Christian Heinrich Grosch

Norwegian architect

The Norwegian architect Christian Heinrich Grosch (1801-1865) was born in Copenhagen, Denmark on 21 January 1801. The Grosch family moved to Halden in Norway when Christian Heinrich was about ten years old.

Distinction in architecture

Grosch was also brought up as a Norwegian, won a place for himself in the first batch of students at Den kgl. Tegneskole (now the National College of Art and Design) in Christiania in 1818. On a grant from the Royal Norwegian Society for Rural Development, he went to Copenhagen to learn carpentry and returned with a distinction in architecture. Before Grosch, there were no university-trained architects in Norway.

Greatest architect of his time

Christian Heinrich Grosch became an assistant of the architect Linstow at the age of 23. At first Grosch was a strict classicist who copied antiquity and work of his teacher and master builder Christian Frederik Hansen.
The classic Grosch built the University of Oslo, which he worked on from the age of 25 until he was 55 years old. At the end of his career Grosch moved to a more organic direction. The buildings became less strict in form and were adapted to the surroundings.
Grosch played an important role as city surveyor too. Christian Heinrich Grosch was the greatest architect of his time.

Important buildings

- Custom-house in Kristiansand (1827)
- Oslo Stock Exchange (1828)
- Bank of Norway (1830)
- Christiania Theatre (1837, demolished after a fire)
- Original university buildings in Oslo (1854)
- Old National Hospital (demolished in the 1950s)
- 78 churches

More information

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