Henrik Ibsen, one of the most influential playwrights in history and the father of modern drama, was born in Skien in 1828. The city maintains a museum complex dedicated to his life, with exhibits at the Skien City Museum and a reconstruction of his childhood home at Venstøp, a farm outside the city where the family lived in reduced circumstances after his father went bankrupt. The exhibits cover his life from Skien to his years of exile in Rome and Munich where he wrote most of his great works.
Skien is just upstream from Porsgrunn — about ten kilometres — making it a natural half-day excursion. The two cities effectively form one urban area. For anyone travelling through southern Norway with an interest in literature, combining Porsgrunn's porcelain heritage with Ibsen's Skien makes for a satisfying double act.