They are stepped on and constantly run over, but few show them a thought or an extra glance. Manhole covers are rarely appreciated in terms of their design and diversity. Maybe we should for some of the many beautiful manhole covers in Norway symbolize some past connection they want to highlight or can tell us a lot about the identity of cities in which they are located.
Some of these manhole covers have, however, sparked a fire to collect photos of them by photographers and students of visual arts.

In 1997, Trondheim celebrated the city’s 1000 years’ anniversary. The city produced a manhole cover to remind us how much history surrounds us when we stroll through the streets of the third largest city in Norway. Above, you see an old manhole cover in Trondheim. Further down you see the manhole cover made for the Trondheim annivarsery.
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You may also like to read Norwegian Commercial Street Art
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In 2009, a new and exciting world opened up for photographer Caroline Roka. She began to study the manhole covers she kept stepping over. For over five years, she photographed manholes and immortalized approximately 200 of them in a self-published book.

Muhatasim Galib Inan came to Norway for his master’s program at NTNU in Trondheim. He was so fascinated by the manhole covers in Trondheim that he started to collect photos of them. It turned out to be a collection of 50 covers across Norway. The publication with a compilation of these photos was the final outcome of his Visual communication course in the fall of 2022.

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You may also like to read The World’s Oldest Runestones Uncovered in Norway
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While the majority of manhole covers produced today are rather plain, with no words or just a simple moniker such as “sewer”, there are a few hidden treasures throughout the world that are quite remarkable. So much so, that “drainspotting” has become somewhat of a cultural phenomenon, drawing the interest of artists, photographers, historians, and the ever curious.

Many of the manhole covers in Norway are produced by the iron foundry Ulefos Jernværk located at Ulefoss in the municipality Nome,
Beautiful Manhole Covers in Norway, written by Tor Kjolberg