HYLAND
influenced by Laursen's respect for his mother's time-
honored recipes. But the gold, granite and glass, 119-
room Thief is also a bolt into the future, an audacious leap
into a new world of pyrotechnic hospitality that reflects
resurgent and ascending
Oslo—the economically-
booming Norway that is
unabashedly announcing
to the world, "We have oil,
lots of it, and we intend
to spend a stunning
portion of that bounty on
creating an international
art destination."
One studded with a
soaring Guggenheim-
esque museum, scores of
galleries, a monumental,
galactic-looking aluminum
and marble opera house,
plus planned new homes for
Edvard Munch's paintings
and the National Gallery.
Tjuvholmen, or
"Thief's Island,"— a fjord where criminals waiting to be
executed were once imprisoned, and now a reclaimed
peninsula with dozens of buzz-filled restaurants, high-
end apartment buildings, and the glass-roofed Astrup
Fearnley art museum—is at the center of that remarkable
renaissance. Still evolving, with a sculpture park, a man-
Below, at the restaurant Maaemo, a "new
Nordic" cuisine dish
Below: at Maaemo, a "new Nordic" cuisine dish Below, at the restaurant Maaemo, a "new Below: at Maaemo, a "new Nordic" cuisine dish Below, at the restaurant Maaemo, a "new
