Visitors to Reykjavík by cruise ship who are docked at Sundahofn – and most medium-sized cruise ships and above will be – have the option of walking into the city if they have the time and ability. Iceland’s capital is not terribly large and the walk can provide walkers with some fresh air, views across the water to the city’s north, and get an extra special bonus too in the form of a unique public art installation that the local council aren’t terribly fond of.
Reykjavík was the final port of call for us on our 2022 Sky Princess Norway and Iceland cruise and with this being our third time visiting the capital city of Iceland (although the first on a cruise ship) we’d decided that there was no point in booking excursions – we’d done all the interesting ones already – and so had opted to take the use-your-own-feet option of exploring. The initial part of this walking route along the shoreline had brought us into Laugarnes and up close with some abstract sculptures by Sigurjón Ólafsson, and immediately adjacent to those was what looked like a junkyard at first glance. But only at first glance. It became clear almost immediately afterwards that there was order, design, and love among the chaos.
The Recycled House is home to Icelandic film director, Hrafn Gunnlaugsson, who originally needed a place to create the decorations for his movies and found a house falling down and scheduled for demolition that he decided to buy. What evolved from that was a sprawling, eclectic exhibition of discovered and salvaged and artistically-enhanced scrap wood and metal, arranged in explosions of works-in-progress with themes of mythology and witchcraft prominent throughout.
You’re free to wander around the many buildings of Reykjavík’s Recycled House at any time, and Hrafn is apparently very welcoming to guests. While we did pass by the living space within the art installation he calls home we didn’t see any sign of the man himself inside on the day of our visit, and I’m not sure that we would have felt right disturbing him, but we adored seeing the fruits of his mind and his hands outside.
The building below is described on some photo-licencing websites as having once been occupied by the famous Icelandic singer, Björk. That’s the sort of thing I wanted to verify but wasn’t able to after a brief check online. It might be true. It might just be something that helps sales of photographs of bizarre rusted metal art exhibits.
Tribal imagery adorns many of the buildings of the Recycled House and there was a feeling of an insular community of ghosts inhabiting the structures. On the day of our visit it was overcast, a little windy, and a little cool, so the weather might have helped to keep almost everyone else away. Apart from my wife and me there were just one other couple of young men wandering around and trying to find different locations to form backdrops for photos. The area was quiet, haunted, but not so eerie that it could overwhelm the sense of childish wonder exploring the place. Indeed, I was reminded of growing up and clambering around unofficial rubbish dumps near where we used to live and making forts or houses from the burnt and crumpled waste discarded there. Dangerous, imaginative fun.
The Recycled House used to extend towards the main road on the way towards Reykjavík city centre but the council flattened it, either considering it an eyesore or a health risk. It’s the sort of thing that might upset owners and artists but Hrafn’s feelings on the matter are reportedly that nothing needs to be preserved and that when he dies he doesn’t care what happens to the place. That’s not something I necessarily agree with because there is something of the artist in all his work and information should always be kept, but I can respect his position.
While it may no longer reach the main road, you can still explore right down to the water’s edge. A building there, described as a shrine of Freyr, showed signs of recent use in some of the items left behind: beer bottles, food wrappers, cigarette ends.
Another building along the shoreline had a flat roof and some stairs to it that I was compelled to climb. Up there was what could be almost described as an open plan living space exposed to the elements. I took one step onto the upper surface and felt the rusted metal plating flex beneath my feet. Let’s not be the subject of a local news item recounting the severe injury caused to a cruise ship visitor, I thought to myself, and backed away from exploring that particular spot.
The Recycled House is a fantastic place to explore, but be careful, and I probably shouldn’t have to tell you this but perhaps make sure you’ve got your tetanus shots up to date given all the sharp and rusted surfaces everywhere.
I could have spent twice as long, really exploring the details of all the various wood and metal buildings that comprise the Recycled House, but I sensed my wife was a little more uneasy in the area. Perhaps on a warmer, brighter day with a few more tourists around she’d have been more comfortable. She still agreed, though, that it was an absolutely wonderful place. There’s nothing quite like finding out of the ordinary places when you’re travelling; those incredible spots that you want to tell the whole world about but still want to remain a bit of a hardly-known secret.
We’d not heard of the Recycled House before, despite having been to Reykjavík on two previous visits to Iceland, but it’s now our most-recommended spot to visit if we talk to other people considering hitting this country and its capital. We bumped into some friends from Sky Princess later in the day who were about to get the shuttle bus back to the ship and convinced them to walk along the shore to find the Recycled House. They loved it too and described it as having a bit of a horror movie vibe to it.
In the next part of this cruise travelogue series we’ll continue our walk along the northern shore of Reykjavík, passing by plenty more examples of abstract, public artwork, and encountering a bizarre – even by Iceland’s standards – group of students performing for bemused locals and visitors.