The Residential Area

An exciting part of the open-air museum in Lillehammer is the Residential Area. Here you will find detached houses representing the various decades of the 1900s, and you can see the development of home standards and family life.   

  • No changes have been faster than during the 1900s.
  • Industrialisation steadily provided new materials for building and fitting homes.
  • The media society caused interior design to change rapidly.
  • This is the reason why Maihaugen exhibits a variety of homes from the 1900s. 

Travel back in time and remember your own childhood or show the children what growing up was like for grandparents or parents.

In the Residential Area houses from nearly all decades are represented. The oldest houses are placed at the bottom, and the House of the Future 2001 at the top. As we visit the homes we can follow the technological development, how the kitchen and bathrooms were modernised and how the different social and economical situations played a part.

We can see how the various families lived. The unmarried woman in the house from the 1920s, the family of seven in the functionalist-style house during the second world war, the prosperous merchant family during the 1950s and the families in the prefabricated houses of the last three decades. 
We also see how equality changed and started becoming part of family life.

This is where you can experience our closest history!