World War II

World War II enters the narrative through two sharply different traces: a room associated with wartime power in Stortinget, and a remembered account of soldiers killed by avalanches in the Alps. Together, these references place present-day spaces and dangers against a history whose consequences remain legible in buildings and in inherited memory.

A Wartime Office in Stortinget

During a visit through Stortinget, a room is identified as having served as Terboven’s office during the war. The accompanying observation that nobody has such large offices there anymore makes the space a compact measure of historical change: a former seat of authority is encountered within a contemporary institution, where its scale and association with wartime rule distinguish it from the present.

Avalanche Deaths Remembered

In the mountains, Kaja Solness recognizes the danger of avalanches and recalls what her father had told her about one of his Alpine tours. During World War II, more than 60,000 soldiers were victims of avalanches there; most of those avalanches, she remembers, had been triggered by the sound waves of artillery fire. The recollection links a familiar natural hazard to the conditions of war, where military violence could set the landscape itself in motion.