‘It’s a very cliché thing to say, but I think we definitely use the past in order to look forward and to create something that we feel is better for the future.’

The goal is that for every new person introduced to the library through public programming, a new perspective will sprout and, with it, ‘we can have some new answers to big questions that we’ve been grappling with for a very long time’. Olsen recognises that a library of fashion ephemera in Norway might seem niche, but fashion transcends the industry it's part of. ‘Everyone puts on clothes every day. [Clothing] is such a big part of our identity and our collective history, and it’s a great tool for societal criticism. There's a whole spectrum to be explored,’ Olsen muses. ‘We have a lot of plans moving forward that will explore the intersection between fashion and sound, and we have book launches, poetry readings, and stuff that doesn’t have an obvious fashion connection. But then again, what is fashion? It’s everything.’

International Library of Fashion Research, Brynjulf Bulls plass 2, 0250 Oslo, Norway. For opening times, visit the IFRL’s website below.

fashionresearchlibrary.com

Oslo tastemakers craving an intriguing cocktail often settle onto one of the leather stools at pioneering Himkok, the sprawling city-centre bar and distillery that Erk Potur opened in 2015. Resulting from the transformation of a 19th-century pharmacy-appliance warehouse, the bar is known for its cocktails showcasing Nordic produce, served up in dark-wood interiors that are dotted with apothecary-style bottles containing spirits made on-site.

Already beloved by the hospitality industry, Himkok’s memorable menus fuelled by art, photography, fashion and music have also thrust the bar into the cultural spotlight in recent years. The newest menu, launching on 11 September 2025, is a bold homage to Scandinavia’s rich design heritage that reinforces the site’s flair for visual storytelling.

Himkok introduces its new ‘Design by Sipping’ menu, in collaboration with Studio Sløyd

Hatched alongside two local collaborators (the creative agency 2.edition and design practice Studio Sløyd), Himkok’s ‘Design by Sipping’ menu follows a quartet of similarly experimental examples celebrating Norwegian talents. In 2021, a menu revolved around NFT artworks by illustrator Esra Røise; in 2022, imagery from multimedia artist and photographer Olav Stubberud enlivened another. Fashion designer Eline Dragesund (in 2023) and Sony Music Norway artists (in 2024) translated Himkok cocktails into garments and songs for their respective menus.

For the 2025 menu, local design practice Studio Sløyd is building on that buzz by reimagining Himkok’s 13-serve menu into a series of furniture and objects that will be displayed in a gallery setting at Oslo’s Berlin Studio (11-13 September), in tandem with Designers’ Saturday – the city’s popular design and interior architecture event (12-14 September). From 5pm on 11 September, the collectables, some of which may be reproduced in the future, will be sold via an online auction, running through 18 September.

Mikkel Jøraandstad and Herman Ødegaard, Studio Sløyd’s founders, jumped at the opportunity. They’ve crafted products for Norwegian furniture companies such as Northern and LK Hjelle, but partnering with a bar was thrilling new territory. ‘Himkok focuses on local and sustainable production, and that’s important to us too, but we thought we could explore it even more,’ says Ødegaard. ‘Taking some parts of the drinks and making them come to life was an interesting process.’

Himkok menus, which stay in play for about a year, are taken seriously. The team spends six to seven months fine-tuning them, each cocktail – ‘Scandinavia in a glass’, as head of R&D Paul Aguilar describes it – named for its dominant flavour profile. Studio Sløyd also embraced this conscientious mindset, carefully conceiving prototypes for the corresponding designs with the help of local artisans. ‘Himkok let us have total creative freedom, and we appreciated that. After tasting the cocktails, we had initial ideas and then we developed them further, considering materials and shapes,’ explains Ødegaard.

The objects run from small to large, ‘from the obvious to the symbolic’, says Ødegaard. For the Carrot cocktail (Himkok gin, Martini aperitifs, fresh carrot, Mandarine Napoléon, Fireball), a cherry- and walnut-wood candleholder takes cues from the vegetable’s slender silhouette.

Equally stunning in their simplicity are the aluminium bottle opener that nods to the purity of the Cardamom (Patrón Reposado tequila, aquavit, cardamom distillate, fino sherry and Palo Santo cordial); and the epoxy and steel hook that expresses the hushed complexity of Plum (Himkok aquavit, Noilly Prat, Skott Gård plum juice, brewed ginger, chocolate bitters, vanilla bourbon).

For this project, Studio Sløyd delved into ceramics for the first time. Clay spawned the sculptural diffuser that nods to the fresh notes in the effervescent Cucumber (Himkok vodka, cucumber and mint kefir, pandan liqueur, brewed ginger, apple, grape), and also the elegant cafetière that honours rejuvenating coffee break rituals for the Fika (Grind espresso liqueur, Teeling whiskey, Aga Sideri’s non-alcoholic Humlesus cider, Lagavulin 16 whisky).

Glass was another new medium for Studio Sløyd, and it manifested in a duo of sleek vessels that evoke the Cloudberry, a Gimlet riff (Rémy Martin 1738 Accord Royal Cognac, cloudberry liqueur, cloudberry vanilla whey cordial, fino sherry, De Kuyper Dutch Cacao), as well as curving spoons that invite you to plunge into the frothy crown of the Elderflower, a twist on the Ramos Gin Fizz (Bacardi 10 rum, Saint-Germain, Noilly Prat, elderflower liqueur, cream, Greek yogurt). ‘We worked with wood that was familiar to us, but it was also important to try something different,’ points out Ødegaard.

Lighting designs forge a dialogue with three of the drinks, including the Peanut (Himkok Vodka, fino sherry, Noilly Prat, brewed ginger, peanut distillate) and the Raspberry (Himkok aquavit, red wine, raspberry, rhubarb liqueur, Galliano vanilla), a spin on the Clover Club. The standout is the cherry-wood and steel floor lamp that is inspired by the soft, velvety notes of the Manhattan-like Cherry (Buffalo Trace bourbon, Merlet cherry liqueur, Carpano Dry, dark chocolate, butter-washed finish).

A pine wood chair, sparked by Studio Sløyd’s observations of a decomposing tomato, accompanies the savoury Cherry Tomato (Himkok x Linie Aquavit, mezcal, green paprika distillate, cherry pepper, Skott Gård plum wine, vinegar). ‘When we saw the fibres inside, it inspired the frame,’ says Ødegaard.

Other pieces draw on nostalgia. A whimsical clock, fashioned out of glass, Douglas fir and steel, is teamed with the Softis, the Norwegian term for soft-serve ice cream (Linie aquavit and Diplom-Is ice cream, Disaronno, white Dutch cacao, fino sherry), hinting at the short-lived joy of ice cream before it melts. The Fruktnøtt (Jameson Black Barrel whisky, De Kuyper Dutch cacao, Himkok almond distillate, PX sherry, Krokan wine reduction) calls to mind its namesake raisin- and hazelnut-studded milk chocolate bar, and Studio Sløyd responded with a fold-out pine and steel seat that suggests carefree bygone days.

‘We build on memories,’ says Aguilar of the connections prompted by Himkok's cocktails. ‘This is the first softis you eat every summer. This is the chocolate your grandparents always gave you when you visited.’

Himkok is located at Storgata 27, 0184 Oslo, Norway.

Oslo is rapidly ascending the list of destinations for cultural and design-minded visitors. The enormous National Museum – currently home to a playful Laure Prouvost installation – opened in June 2022, less than a year after the newly relocated Munchmuseet, home to a top-floor cocktail bar that offers views onto the Snøhetta-designed, glacier-like opera house, towards the sculpture-filled Ekebergparken, and across the Oslofjord – the shoreline of which is home to the sublime modernist Henie Onstad Art Centre.

Beyond the visual arts, design saturates the city, and can be experienced throughout the culinary and cocktail scene; with emerging sustainable fashion designers; and as ever in the quality of Scandinavian furniture and products.

Regular Wallpaper* contributor Will Jennings stayed at The Thief, next door to and borrowing art from the Astrup Fearnley Museum; an Antony Gormley sculpture greets visitors at the entrance, a Richard Prince hangs in the lobby, and even more exquisite art is spread throughout the hotel’s corridors and bedrooms.

Oslo tour: our design-led guide to the city

The Thief spa

The Thief has its own spa in an adjacent building on the Tjuvholmen peninsula, though guests at the hotel have their own private passage to avoid going outside – a glass lift connecting the hotel to an atmospheric underground corridor that emerges into the spa complex. Once there, relax into your preferred treatment or massage, or simply luxuriate in the pool, sensorial showers, steam rooms and sauna – I had a facial treatment with ZO Skin Health products, deeply cleansing then exfoliating with magnesium crystals, before oils and creams were massaged in to replenish the skin. With a new face, I retired to the spa, flitting between hot and cold, refreshing myself ahead of the city to come.

thethief.com

Torggata Botaniske

Fully revitalised, I headed to a cocktail bar bedecked in plants and foliage. Not only does nature hang from the ceiling and walls, turning the space into a floral grotto, but it also finds its way into the menu. I started with a Torgatta Botanical in a Bottle, fusing mint, lemongrass, and a lemony rum which felt like a naughty smoothie. The Fig Old Fashioned which followed was a stronger, more robust taste of the natural world. Described as ‘a classic served with a botanical twist’, the fig was warming and deeply boozy, perfect preparation for the chilly walk back to the hotel.

torggatabotaniske.no

Lulu

Lulu is a restaurant with trust instead of a menu. No excruciating dilemma of what to choose from a dish list that all sounds too delicious to pick from, here the chefs take ownership, presenting a series of seasonal small plates based on whatever culinary ideas they have brewing. The salty horseradish oil which drenched the scallops of my first plate was so delicious I had to down what was left. As I sat at the bar watching the chef create the next dish, hake ceviche with crunchy plantain crisps, he struck up conversation and told me it was ‘a tribute to Japanese influence in Latin America’, a theme underpinning Lulu’s creations. After that, the sublime mussels on top of a mussel butter-soaked Japanese milk bread, topped with pickled fennel and mussel purée, left me a mussel fan – and wanting to return for more.

lulu.no 

F5 concept store

Three creative brothers – Emil, Benjamin and Alexander Krystada – are behind this store, created not only to sell their own brand of sustainable designer clothing, but also to support other local designers of their generation including ILAG and IBEN. It’s a small but carefully formed shop with a curated range of woollen, woven and crafted fashion, hung and sat on display furniture the brothers personally designed through F5 Agency, the interior and furniture element of their creative ecosystem which also publishes a magazine to showcase Norwegian creative talent.

f5conceptstore.com 

Kollekted By

Alessandro D’Orazio and Jannicke Kråkvik created Kollekted By to offer the public a curated mix of the design, furniture and products used in their interior styling business, Kråkvik&D’Orazio. They have created a sequence of rooms reflecting domestic spaces, fitted out to offer the latest and highest-quality designs for your home, including statement Swedish Fogia ‘Bond’ shelving, Japanese Hasami Porcelain, Italian Lumina lights, and a whole range of Frama products from delicate scents to the massive marble and cork ‘Sintra’ dining table. The owners also support the design ecosystem and emerging designers – I was shown around by Bjørn van den Berg, an Oslo designer previously selected by Wallpaper* as one to watch, and who has pieces for sale in the store.

kollektedby.no

Inventarium

Tone Dalen used to curate art for cruise ships and corporate environments before deciding to follow her heart and set up Inventarium, a tiny and delightfully eclectic vintage shop just a short walk from Kollekted By, but with an entirely different browsing experience – though no less artfully curated. Dalen spends her free time tracking auctions and attending sales to find a unique range of lighting, posters, decorative arts and design to resell at affordable prices. In summer months, the shop spills into the street, but if you can’t make it along in person, you can browse the everchanging offer online.

inventarium.shop

Vaaghals

While digging foundations for the Barcode development adjacent to Oslo Opera House, builders encountered the buried remains of a 400-year-old cargo boat. Called Vaaghals (which means ‘daredevil’), it lent its name to this Michelin-listed restaurant, the first restaurant to open in the design-led district, and which has been packed daily since. Head chef Christer Rødseth (who has become something of a celebrity, regularly appearing on Norwegian TV) presides over unpretentiously refined seasonal dishes, generous in size and perfect for sharing. Something as simple as a chunk of cabbage transforms with pan-fried barley and BBQ sauce. A chicken salad elevated with Jerusalem artichoke crisps and Haukeli goat cheese. And a pan-fried turbot with oxtail ragu was a welcome twist on surf and turf. You may even just want the homemade bread with chicken liver pâté and rich, salty butter, which I could have eaten all day long. The restaurant is immaculately refined with an interior by Radius Design, which softens the glass and steel shell through natural wood and warm lighting, while a wine-laden staircase leads guests to the first-floor views towards the fjord.

vaaghals.com

Himkok

Himkok is a perfect place to finish your Oslo trip. An understated speakeasy setting with an in-house distillery (viewable from the bar) used to create gin, vodka and Scandinavian spirit aquavit, all of which fuel its unique cocktail selection. I started with a drink called Bun which had – floating on top of bourbon, Cocchi Americano and sherry – an actual waffle-mix-and-coconut bun. It’s a play on a treat familiar to all Norwegians who once took one to school daily, though this version was altogether boozier and more grown-up. The Smokey Beetroot which followed was equally as intriguing – a beetroot distillate (created in-house) mixed with mezcal, sherry and a reindeer lichen wine reduction combined into a flavour the likes of which I’d never had before. That last ingredient, formed from a kind of moss, illustrates an experimental playfulness that is imagined in a small room at the top of the Himkok building, where state-of-the-art scientific equipment concocts new flavours from the most unlikely sources.

himkok.no 

The notion of a handmade product resonates deeply with us at Wallpaper*, especially when it comes to our shoes. Which explains why the new store for Norwegian shoemaker Faust – which produces both ready-to-wear and handmade shoes – has struck such a chord.

Architecture studio Snøhetta took its brief seriously, creating not just the interiors of the store in Oslo’s buzzy Barcode Project, but also the entire brand identity including web design and business cards, right down to a customised typeface that’s based on 17th-century manuscripts for the signage and business cards.

The showstopper, though, is the interior. Here, Snøhetta has created a space that is positively Gothic in its moody romanticism and sly homage to Goethe. The entire length of one wall is lined with five vaulted concrete niches interspersed with perfectly milled and oiled oak doors. The latter slide open to reveal shoe boxes and, literally, the tools of the trade – the instruments and leather swatches that transform feet patterns into lasts and, ultimately, finished shoes.

The niches, Snøhetta says, ‘reference a historic, almost religious architectural language. Their weight and massiveness possess a surreal scale in an otherwise small space, while disappearing into the darkness of the charcoal coloured walls.’

ADDRESS

Dronning Eufemias Gate 10
0191 Oslo

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Of Oslo’s many splendoured charms, its dining scene is probably one of its most rewarding, even for regular visitors.

Layer on a nuanced design sensibility and it’s no surprise that Norway’s capital is filled with so many artfully conceived eateries. Named after a character in the novel ‘Sult’, Happolati occupies a light-filled space, recently vacated by the Michelin-starred Ylajali, on the ground floor of the former National Hospital, which was built in 1872. Local designers Anderssen & Voll have taken their cue from the restaurant’s Asian-inflected menu – think pine screens, ash and walnut finishes, chairs inspired by Japanese banners, origami wall lamps, and modern takes on traditional paper lanterns.

As diners flip through a heavy wood-encased menu, in the kitchen, chefs Mads Kjøllmoen and Rune Hinnland pair Scandinavian produce with soft Asian flavours, like chips made of shards of dehydrated fermented cabbage that are served with seaweed mayonnaise, and bone marrow and oysters topped with tempura.

ADDRESS

St Olavs Plass 2

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Oslo's waterfront district Tjuvholmen, also known as 'Thief Islet', has a new inhabitant: The Thief. The nine-storey hotel created by philanthropy-minded hotelier Petter A Stordalen, and built by Mellbye Architects, is surrounded by art galleries and eateries in an area of the Norwegian capital historically frequented by bandits and outlaws. The hotel's art curator Sune Nordgren has instigated a collaboration with neighbouring Astrup Fearnley Museum of Contemporary Art, allowing the concept of the 'art hotel' to reach a whole new level by including pieces from the likes of Andy Warhol, Fiona Banner and Richard Prince in the building's public spaces. Interior designer Anemone Wille Våge was inspired by Riva yachts and French designer Jean-Michel Frank in the juxtaposing of shadows and light in the intimate lobby, the Fru K restaurant (run by award-winning chef Kari Innerå), and in each of the 119 rooms. In spite of top-notch art and impeccable design, what really stole our hearts was the spirit of the people working here.

ADDRESS

Landgangen 1
Oslo

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