Stockmann House – Henrik Ibsen’s Birthplace.

At the top of Trade Square lies what is today Telemarksgata 12. Before the city fire in 1886, the Stockmann House was located on this site, and it was here that Henrik Ibsen was born on March 20, 1828. The large townhouse included, among other things, a needlework school for upper-class girls. The nearest neighbor to the west was the Plesner family's townhouse, where Henrik's grandmother had grown up and where his father, Knud Ibsen, apprenticed in trade with his uncle. Knud Ibsen moved into Stockmann House in 1825 and established his business on the ground floor. That same year, he married Marichen Altenburg. Henrik Ibsen came into the world in the corner room on the second floor of the townhouse. His two-year-old older brother was very ill at the time and died only three weeks after Henrik's birth. The family moved to Altenburg House before Ibsen was three years old, but in his short autobiography, Ibsen recalls several memories from the years in this house. Among other things, Ibsen writes this about the place where he was born: I was ... born in a house by the square, Stockmann’s house, as it was then called. This house was directly opposite the front of the church with the high steps and the impressive tower. To the right of the church stood the town’s pillory, and to the left lay the town hall with the prison and the “madhouse.” The fourth side of the square was occupied by the Latin school and the citizen school. The church stood freely in the middle.