Ålesund City Hall

The City Hall is the political centre and the administration building in Ålesund municipality. The building work started in January 1978, after Fuglefjellet and Rønneberghaugen were removed. The project is one of the most denigrated in the history of Ålesund, and the building has several times received an award as the ugliest building in Ålesund. That the company Vestplan AS decided to not build in the Art Nouveau style of the rest of the city, is something the people of Ålesund cannot forgive. Where the City Hall is situated today, a large, grand hill used to be; the Rønneberghaugen, as a green oasis in the middle of town, and on the north-east side of the hill, was the manorial Rønnebergvillaen. When it, in the early 1970s, was decided that the hill should be removed, a movement of the people was started, and a large group of people from Ålesund occupied the Rønnebergvillaen for several days. The battle was finally lost, the villa torn down, and the hill removed. The Rønneberghaugen was also known, to most people, as Fuglefjellet. This name was given in the middle of the 1950s, when hundreds of seagulls started nesting there. It was not unusual to see people from Ålesund walk around with an umbrella on the nicest summer days, when they had to walk past Fuglefjellet. As the ground below was painted white from seagull droppings, it is not hard to think why. After the Rønneberghaugen was removed, the seagulls continued to nest on the little knoll left behind, until 1983, when also this knoll fell by the wayside, in order to extend the city centre.