What did Skien look like when Henrik Ibsen lived here? You can find out in the exhibition “Ibsen’s Childhood Town – the First Act Began Here” at Brekkeparken from February 5, 2026. The exhibition presents a series of photographs from Skien taken before the great city fire of 1886.

“Skien, in my childhood years, was an exceedingly lively and sociable town,” Henrik Ibsen wrote about his hometown.

In this busy and important port town, he was born into a patrician family that belonged to the leading social class in Skien in the 1820s. Until the age of seven, he lived in two different and elegant homes in the town center before the family moved to Venstøp, where the Henrik Ibsen Museum is located today.