Copper built Røros
The last couple of days I‘ve been in Røros. This little town is 5 hours north of Oslo. It was built in the early 1600, designed around copper mines that were found in the area. The town is a World Heritage site and has preserved both the smelting works as well as original dwellings from the earliest parts of its history through the 20th century. There are a lot of lessons here with regard to the development of the architecture.
There are two main streets, Kjerkgata and Bergmannsgata. These run parallel to each other and the river, northeast-southwest. The first two shots are looking up and down Kjerkgata respectively. The third is looking up Bergmannsgata and the forth is a random street.
Here are some shots of the river, north of the city.
The smelting works. There were several copper mines all over the region. The raw ore dug out of the ground was brought here and turned into copper. The river was used for various aspects of the process. The large building on the left is now a museum.
The smelting process is basically a separation of the copper from the imperfect stone. This process uses heat and the byproduct is slag. The slag is tossed into a heap. Now you can walk around on this heap and take pictures. The chemicals have colored the ground into reds and browns and grays. Quite beautiful if not a little depressing.
The cathedral in Røros holds the most people of any in Norway. 1600 people. It’s made of both stone and wood. It was paid for by the copper mines.
A stone barn. I like this building a lot.
A small piece of anachronisms.
At night I just hung out in the Hotel. I was only there for two days. I would have been there a third day, but the ticket I thought was for 4:37pm was actually for 4:37am. It’s a problem with the twenty-four hour clock. Sometime when I’m checking boxes off in a computerized form I forget that if you want to have something happen at 4pm you should actually be typing in 16:00. So yesterday morning I had to get up at 3:30 and catch a train. This turned out to be fine, but I was really tiered all day yesterday. Here is a photo looking up Kjerkgata at 4am.
So here is a thing. The hotel room had a television. I don’t have a television; I haven’t now for a couple of year. I like not having a television. I watch movies on my computer, or read. Since I’ve been here in Norway I’ve found a couple of fair use sites which stream documentaries and old movies that are no longer under copy write protection. This suits my needs. But I love television. I enjoy going to my friend’s homes and watching the cable that they have. I don’t need to do it a lot, but every once in a while it’s nice to just watch television. If I had one of my own I would watch it all the time. That’s why I don’t have one. It wasn’t helping me in Graduate school. So anyway, the point is when there is a television around, I watch it. And there was one at the hotel. And it was on the entire time I was in the room. Even while sleeping. But there were only 2 channels, NRK1 and NRK 2. National Norwegian Stations. And they showed a bunch of Norwegian shows, in Norwegian. And a couple of English sitcom and dramas and stuff. It would be useful to have a television to help learn the language, especially since everything has subtitles. But I’m going to get one. But I’ll watch it if it’s available. So I was watching the television, bouncing back and forth between channels when a drama for deaf people came on. It was awesome. But while I was watching it I realized that I didn’t know what they were saying in two languages at the same time. I understood neither the finger language nor the Norwegian. I was astounded at my ignorance. Then I turned the channel and Friends was on and so I watched that.
Here are some movies of the train ride home. I was trying to get different parts of the landscape so you could see the way the land changes in such a short amount of time. From thick forest to river valley to rolling fields to mountains. It’s quite beautiful, the land, not the movies. The movies are all jigglly and rocky and of considerable low production value. Enjoy.
There are two main streets, Kjerkgata and Bergmannsgata. These run parallel to each other and the river, northeast-southwest. The first two shots are looking up and down Kjerkgata respectively. The third is looking up Bergmannsgata and the forth is a random street.
Here are some shots of the river, north of the city.
The smelting works. There were several copper mines all over the region. The raw ore dug out of the ground was brought here and turned into copper. The river was used for various aspects of the process. The large building on the left is now a museum.
The smelting process is basically a separation of the copper from the imperfect stone. This process uses heat and the byproduct is slag. The slag is tossed into a heap. Now you can walk around on this heap and take pictures. The chemicals have colored the ground into reds and browns and grays. Quite beautiful if not a little depressing.
The cathedral in Røros holds the most people of any in Norway. 1600 people. It’s made of both stone and wood. It was paid for by the copper mines.
A stone barn. I like this building a lot.
A small piece of anachronisms.
At night I just hung out in the Hotel. I was only there for two days. I would have been there a third day, but the ticket I thought was for 4:37pm was actually for 4:37am. It’s a problem with the twenty-four hour clock. Sometime when I’m checking boxes off in a computerized form I forget that if you want to have something happen at 4pm you should actually be typing in 16:00. So yesterday morning I had to get up at 3:30 and catch a train. This turned out to be fine, but I was really tiered all day yesterday. Here is a photo looking up Kjerkgata at 4am.
So here is a thing. The hotel room had a television. I don’t have a television; I haven’t now for a couple of year. I like not having a television. I watch movies on my computer, or read. Since I’ve been here in Norway I’ve found a couple of fair use sites which stream documentaries and old movies that are no longer under copy write protection. This suits my needs. But I love television. I enjoy going to my friend’s homes and watching the cable that they have. I don’t need to do it a lot, but every once in a while it’s nice to just watch television. If I had one of my own I would watch it all the time. That’s why I don’t have one. It wasn’t helping me in Graduate school. So anyway, the point is when there is a television around, I watch it. And there was one at the hotel. And it was on the entire time I was in the room. Even while sleeping. But there were only 2 channels, NRK1 and NRK 2. National Norwegian Stations. And they showed a bunch of Norwegian shows, in Norwegian. And a couple of English sitcom and dramas and stuff. It would be useful to have a television to help learn the language, especially since everything has subtitles. But I’m going to get one. But I’ll watch it if it’s available. So I was watching the television, bouncing back and forth between channels when a drama for deaf people came on. It was awesome. But while I was watching it I realized that I didn’t know what they were saying in two languages at the same time. I understood neither the finger language nor the Norwegian. I was astounded at my ignorance. Then I turned the channel and Friends was on and so I watched that.
Here are some movies of the train ride home. I was trying to get different parts of the landscape so you could see the way the land changes in such a short amount of time. From thick forest to river valley to rolling fields to mountains. It’s quite beautiful, the land, not the movies. The movies are all jigglly and rocky and of considerable low production value. Enjoy.
posted by jeffrey ottem at 1:23 PM
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