Christmas has slowly crept into the doors of Stortingsgaten 28 and further down the stairs, where it has settled in this year's Christmas department. The jewel in the collection is the majestic and traditional glass castle.
Every Christmas, the castle is erected to the delight of new and old customers. The castle is assembled, decorated and surrounded by a selection of Christmas present favourites, in small bowls filled with candy. The castle is worth a visit in itself, and will remain open until just over Christmas.
The story of the glass castle stretches back to the mid-1970s. Our then decorator Åse Fire wanted to make a castle out of glass as part of the Christmas display. Åse Fire made the drawings, and with the help of two assistants she had the various parts of the castle blown in the glass cabin of PLUS in the old town of Fredrikstad.
In this way, the castle became the bearer of part of Norway Design's history. In 1957, Norway Designs was established by Per Tannum, where the idea was to disseminate Norwegian design products and handicrafts in Norway, and at the same time he started the organization PLUS which was to be a mediation center between designers and the industry. Large parts of Norwegian design history from the period 1958-1978 originate from PLUS, and it was here, in the very heart of glass production, that the castle was created.
The glass castle grew in size and got more and more parts as Fire got new ideas. In 2002, store manager Trond Kinn discovered that the castle was becoming too worn to withstand the annual assembly and disassembly. At the same time, we knew that Christmas would not be the same without a castle. We often hear from customers that it is an annual Christmas tradition to visit us before Christmas to see the Christmas display and the glass castle. Kinn therefore contacted the Danish glass artist Tobias Møhl, who accepted the challenge of creating a new castle.
Meanwhile, the old castle was erected, for the last time, it would later appear. When one of the many candles that surrounded the castle was lit, the cotton caught fire. The castle was on fire!
The wood was heavily damaged, but after a round of restoration, the glass survived. The fire put an end to the castle's career, it had to be retired and was donated to the Ski Museum in Holmenkollen, where it was allowed to live on in a somewhat leaner version.
Tobias Møhl and his wife Trine Drivsholm did thorough research before they started blowing up the castle and spent, among other things, several months in the library.
They drew inspiration from children's literature, where the castles were lavish and majestic, with ornaments and palaces, and had a desire to create a castle that appealed to children from different cultural backgrounds.
They succeeded, and after two years of work the castle was finally unveiled in November 2005. Today, Møhl is a world-renowned glass artist, and we are proud to have such magnificent work by him and Drivsholm in the shop. We consider the glass castle to be a masterpiece, a little piece of adventure that has played a central role in our Christmas display since the mid-70s. Welcome to our adventurous Christmas universe!
