Building an Oil Fairy-tale

Abstract

Building an oil fairy-tale investigates oil’s potency as a socio-cultural force and its role in shaping civic spaces in Stavanger, Norway. It posits that the Nordic city represents an exemplary case study on the complex and co-dependent interaction between petroleum and architecture. Since the discovery of oil in Norway in the late 1960s, the historically peripheral Nordic nation has experienced a remarkable economic, social, cultural, and architectural transformation. The rapid and comprehensive transition towards a petroleumscape has given rise to the term ‘oljeevntyret’ or the oil fairy-tale in the Norwegian lexicon. The oil fairy-tale has functioned as a reflection of changing socio-cultural conditions and a potent device to perpetuate an energy culture reflected in Stavanger’s architecture, cultural practices, economic developments, governmental policies, and visual expressions over the past decades. Following a general analysis of the national and local historical context, the thesis uses four architectural case studies in Stavanger, supported by archival and contemporary writings and media, to demonstrate how the city’s oil fairy-tale and civic spaces have developed in a feedback loop. Oil actors’ political and economic sway has created a new class of oil-civic spaces in Stavanger. In turn, these oil spaces’ narrative potentials contribute to an ever-expanding petroleumscape and celebration of oil as a heroic and Norwegian product. As the end of the oil age looms closer and cities around the world, including Stavanger, strive to imagine a post-oil future, we must appreciate the power and extent of oil in shaping our everyday spaces. Only then may we engage meaningfully in imagining a post-oil city future for cities that have become deeply drenched in oil.