In Oslo's Vulkan neighbourhood, sustainability, style and everyday ease come together in a way that's making the Norwegian capital feel like Europe's most liveable city break.
Oslo might surprise you if you're looking for a city break that combines comfort, culture, and quiet innovation. The capital of Norway, Oslo, offers something unexpected, and it's only a two-hour flight from Heathrow. It's a laid-back, walkable escape with all-electric transportation and environmentally friendly neighborhoods. In short, the perfect city for me to explore on my daylong layover.
I began my 24-hour immersion in Oslo in the tiny Vulkan neighborhood, an abandoned industrial site that has evolved into one of Europe's most innovative microcommunities. Set on the banks of the Akerselva river, Vulkan is packed with art, culture and delicious food – something of a microcosm of Oslo itself. The main square was abuzz with friends catching up over coffee, people taking a stroll in the middle of the afternoon, and food vendors rushing through the streets in preparation for the dinner rush. Vulkan felt like a city within a city because it was surrounded by a food hall, a concert venue, a climbing gym, and a dance theater. Vulkan wasn't always this welcoming. Just 20 years ago, this riverside plot in central Oslo was a derelict tangle of concrete and broken windows. Today, it's a compact urban village powered by geothermal energy, cooled with rooftop solar panels and home to community-driven cultural spaces. Vulkan is a model for how cities can rethink old spaces to create new futures. It was designed with a focus on density, design, and sustainability. And, as I'd learn over 24 hours, it's also a gateway to understanding the quiet innovation at the heart of Norway's capital – a place where liveability is taken seriously.
While the hip, vibrant life is a recent development, the neighbourhood dates to the Middle Ages, when it was a longstanding trading hub. The area became a manufacturing hub in the middle of the 19th century, when several of the city's foundries were located there. Then, in 2004, city officials asked themselves: "Why not build a city within a city, one that can re-envision what a cities of the future can and should look like?" after a significant portion of the neighborhood's industry had vanished and the once-thriving Vulkan Factory, named after Vulcan, the Greek god of fire and handiwork, had closed and transformed into a simpler warehouse space? The project started in 2004 when a pair of property developers – Aspelin Ramm and Anthon B Nilsen – purchased the land that would become Vulkan; land that was, at the time, severely blighted.
According to Sverre Landmark, a former Aspelin Ramm commercial director, "kids were not permitted to play here." "Glass windows had been broken, there was a lot of graffiti, and drug addicts were hanging out there. It was very unpleasant." Vulkan began to take shape in a few years. Dansens Hus, the nation's national contemporary dance theater, opened on the rapidly expanding square in 2008. Mathallen, Norway's first food hall built in a former cast iron factory, became a neighborhood landmark in 2012. Mathallen now has more than a dozen restaurants, bars, bakeries, cafes, and shops. For dinner, I had a plate of homemade cacio e pepe pasta, a dozen oysters from a fishmonger, two small pork bao, and a few locally brewed beers. Just steps away, Vulkan Arena, a 950-capacity music venue that has hosted artists such as Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth, indie rock stalwarts Mercury Rev and long-running metal band Downset, adds even more cultural clout.
Even the rooftops contribute. In an effort to repopulate the once-thriving bee population along the Akerselva, the Vulkan Apiary, a pair of 3m-tall beehives, was established in 2014. Even though the honey can be purchased almost anywhere in Oslo, Mathallen is the closest place to enjoy it fresh. The fact that all of Vulkan exists across just 9,400sq m, or roughly one city block, makes the neighbourhood a model for easy, sustainable living. The whole of Vulkan, like the square, has the impression that you could simply reach out and touch each of its corners to enjoy all of its components in just a few short hours. Similar to this: • Sweden's wooden city that was green before Greta
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"Vulkan arrived as something entirely new, in a hidden spot in Oslo, and helped to make the city larger while shortening the distance," Landmark said. "Vulkan provided content and substance as well as opportunities for some of the many entrepreneurs who have created a truly unique Oslo feeling over the past ten to twenty years," Locals agree: "Vulkan is part of the new Oslo vibe," said Fredrik Remøy, a finance professional who lives in Oslo with his family. "It's very international and laid-back. The city has received a little warmth and a buzz from it.
And while it may be a microcosm, Vulkan's development has hardly happened in a vacuum, as both Oslo and Norway at large have long been at the forefront of sustainability efforts, designing and developing with our planet's future at the fore.
Walking around Oslo's compact city centre, one of the most pleasantly jarring things you notice is the lack of vehicle traffic. Streetcars rumble by, as do plenty of cyclists, pedalling their way over the streets. The only passenger vehicles – whether buses, taxis or private cars – are electric, since petrol-powered engines have been banned in Oslo's centre since 2017. The absence of traffic makes the city feel calm and spacious; even in the middle of the bustling metropolis, Oslo's atmosphere feels more open than a typical city.In this way, it's easy to see Vulkan as the mark of a bigger philosophy and bigger goal. Why can't a city as a whole be built to be completely sustainable if a neighborhood can? If an entire city, why not a whole country? If a whole country, what about our society? Zooming out from Vulkan, it seems that Norway is asking the same kinds of questions.
After all, this nation has set a lofty goal of reaching net-zero emissions by 2050 and carbon neutrality by 2030. As my day in Oslo neared its end, I figured I had to enjoy one of the city's iconic activities. After all, in a city whose viral 2024 ad campaign encourages tourists to "life-see" rather than "sightsee", I had to do as the locals do. And so, after a 10-minute cab ride (in an exhaust-free electric taxi, of course), I found myself in the Bjørvika neighbourhood, which, like Vulkan, is one of Oslo's new developments focused on multifunctionality, density and creative use of existing space.
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