Bryggen

The row of jagged, wooden gables leaning toward the harbor marks Bryggen. These narrow, three-story structures stand on deep stone foundations, their weathered timber walls pressed tightly against each other. Since the fourteenth century, these buildings served as the primary office and warehouse space for the Hanseatic League merchants who controlled the North Sea stockfish trade. When a fire tore through the quarter in seventeen oh two, the merchants rebuilt the structures using the exact same medieval layout and traditional construction methods.