Public Drinking Fountains in Norwegian Cities — Where Did They Go?

Travel to Rome, Paris, or Vienna, and you'll find drinking fountains on nearly every street corner. In Oslo, Bergen, and Trondheim, they're almost entirely absent. It's a paradox: Norway has some of the world's cleanest drinking water, yet we barely make it available to people outdoors.

A Historical Perspective

In the early 1900s, several Norwegian cities had public drinking water installations. They were a natural part of the urban landscape — practical, social meeting points. With post-war modernization, many disappeared. Maintenance costs were seen as unnecessary, and bottled water took over.

The pattern differs markedly from Southern European cities, where public fountains remained integrated into urban planning. The difference isn't water quality — it's infrastructure philosophy.

Norway has some of the world's cleanest drinking water, yet we barely make it available to people outdoors.

Consequences Today

The absence of public drinking fountains has several negative effects:

• Plastic consumption: Norwegians purchase over 300 million water bottles annually — water that's already available from taps.
• Public health: Without easy outdoor access to water, many people drink too little, especially on warm summer days.
• Inequality: Not everyone can afford to buy bottled water. Public drinking fountains are a democratic offering.

What Can Be Done?

Several European cities have recently invested heavily in reintroducing public water points. The EU Drinking Water Directive from 2020 encourages member states to make clean water more accessible in public spaces.

Norway doesn't need an EU directive to act. We already have the infrastructure and water quality. What we lack is the commitment to invest in well-designed, robust drinking fountains that withstand Nordic climate and that people actually want to use.

Good design isn't just about aesthetics — it's about making the right choice the easiest choice.

This is precisely what drives us at Sildr: to create drinking fountains beautiful enough that cities want them, and robust enough to last for decades. For municipal procurement teams and urban planners, this represents an opportunity to transform public water access from an afterthought into a design statement.