About this venue
Sentralen occupies two joined buildings in Øvre Slottsgate that were once the head office of Christiania Sparebank, Norway's first savings bank. The bank bought the site in 1853 and opened a head office by the architect Holtermann in 1854; Henrik Nissen rebuilt it monumentally in Iddefjord granite between 1899 and 1901, and a further extension in 1923–26 roofed the old back yard with a glass pyramid to make a new banking hall. The building reopened as the events house Sentralen in 2016 and is owned by Sparebankstiftelsen DNB.
Six floors of historic rooms are let for events, production and meetings — 30 rooms in all. Marmorsalen, the bank's old banking hall on the ground floor, keeps its original stone floor and Fauske marble, has a ceiling up to nine metres high, a neon light installation by Camilla Løw, blackout curtain systems on walls and ceiling, and a lively acoustic that can be damped with acoustic drapes; it is one of Oslo's larger concert rooms at 1,000 standing. Hvelvet, Studio A, Studio B and the Bankboksen meeting room sit inside the old bank vaults, whose walls were built with railway rails crossed through the masonry against burglars. Gymsalen, the production rooms and Galleriet are on the fourth floor.
The house also has a café, the Hitchhiker restaurant on the corner of Øvre Slottsgate and Tollbugata, and the Kron & Mynt roof terrace with a bar in the warmer months. Around 400 people work in co-working floors upstairs, with reduced rents for festivals, orchestras, dance companies and other cultural producers, and SoCentral occupying two floors. Sentralen also lets rooms in Nasjonalmuseet – Arkitektur at Bankplassen 3 nearby, including the Sverre Fehn pavilion and the Christian Norberg-Schulz hall, which are a separate building.
The house is open 08:00–22:00 daily, with reception staffed 08:00–16:00 on weekdays.
