snow and a note on the Norwegian aesthetic

Tuesday, 31. October 2006, 19:20:58

I know this is absolutely not the most stunning nor aesthetic snow scene you have ever seen. BUT it is my first view of snow in Norway. I expect it is the first of many many many many months of solid snow.

It is Halloween and there has been no mention at the office of anyone celebrating it in any way. I have seen 2 women with skimpy devil outfits on and got one flier for children's dress up clothes but otherwise it is completely not a commercialized thing here. None of the grocery stores have any Halloween decor or candies or anything they wouldn't normally carry. The notion of a "seasonal kitsch" aisle in every grocery store does not seem to exist here. Although we are starting to see variations of the Christmas candle holder that people put oin their windows. It looks a little like a small menora but for only 5 candles, I think. otherwise, Oslo is blessedly free of the tsunami of seasonal crap that overshadows every American holiday 4 months before the event.
¤¤¤

My roommate is from Switzerland and we agree that the Norwegian building aesthetic is very strange. In Oslo it is common to have a plug at ceiling height then to run a cord to the lamp in the center of the ceiling. It is common to see the radiator pipes pass through a room. It is common for the floors of rooms to be radically different heights when one of them is heated, such as having to step 4 or 5 inches up to the bathroom.

For Americans and the Swiss and many others, every care would have been taken to make the floor level throughout the house, to put the wires and pipes behind the walls. Lot's older apartments here have a mix of floors that almost looks like no one asked whether the color or direction mattered. And what seems so odd about this is that there is some beautiful design here, both classical and modern, but the implementation seems to be of a much more "well, everything works, so we're done". Another example is that many showers aren't distinct from the rest of the bathroom, the whole thing is tiled and there's a drain in the floor, so there's no need to close it off in any way. The importance that we put on things looking finished and hiding the mechanisms and wires and pipes and tubes doesn't seem to exist here. There's just an unfinished quality about things to a foreigner's eye, and maybe it's just that the aesthetic priority is the lamp or just having light and the visible plug and wires just aren't what matters.

walkaboutnot in Kansas anymore

Comments

karla writes:

This can also be explained by the fact that Norway is a very do-it-yourself kind of place, and it is really REALLY expensive to hire an electrician or handyman. So the electrics tend to be outside the walls, especially in older places, because that way you may not need to call an electrician to do it. Our landlord at our old place would fix any electrical stuff himself. The plug at ceiling height means you never need to call an electrician if you want to change your light fixture. Americans tend to be more service oriented with things and are trained to NEVER do electrics themselves.....

When we got our dsl cable, they merely sent us a box with all the stuff and we had to install it. ditto getting your cable box...you go to the store, pick up the box and install that yourself as well.

Neither of us (R and I) are good at that sort of stuff, so it has been hard for us at times.

I've still never gotten used to the door frames where you have to step over them to go into the room. I do understand that it keeps out drafts, but that does not make me feel better at 3 am when I fall into the bathroom.....

By anonymous user, # 1. November 2006, 17:57:03

Great, just what I need--more ways to hurt myself!