Old Town Bridge and Bakklandet — Rebuilding After Fire
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Transcript
The Old Town Bridge crosses the Nidelva into Bakklandet, a district of wooden houses whose charm can hide a harder history. Trondheim suffered repeated urban fires, and the devastating fire of 1681 led to a major replanning under Johan Caspar de Cicignon. Wider streets and new defenses tried to make the city easier to control and harder to burn. Bakklandet developed outside the central grid as a working district tied to river traffic, crafts and later industry. The bridge itself dates from a later phase, but the crossing explains the city’s geography. Trondheim was repeatedly forced to rebuild, and wooden urbanism survived not because fire was rare, but despite the fact that fire was one of its defining risks.