– Bergen has lost an important cultural monument

At 08.00 on Wednesday morning, some of the students were allowed to go back to their apartments after the fire in Møllendal.

The exception was those who lived in the building right up against the fire. The building that caught fire is completely damaged and burnt down.

– Enormous radiant heat

– There is nothing to send smoke divers into. When the fire crews were notified, they saw a huge fire when they moved out of the main station. There was enormous radiant heat and there are quite a few windows in the student accommodation that have cracked, says duty commander Jostein Steinsland-Hauge in the fire service.

From the apartment, student Aslak Werner Dahl (24) has a good view of the fire site. He reports damage to several apartments and broken windows.

– There is a smell of burnt wood and fuel throughout the building, he reports to BT.

He woke up to the fire alarm. Dahl realized it was serious when he saw the neighboring blocks evacuated.

– I felt the heat from the fire when I went down the stairs.

Dahl says that several cars and electric scooters were parked along the building.

– They are probably melted.

Important cultural monument

The building that burned is a war memorial and an old concrete foundry and was called the Belsen building.

According to krigskart.no, the building was built in 1942-43, by or for the German occupying power.

The building was originally constructed for the casting of concrete elements in connection with the construction of the submarine bunker “Bruno” at Laksevåg.

– The city has lost an important cultural heritage, and we will never get cultural heritage back. It is sad. It was a war memorial and part of the storytelling that makes Bergen Bergen, says city antiquarian Johanne Gillow.

– The building was regulated for preservation and formally protected, but not protected. It was to be transformed, and the intention was to use the building for a nursery, says Gillow.

Want housing

Bergenslisten’s Trond Tystad writes on Facebook that he hoped that the building could house new content at the same time that art and plaques were put up that told about its history. Now that the building is gone, he believes the city can build other forms of monument to history.

– A positive monument would be housing for students. Together, 2,000-3,000 homes are missing in Bergen, writes Tystad.

He will ask questions about this at the city council meeting next week.

– Whether one wants to consider student housing in the zoning plan, now that protection is no longer possible.