Bergenhus Fortress in Bergen has buildings from the 1240s, when the stone walls were first built. King Håkon Håkonsson built Haakon's Hall around 1260, and the article calls it the largest secular medieval building in Norway. No records name its architect, and its similarity to English buildings suggests English architects. The hall is Gothic. A defensive tower with a royal apartment followed around 1270.
The Victual Brothers captured and burned the fortress in 1429. Governor Erik Rosenkrantz had the Rosenkrantz Tower expanded in the 1560s by Scottish stonemasons and architects. It served as a gunpowder magazine from the 1740s until the 1930s.
A fire severely damaged the hall on April 20, 1944, and it reopened in 1961. The Royal Norwegian Navy uses the fortress, and the hall and tower are open to the public.
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