Arnarhóll

After finishing up at the Hallgrimskirkj we headed out for the rest of our walking tour. It was down to the waterfront and onto the Harpa Concert Hall and Conference Center, a beautiful glass structure on the waterfront. Sheri and I walked around there for a while, and then had lunch at the cafe. We munched on crispy oyster mushrooms, fried feta cheese and lamb tartar. Lots of fried food here in Iceland….I think it’s a thing. In any case it was pretty tasty, not sure I would try fried Feta again though.

Opened in 2011 the center is the home to four music companies, the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, the Icelandic Opera, Reykjavik Big Band and Maximus Musicus. Construction started in 2007, but the financial crisis stopped the building from moving forward. However, in 2008, the city decided to fully fund the project and for 2 years this was the only construction project in existence in Iceland. In 2013, the building won the European Union’s Mies van der Rohe award for contemporary architecture.

We continued our walk through one of the oldest neighborhoods and noticed something unusual about all the homes. Our virtual tour guide offered an explanation. The Great Fire of Reykjavik, started on the 27th of April, 1915 at 3 AM. Guests were just leaving a wedding celebration at Hotel Reykjavík on Austurstræti when they noticed a fire in the hotel. This fire became the biggest and most destructive fire that Reykjavík has ever seen. In a matter of hours, Hotel Reykjavík burned to the ground and then spread to neighbouring buildings, consuming a total of ten houses including Landsbankinn and Edinborg and partially burning others. Nearly all these buildings were made from timber. Sadly, two people died: a worker from the hotel who was asleep in his room at the time and a gentleman trying to save his house.

After this fire, all houses and structures had to be built with fire resistant materials. This is when homes and businesses in Reykjavik started to have metal siding on all structures which exists to this day. They also retrofitted existing homes including the first house built in Reykjavik which is where we ended our day.

The house over the years, was a home, a grocery store, hair salon, the home of the first catholic bishop of Iceland, restaurant and today, a museum. You enter the museum through this small very unimposing structure and you just sort of meander around not realizing how huge the museum is, I’m still not sure how they put all of the stuff in this small place.Read more