Report - The Overlook Sanatorium, Norway, Jan 2014

[ZerO81]

The Overlook Sanatorium

Hstory

On a hillside somewhere in Norway, overlooking a beautiful fjord, lays this abandoned building. A majestic sanatorium built to heal and cure people with tuberculosis.

The air and climate in the area was supposedly good for the patients. Together with good access to water power this sanatorium opened in 1902 with 96 beds. After several renovations the maximum number of patients that could be treated was 150 in 1950.

Tuberculosis is an often deadly infectious disease that usually attacks the lungs. It spreads through the air so the idea of placing the hospital far away from civilization was probably a good idea. It even has its own cable cars going up and down the hill. They are still visible today. The 7 km long road is still quite a challenge to drive on with its 13 sharp bends clinging to the hillside.

One of the treatment methods for tuberculosis was the constant exposure of fresh air. Even during the wintertime the patients laid in their beds outside underneath a shelter. Another method was collapsing of the sick infected lung so the wounds could heal.

After World War 2 effective medicines against tuberculosis were invented, people were vaccinated and the sanatorium shut down. Between 1950 and 1990 it was used as a psychiatric hospital and then the place was used as a reception center for refugees from the Balkan war. In 1994 it was abandoned completely.

The Visit

I was staying in Norway over the New Year period and a couple of days before New Years eve, we got talking about this place and watched a rather interesting documentary about the location we tracked down the contact details of the guy who is currently living and working on the site to see if we could take a trip up there, we were in luck, he was happy for us to head on up there and stay overnight on New Years Day.

So, very early on New Years day we packed up the car and started out on our seven hour drive to our destination.

Our transport for the trip - what a real work horse it turned out to be!

So far that winter, there had been very little snow, but the further away from Oslo we headed, the worse the weather became, the photo above makes the car look pretty clean, but it was actually in the middle of a vicious snow storm, with visibility so low you could not even see the mountains which surrounded us.

One of the last challenges in our path was getting across one of the many Fjords, the only way across this one was by Ferry, so we hoped that it was operating on New Years day, lucky for us it was!

We finally arrived in the village where the Sanatorium is based and the road up there really is as bad as people say, we got half way up and had to stop to attach the snow chains, which were the only things that allowed us to actually get past the final stretch of our long journey up there.

Once at the top of the road, we were greeted by the magnificent building and you can really see why it's called The Overlook.

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After a short wait out in the bitter cold we were met by Kristian who gave us a tour of the building and showed us to our room for the night, which was a room up in the attic of the building, which had no lights and was heated by a portable heater, which took the temperature up to about 1 degree at the warmest.

That night we sat in the room and chatted for hours with Kristian about the history of the building, the current state of play and his plans for the future (he is hoping to turn the venue into a sort of Arts centre come retreat come alternative cinema location.

[2] The corridor outside our bedroom

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[5] Original wood panelling in the attic

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[22] Suicide Stair Case looking up

[23] - The old cinema room now being use as some sort of accommodation

Visited with fyrstyk And Mrs fyrstyk (well as good as).

Full set HERE

**NOTE - I know that some people really don't like permission visits and think that they are not really exploring, but I personally am of the view that I would rather see somewhere than say "I am not doing it because its a permission jobbie", plus there really is no other way to see this place now as Kristian and others who are restoring the place live there 24x7**
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