Amerikalinjen

The Hotel

The Amerikalinjen building was completed in 1919 as the headquarters of Den Norske Amerikalinje — the Norwegian America Line, the transatlantic shipping company that operated passenger sailings between Oslo (then Kristiania) and New York from 1913 to 1971 from the adjacent Vippetangen quayside. The architects, Andreas Bjercke and Georg Eliassen (the same partnership that would later design the Sommerro/Lysverker building), produced an early Norwegian-functionalist block on Jernbanetorget directly opposite the brand-new Oslo East Station (now Oslo Sentralstasjon, from 1980). The building was the booking hall, ticketing office, and corporate headquarters for what became Norway's largest single emigration channel — an estimated 250,000 Norwegians sailed for the United States from Vippetangen between 1913 and 1969.

The Norwegian America Line ceased passenger operations in 1971 and the building moved through several office tenancies before the Oslo property developer Aspelin Ramm acquired it in 2014. The conversion to a hotel began in 2017 to a design by GrecoDeco (the same interior practice later commissioned for the Sommerro), with the brief to recover the period detail and re-program the building around a transatlantic-narrative theme without descending into pastiche. The hotel opened on 1 February 2019.

The 122 rooms (including 11 suites) are arranged across the building's six floors around a central glass-roofed Atrium that was created by reclaiming the original 1919 ticket hall as a four-storey lobby and breakfast room. Standard categories run 18–24 square metres (small by contemporary five-star measures, but consistent with the historic envelope and the boutique positioning); Junior Suites and Deluxe Suites are larger; the named suites — the Captain's Suite, the Crew Suite, the New York Suite — have terraces overlooking either Jernbanetorget or the Atrium. Every room is designed with the transatlantic motif: framed period travel posters, leather steamer-trunk-style luggage racks, brass porthole-style fittings, and the original Norwegian America Line typography on stationery and key cards.

The food-and-beverage programme is the second proposition. Atlas Brasserie occupies the former ticketing hall as the all-day dining room, with a Norwegian-French menu under chef Andrea Tarini. Pier 42 is the cocktail bar (the name a reference to the New York Hudson River pier where the Norwegian America Line ships docked) and is one of the most decorated cocktail rooms in Scandinavia — the bar programme has won World's 50 Best Bars Discovery placements four years running. Gustav is the cellar live-jazz-and-cocktail room (open Wednesday-to-Saturday). Haven is the rooftop café-and-bar with views over Jernbanetorget. Position is the third proposition — Oslo Sentralstasjon is forty seconds' walk across Jernbanetorget; the Operahuset is six minutes' walk along Dronning Eufemias gate; the new Munch (Lambda) building is eight minutes' walk; Maaemo (Norway's only three-Michelin-star kitchen) is ten minutes' walk; Karl Johans gate is three minutes.

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