• Travelsignposts Home
  • Country Guides
  • City Guides
  • River Cruises
  • Europe Photos
  • About Us

Norway Travel

  • Home
  • Photos
  • Map
  • Weather
  • Site Map
  • Destinations
  • Sightseeing
  • Shopping
  • Food
  • Getting around
  • Useful facts
  • News & Events
You are here: Home / Featured / Alesund – Norway’s Art Nouveau Town

Alesund – Norway’s Art Nouveau Town

By Helen Page 1 Comment

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
  • Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn

A Fairytale Town of Towers, Turrets and Ornaments:

Alesund, Norway's Art Nouveau Town

Alesund, Norway’s Art Nouveau Town

If you didn’t know better, you’d think that this is a beautiful picture of model buildings assembled from a modelling kit, but this is Ålesund , Norway’s Art Nouveau town.

In January 1904 a devastating fire raged through Ålesund , burning down 850 homes and leaving 10,000 people homeless. Only 20 percent of the houses in the town centre survived the fire.

Through a tremendous effort by the local population and other helpers, Ålesund was totally rebuilt in 1907. The young Norwegian architects who designed the houses were influenced by the art nouveau style that was popular at the time.

Thanks to these brilliant architects, Ålesund today is renowned both nationally and internationally for its architecture, and join cities like Glasgow, Barcelona and Vienna as members of “Rèseau Art Nouveau Network”, a European network of Art Nouveau cities.

All around town buildings are decorated with towers, turrets and imaginative, colourful ornaments and tiny details that make these houses so beautiful.  Walk along Kongensgate, the pedestrian street and you’ll be able to see the engraved facade of the houses.

A birds-eye view of the town can be seen from Mount Aksla. You can get there by taxi but Tony walked up the 418 steps and was rewarded with some really stunning shots.

Ålesund Museum tells of the town’s history and at Sunnmore Museum there’s a unique collection of boats and restored houses displaying ancient building techniques, as well as archaeological finds from the Middle Ages.

Ålesund, with its 35,000 inhabitants, has one of Norway’s largest fishing harbours.

Search, read hotel reviews and book Ålesund hotels here.>

Click here to get a free PDF of this post

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
  • Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn

Related

Filed Under: Featured, Sightseeing Tagged With: aalesund, alesund, alesund norway, architecture art nouveau, Norway, norway cruise, norway holidays, norwegian, visit norway

avatar

About Helen Page

Helen Page is a prolific blogger and ardent traveller; she runs Travelsignposts with her professional writer and photographer husband Tony.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

You can also find us on

  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Latest Additions

  • VAT Refund in Norway
  • Summer Chamber Music by the Moscow Chamber Music Academy
  • Bergen – Famous for its Bryggen Hanseatic Wharf
  • The Legend of the Seven Sisters
  • Airport Transfer – Bergen Flesland Airport

Plan and Book Your Trip


eNews and Updates

feedburner Sign up now to get emailed news as well as other site updates!

Get the Guerrilla Travel Photography ebook here now!
City Guides
Country Guides
River Cruises

Who is behind Travelsignposts?

Helen and Tony Page at Singapore Changi Airport

We're Helen and Tony Page, and we love travelling - lucky as we've been doing it for the last few decades!

Tony has long been a professional photographer and writer, but Helen now writes most of the posts and takes a lot of photos herself!

Travelsignposts is our main travel planning site, but we've just launched Travelsignposts China and Tony also runs the Travelsignposts Photo and Guerrilla Travel Photography web sites, as well as publishing the Take Better Digital Photos and Guerrilla Travel Photography eBooks.

Read more about Helen and Tony or contact them.

Other Countries

  • Austria
  • Belgium
  • Bulgaria
  • Croatia
  • Czech Republic
  • Devon & Cornwall
  • England
  • Estonia
  • Europe (General)
  • Finland
  • France
  • Germany
  • Greece
  • Ireland
  • Italy
  • Netherlands
  • Portugal
  • Scotland
  • Spain
  • Switzerland
  • Turkey
  • Ukraine

Resources

  • Take Better Digital Photos eBook Take Better Digital Photos eBook
  • Take Better Digital Photos Free eCourse
  • Travel Signposts Photo – our main travel photography site
  • Guerrilla Travel Photography eBook Guerrilla Travel Photography eBook

Copyright Travelsignposts Pty Ltd © 2025 Log in

Get a free PDF of this post!
Just enter your email address below and we'll send it to you immediately.

Please enter your Email Address