On a rise among young Norwegian spruce stood a timber building in the style of a medieval Norwegian chieftain's hall. It had boulder foundations, long steep roofs, a tower with a belfry, few windows and simple carved and sawed ornament. Todd thought the atmosphere of the North was reproduced more faithfully here than anywhere else at the fair. The architect came over from Christiania to supervise construction. Todd names him as Joergen Berner in one chapter and August Berner in another.
Inside were a large meeting hall and an exhibit hall with 9,750 square feet of the building's 14,351 for exhibits. An open court with a fountain was ringed by a gallery where girls in peasant dress served lunch. There were summer and winter panoramas, a model of the Oseberg Viking ship, a St. Olaf window, and models of the merchant fleet and a whaling factory ship. On Norway Day, June 3, "Vikings" landed from a Viking ship and were received on the Marina.
