St. Hallvard's Cathedral

Oslo was abandoned after a devastating fire in 1624 and the foundation of a new city, Christiania, about one kilometre further west.

Besides being the bishop's seat and religious center of eastern Norway for about 500 years, the cathedral was the coronation church, royal wedding church, chapel royal, and one of Scandinavia's most visited places of pilgrimage.

Bishops and other prominent men and women were interred in the church along with Norwegian kings.

In the early 1920s, Johan Adolf Gerhard Fischer (1890–1977) led the final stage of excavation.

The cathedral was the main attraction when Memorial Park in Old Town (Minneparken i Gamlebyen) opened in 1932.