Architecture of Norway Norway, boasting a palladian layout, a central cupola, and a classical colonnade. Collett designed several other manors and town houses. The same period saw the erection of a large number of splendid neo-classisist houses in and around all towns along the coast, notably in Halden, Oslo, Drammen, Arendal, Bergen and Trondheim, mainly wooden buildings dressed up as stone architecture. By far the largest private house in Norway is the Jarlsberg manor, renovated 1812-1814 by the Danish architect Løser for count Herman Wedel-Jarlsberg. Christiania, promoted to the status of a capital city in 1814, had practically no buildings suitable for the
Aristocracy of Norway the 1970s and 2000. During parts of the Romantic Nationalist epoch and the subsequent worshipping of Vikings, when it was popular and/or gave a particular high status to demonstrate descent from the 'real' (i.e. Medieval, non-foreign) noble families and kings of Norway, fraudulent pedigrees flourished. This was the case also during the illegitimate National Unification rule during Germany's occupation of Norway (1940–1945). The medieval aristocracy called themselves hird and later ‘free men’ likewise as commoners were called ‘unfree’. Knights were gathered in a particular class known as the Knighthood (), which stood above what was called ‘ordinary nobility’ (). The