The National Heritage Board is protecting Strange's Foundation in Bergen, a social institution for women for more than 350 years. The building from 1751 is located in a historic urban environment in Nordnes.
Stranges Stiftelse in Klostergaten 28 is a former social institution for elderly women. The institution was established in 1609 and was in operation until 1972. The building from 1751 is now owned by the National Trust of Norway, Bergen and Hordaland branch.
- The Strange Foundation is a monument to more than 350 years of Norwegian social history. Here we find valuable traces of a social group that has left few cultural monuments, women who found a place to live here. The building is in safe hands with the owner, the National Trust of Norway, which takes care of it and focuses on protection through use," says Assistant National Heritage Officer Audun Skeidsvoll.
The purpose of the protection is to preserve Strange's Foundation as an architecturally and culturally important example of a social institution building from the 18th century. The preservation includes the main building with outbuilding wing, exterior and interior.
Sold ships for the «worthy needy»
Strange's foundation was established in Bergen in 1609 by alderman Strange Jørgensen (1539-1610). He had a wooden house built for twelve «poor widows and old maids» who were given a place to live, light and fuel and a small amount of money each year. The operation was financed by the sale of the ship «Svarte ravn» for 300 riksdaler, which Strange Jørgensen bequeathed to the foundation.
In Klostergaten 28, women without breadwinners could be offered a place to live for life. At most, 30 women lived there, two in each room. In the period from 1914 to 1972, the institution functioned as a retirement home for women.
«For the county council, the building is culturally, historically and architecturally valuable as a very well-preserved example of an early social institution. The foundation is a characteristic representative of poorhouses for the »worthy needy", an important part of social care in cities in early modern times," says Jon Askeland, County Mayor of Vestland County.
Stranges Stiftelse was one of several institutions, previously called poorhouses, in Bergen.
Hospital architecture
In medieval Europe, caring for the poor, the elderly and the sick - who were not supported by the family - was a task for the church. Monasteries and bishoprics received travelers and the sick and established hospitals. The word comes from the Latin hospes, which means guest or unknown.
After the Reformation in 1537, local authorities and private individuals became more involved. In Bergen, we have more detailed knowledge of hospital and almshouse architecture from the time after the city fire in 1702. The layout of Strange's foundation is rooted in this common European building type, and is recognizable from other social institutions in Bergen from the same period. The main room is a high-ceilinged hall from gable to gable, and on the long sides there are 15 small bedrooms on two floors, the upper ones with access from the gallery.
Similarly, St. Jørgens hospital in Bergen was designed on a larger scale with 56 bedrooms in 1754, in the main building that now houses the Lepra Museum in Bergen. The building of the Strange Foundation contains both older parts and younger elements from the period up to its closure in 1972 - all valuable traces of its continuous use as a social institution.
The entrance door is a two-leaf infill door in a simple Swiss style. The door frame is designed as a simple portal with a classic touch: wide, profiled moldings that support a rectangular top piece crowned by a reed board. «Stranges Stiftelse» (Strange's Foundation) is written in fraktur script on the smooth central field of the upper section. Photo: Hordaland County Council
17th century portraits
The conservation includes two paintings from the mid-17th century in the interior. The portraits of Karin Mauritzdatter and her husband, Mayor Ove Jenssøn, who ran the foundation for a long time, still hang in the hall. They were painted by Elias Figenschou, who also decorated Voss Church.
Today, the owner, the National Trust of Norway, uses the building as an assembly and function room, for offices and cultural events. Operations and maintenance are based on income from rental and from the association's activities.
Vestland County Council has prepared the conservation case.
