High mountains, narrow fjords, deep valleys. Norway’s views are its national pride – and also an international trademark. But it is easy to forget that these views are inaccessible without the roads that can take us there. Ever since the 18th century, the image of the Norwegian landscape has been inextricably tied to the gradual expansion of the Norwegian road network. The National Tourist Routes are the latest contribution to this development. New stopping places and vantage points are being constructed throughout Norway, to strengthen travellers’ experience of nature and the cultural landscape. The project has also become an important arena for contemporary Norwegian architecture. The National Tourist Routes constitute the latest chapter in a long historical tradition of staging the Norwegian landscape. For the past 300 years, painters, drawers and photographers have documented magnificent sceneryand dramatic stretches of road.Views. Norway Seen from the Road 1733-2020 gathers some of the most important of these pictorial accounts, in a book that enables us to see the road, the landscape, and Norway as a country in a new light.
The book is edited by Nina Frang Høyum and Janike Kampevold Larsen.