The facility is located in Hole municipality in Buskerud County, and designed as an underground shelter in the west side of the mountain Kongens utsikt.
Hole municipality was chosen due to its massive mountain range, ideal for an underground shelter, and because of its relative proximity to the governmental offices and the Royal Palace in Oslo.
The end of the Cold war marked a change in the threats against Norway, as the neighboring Soviet Union no longer existed.
During the 1980s, journalists in a newspaper for a leftist pacifist organisation were threatened with legal action by the Prime Ministers Office if they published a story on the facility.
Journalists also found technical drawings and lists of security cleared personnel lying open for everyone in the Norwegian state archive.