Financial Times: Why we all love a remote no-frills Norwegian cabin
< Back to InsightsWhile the days here continue to be hot and sunny and the nation collectively looks forward to its summer holidays… Siri Zanelli spoke to the Financial Times about the traditions of Norwegian cabins, and her summers in her family’s cabin.
In Norway, it’s traditional to head to the fjords to stay in Hytte or cabins for the long summer days of August. A new exhibition at the Norwegian National Museum, Wenche Selmer. What Can You Live Without?, celebrates the legacy of a mid-century pioneer of these retreats.
Siri – who is a Norwegian in London, and will be spending August in her own family cabin – talked to The Financial Times’ Christian House about cabin culture – her own family summers, and what it means to her.
“It was just a small timber shack beside the Oslo Fjord. It had electricity, but no plumbing; we collected water from a well.” Summers were “built around the repetition of the same small rituals: fishing for crabs, carrying my grandmother’s coin purse to the little summer kiosk to buy ice lollies, learning to swim from familiar rocks.”
When the original building started to crumble, Siri designed a new cabin using local natural material and keeping the same footprint. It is a simple retreat with few luxuries, committed to hosting the family for the simple life. “It is just under 70 sq metres, about 700 sq ft, but it sleeps 12 people.”
Siri agrees with Wenche Selmer’s ethos – A life unplugged is the real luxury of the Norwegian cabin summer.
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