Georgernes Verft is an area located on the peninsula of

Nordnes Nordnes is a peninsula and neighbourhood in the city centre of Bergen in Vestland county, Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The ...

Bergen Bergen (, ) is a city and municipalities of Norway, municipality in Vestland county on the Western Norway, west coast of Norway. Bergen is the list of towns and cities in Norway, second-largest city in Norway after the capital Oslo. By May 20 ...

, Norway. It was named after the shipyard that used to operate in the area. Over time the surrounding area was populated by shipyard workers and is still known as Verftet. Today a large residential complex dominates the area. The yard was established in 1784 by Georg Brunchorst and Georg Vedeler thus explaining the name "Georges' shipyard". In the 1850s the yard was taken over by Ananias Dekke who modernised the site and built a new dock. The shipyard was known to have produced some of the fastest sailships in the world and also supplied ships to the

Royal Danish Navy The Royal Danish Navy (, ) is the Naval warfare, sea-based branch of the Danish Armed Forces force. The RDN is mainly responsible for maritime defence and maintaining the sovereignty of Denmark, Danish territorial waters (incl. Faroe Islands and ...

and

Royal Norwegian Navy The Royal Norwegian Navy () is the branch of the Norwegian Armed Forces responsible for navy, naval operations of Norway, including those of the Norwegian Coast Guard. , the Royal Norwegian Navy consists of approximately 3,700 personnel (9,450 i ...

. The production of wooden sailing ships continued until the late 1800s when steel ships became dominant. Upon the end of the yard its owner turned to the expanding

knitting Knitting is a method for production of textile Knitted fabric, fabrics by interlacing yarn loops with loops of the same or other yarns. It is used to create many types of garments. Knitting may be done Hand knitting, by hand or Knitting machi ...

industry and established a prosperous factory of 3000 m². This building still stands largely unchanged. At the start of the 1900s, the knitting industry needed a bigger factory and had to move to a location outside Bergen. This coincided with the rapid expansion of the

sardine Sardine and pilchard are common names for various species of small, oily forage fish in the herring suborder Clupeoidei. The term "sardine" was first used in English during the early 15th century; a somewhat dubious etymology says it com ...

industry and in 1910 United Sardine Factories Ltd. (USF) was established. The production of canned goods also expanded the industrial area to 15000 m². Most of these buildings are still intact. The canning industry was restructured and the USF factory disbanded in 1983. The property owner AS Norwegian Preserving Company opened parts of the old sardine factory to artists in the following year. A close cooperation between the landowner and the artists resulted in an innovative and cross-genre collective of art and other culture in the USF Verftet cultural center (''USF - Kulturhuset'').

References

External links

USF Verftet website

References

External links

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