Damsgaard Country Mansion - Bymuseet I Bergen

The museum is closed in 2025 due to restoration work. We are very happy to present this beautiful classical summer house to our visitors. In the 1700s, Bergen was a large, busy and rich city. The city’s upper classes adopted trends from the continent and established elaborate, aristocratic homes in the countryside. By 1800 one would find around 70 of these summer houses in the countryside surrounding Bergen, and Damsgard was the most stunning. Damsgard Country Mansion, as it appears today, was built in the 1770s for General War Commissioner and General Customs Manager Joachim Christian Geelmuyden (1730-1795). Geelmuyden was knighted in 1783, and took the name Gyldenkrant. The house he built at Damsgard is still considered to be a masterpiece of Rococco architecture in wood in Norway, and it is perhaps Europe’s most authentic wooden building from that period.