Theatre Café

The Theatre Café at the Continental Hotel was opened in 1900, one year after the opening of the National Theatre on the other side of the street. With its Art Nouveau interior, it is one of the most famous cafés of this type in the world, and it soon became an important meeting place for artists of all kinds. When Herman Wildenvey was visiting Oslo, he would always drop into the Theatre Café to meet other artists. On such occasions, he would invite the poor Arne Nordheim, who could not afford such luxuries in his student years, to keep him company. Here, the young musician met many important figures of the artistic world: the writer and critic Alf Larsen, the actor August Oddvar, writers Ernst Sørensen, André Bjerke and Aksel Sandemose, the poet Olaf Bull and many others. In later years, he himself became a frequent patron of the café, and in 1981 he was honoured with a portrait on the “artists wall”. He was already a famous composer and a renowned pioneer of electroacoustic music in Norway. For this reason, Gösta Hammarlund portrayed him with electrified hair and an electric plug in his hand. In his thanksgiving speech, Nordheim reflected fondly on Wildenvey, who found him and dragged him away from the cheapest food bars of Oslo and into the “lion’s den” – the Theatre Café.

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