City Break in Oslo: Stay at the Art Deco Hotel Sommero – Travel

“The last few weeks have been like a history lesson for me,” says Dominic Gorham, summing up his experiences as a receptionist at Sommerro House, Oslo’s most recent hotel opening. The native Brit spends a lot of time in the lobby so he can keep an eye on the automatic sliding glass door, through which a steady stream of guests pours in. If someone stands a little perplexed when entering, between the café bar and restaurant entrances, Gorham is already at their side.

Sometimes, however, the person entering does not need any help at all, but just wants to tell an anecdote that connects them to the historic brick building. The new hotel is housed in the former Oslo Lysverker, the capital’s power station administration building, which was completed in 1931 and is now a listed building. “A woman told me how she was taught to vacuum here,” says Gorham. A very wealthy Norwegian, on the other hand, told him, on the verge of tears, how he used to visit the public baths in the basement with his father as a child “to scrub each other down in one of the tubs.” In the past, only a few apartments had their own washing facilities, he specifies. Many Osloers would have here in the Vestkantbadet also learned to swim.

In mid-November, the swimming pool steeped in history is to be restored and reopened, also for guests who are not staying at the hotel. “The building is of great importance to the residents of the western part of the city,” says the hotel employee. The hotel is located in Frogner, the area with the highest real estate prices in Norway, with many villas built in the 1900s. The Norwegian Prime Minister’s office and the Royal Castle are also located here. And, a few steps from Sommerro House, det norske Nobelinstituttwhere the Nobel Prize Committee meets to this day and the laureates are announced.

Strict conditions came from the Monuments Office, Gorham recalls. Nothing was allowed to be changed in the structure of the house. Everything remained original: the size of the former offices and current hotel rooms, the wood paneling of the corridors. And the decorative details of the architecture: the original art deco ceiling lamp still dangles like a long, shimmering white earring through the concentric staircase, all floors down to the lobby – even though it has now been restored and operated with LEDs. “We didn’t have to change anything about this building either, it’s good just the way it is,” says Gorham. “That’s what the locals who visit us tell us too. Normally a Norwegian doesn’t want to show that he earns a lot of money.” And flamboyant style doesn’t really get you very far here either: “But this building already had grandeur before, we just dusted it off.”

Lars Haukeland, a partner at the Oslo office LPO arkitekter, under whose aegis the conversion began in 2016, is jointly responsible for this dedusting. One thing was important to them right from the start: “When you come in, you should feel as if history is coming back to life here.” For example, the pistachio green of the lobby was a very important color in Art Deco times: “In the 1930s, the coal-fired buildings quickly got dirty. Elegance is created through color and furnishings.” For the latter, the architect had the interior design office GrecoDeco at his side, who researched deep into the history of regional art for their search for motifs and the custom-made furniture. The creatives designed 21 different, opulently ornamental carpet and fabric patterns for the hotel, inspired by the Norwegian artist Gerhard Munthe.

Open detailed view

Open detailed view

Open detailed view

In today’s restaurant Ekspedisjonshallen electricity bills used to be paid, Haukeland recalls. As a native of Oslo, he also had to apply for electricity for his apartment in these premises. Back then, says the 70-year-old, central reception desks were set up on the left and right of the side aisles of the hall-like, six-and-a-half meter high room, in front of which the customer felt really small. “Today,” says the architect, “we have reversed the situation: the guests now sit higher up at the bar.” And get an overview of the bartenders as they prepare cocktails from the 1930s.

A fresco by the Norwegian painter Per Krohg, who studied with Matisse in Paris, takes up the entire back wall of the restaurant: curved power lines that open like a theater curtain over the scenery of a city. Foamy waves lap beneath a dam. Turbines can be seen, brick chimneys smoking. And workers in overalls and sweating their brow laying another cable. Behind them, the large window fronts of cubic villas provide a view of living rooms whose occupants enjoy the benefits of electricity.

Open detailed view

In the two-storey rotunda with restaurant, bar and roof terrace including a rooftop pool, which Lars Haukeland and his architectural office placed on the historic building roof, it is most beautiful when the light is dimmed. Then the lights of the city center sparkle all the more outside, ships cross the Oslofjord blinking. The glass structure hovers like a flying saucer over the almost hundred-year-old building. “That was also the idea behind it,” grins Haukeland, “because in the 1920s and 1930s the first drawings of these UFOs appeared in magazines – and the obsession for them.”

Open detailed view

Some Oslo residents who still had original vases and glass figurines from that time could even contribute to the interior design of the hotel. Because the hotel management had the Norwegian online marketplace Finn.no searched for art deco objects.

They are now spread throughout the house. And that’s big: 231 hotel rooms, a small cinema, a theater, currently with its own magic show, a wellness area with a focus on sleep therapy. There are also seven bars and restaurants with a total of 574 seats: For example the TAK, at the top of the glass rotunda, with TV chef Frida Runge’s fusion cuisine made from Norwegian products and Japanese preparation methods. Or the Plah on the ground floor, where cookbook author Terje Ommundsen crosses locally grown produce with Thai flavours. Meanwhile, the self-playing Steinway grand piano intones the chanson in the hotel’s tea room Ne me quitte pas to freshly baked scones – don’t leave me. Oh, you didn’t intend to. As long as nobody comes to teach you how to vacuum or remind you about electricity bills, you’re welcome to stay for a while.

Sommerrogata 1, 0255 Oslo, double room with breakfast from 260 euros, sommerrohouse.com

a notice

The research trip for this article was partly supported by tour operators, hotels, airlines and/or tourism agencies.