The destroyed town that became one of Europe’s most beautiful places

There are plenty of excited faces as our ship pulls into Alesund, the gateway to the Geirangerfjord, one of Norway’s most celebrated scenic spots. Many of my fellow passengers have booked excursions to explore the fjord and are eager to get going. I, however, am staying put. Norway has plenty of fjords, but only one Alesund.

Ask any Norwegian which is the country’s most beautiful city, and the name Alesund will pop up almost immediately. The city’s collection of art nouveau architecture is unmatched in Norway, perhaps even in Europe. It is all the more remarkable given Alesund’s remote location, 370 kilometres from Oslo as the crow flies, and more than 500 kilometres by road.

It is not just Alesund’s architecture that intrigues me, but also what it reveals about the city’s remarkable cycle of boom and bust and boom again.

Established in 1793, when the government sought to create more trading hubs along the coast, Alesund initially became rich from catching and processing fish.

In 1872 a visiting writer, Magdalene Thoresen, described Alesund as a classic boomtown. “You get the impression that it was built in a hurry, built up by chance and the mood which comes with a fast, dangerous profession. Here, no … calm deliberation goes through anything; even the large, dizzying warehouses and individual magnificent buildings speak only of the rapid rise of profit and the boldness of large speculations,” she wrote.

That all came to an abrupt halt on January 23, 1904, when a factory fire, fanned by a winter gale, spread across the town. More than 800 timber houses burned to the ground, leaving only about 230 houses standing. Ten thousand of Alesund’s 12,000 people were left homeless. Remarkably, there was only one fatality – a woman who returned to her house to reclaim some left-behind possessions. According to legend, hers was the house closest to the fire station.

News of Alesund’s fate spread across Europe, and many of the wealthy visitors who had enjoyed summer holidays in the area stepped up to help. Chief among them was German emperor Wilhelm II, who had often sailed through the area on his yacht, Hohenzollern. He sent five ships laden with food, medicine, blankets and building materials.

Incredibly, the rebuilding effort was completed in just three years, largely because so many local tradesmen had no other work. A number of young Norwegian architects were given commissions to design the buildings, with one strict caveat – no wooden buildings were allowed in the town centre.

Inspired by the latest design trend, Jugendstil – also known as art nouveau