From Army Brats To Luxury Flats

The military past of Reykjavík’s west side

Eighty years is a lifetime. And a lot of things can change in a lifetime. The older picture, taken from the then newly built grammar school Melaskóli shows you how much of what is now Vesturbær, where some of the most expensive apartments in Iceland are now located, has changed. Just 80 years ago, it was filled with cheap housing — specifically army huts.

On May 10, 1940, the British occupied Iceland and soon afterwards started constructing an airfield, which to this day stands in the middle of Reykjavík, visible in the middle distance of both pictures above. In July the following year the United States took over the occupation duties from the British, even though they were officially neutral in the war. During the height of the Battle of the Atlantic, as many as 30.000 troops were stationed in Iceland.

These 30.000 troops had to sleep somewhere, so the allies built Nissen or Quonset huts for them all over Iceland, but most prominently in Reykjavík where 6.000 of these structures were built. After the end of the war, many of the huts were sold to farmers around Iceland who used them as warehouses or barns, and they can still be found here and there, often in good condition and often still in use.

But a majority of the huts stayed put in Reykjavík, where they were used to meet the housing crisis that emerged after the end of the war when more and more Icelanders moved to the city. Strange as it might sound now, Reykjavík was at that point one of the most densely populated capitals in Europe and it was not uncommon for families to live in single rooms.

The biggest of these barrack complexes was Kamp Knox, which is what we’re looking at. The city of Reykjavík bought the 165 huts in that area in 1947. By 1955 about 2.300 people lived in 543 huts. By the end of the 1960s however, most of these had been replaced by new modern housing and the old huts were torn down.

In the older picture, we can see the back of the main building of the University of Iceland which opened in 1940 and still holds the same function today. Almost everything else is new. The apartment building on the left was built in the 1950s and the large building in the middle of the picture is a hotel built by the Icelandic Farmers Association in the early 60s. To the right of that building is Háskólabíó, a theatre built in the late 50s.

It is worth pointing out that almost everything further away from the center of Reykjavík than 700 meters or so, wasn’t built until after World War 2. Perhaps because of the cultural influence of America following the U.S. Army’s occupation, these modern suburbs were built with anything but density in mind, making modern Reykjavík one of the least densely populated capitals in Europe.