About the neighborhood
Former cod-factory district turned creative quarter
Grandi is Reykjavik's old harbour district, built on reclaimed land in the 1930s as the capital expanded its fishing industry. For most of the 20th century it was a working zone of cod factories, freezing plants and dry docks. In the 2010s, as Iceland's fishing industry consolidated and many of those buildings emptied out, a new generation of designers, brewers, restaurateurs and artists started taking over the old warehouses. Today Grandi is one of the most interesting addresses in the country: home to the Marshall House contemporary art centre (housed in a converted herring factory), the celebrated Bryggjan Brugghús craft brewery, several of Reykjavik's best new restaurants, and the Saga Museum. The peninsula sits a 15-minute walk from downtown along a windswept harbour path that gives some of the best Mount Esja views in the city. It is the clearest example of Reykjavik's quiet 21st-century reinvention.
Encyclopedic content adapted from the Wikipedia article on Grandi, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
