Forty-metre concrete headframe of 1970 standing over Falun's former main copper mine shaft, now part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Oscarslaven is the 40-metre reinforced concrete headframe erected in 1970 over Oscars schakt at Falu Gruva in Falun, Dalarna. The shaft was sunk from 1904 as the mine's new principal winding shaft, reaching a depth of 455 metres, and was named in honour of King Oscar II. The original timber headframe over the shaft was demolished in 1966, and the present concrete structure replaced it four years later.
Oscarslaven stands at the southern edge of the great open pit Stora Stöten, forming a prominent feature of the surface heritage landscape. Adjacent to the headframe is Gruvstugan, a pithead welfare building erected in 1919 and extended in 1970. Falun Mine ceased ore extraction in December 1992, after which the site underwent transformation into a heritage destination.
In 2001 the entire complex of Falun Mine, the city of Falun, and the surrounding bergsman landscape was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List. Oscarslaven was declared a listed building under Swedish heritage law by Länsstyrelsen Dalarna in 1991.
Oscars schakt was driven from 1904 as the new principal production shaft of Falun Mine, replacing earlier shafts that could no longer meet the demands of a modernising operation. The shaft reached a depth of 455 metres and was named in honour of King Oscar II. During the early twentieth century it functioned as the mine's main hoisting shaft, serving the copper and pyrite extraction that had become the principal activity of the mine from around 1904.
An original timber headframe stood over the shaft throughout its operational decades. This timber structure was demolished in 1966, leaving the shaft without a permanent headframe for several years. In 1970 the present 40-metre reinforced concrete headframe was constructed over the shaft.
The same year, Gruvstugan, the pithead welfare building first erected in 1919 as a rest and changing facility for mine workers, was extended. The concrete headframe is a functional modernist structure of a type characteristic of mid-to-late twentieth-century Swedish mining practice, and its height makes it one of the most prominent landmarks of the mine plateau visible from the surrounding area. Ore extraction at Falun Mine ended in December 1992, closing a period of continuous mining that had begun in the medieval period.
In February 1991 Länsstyrelsen Dalarna declared Oscarslaven a listed building under the Swedish Cultural Environment Act, recognising its architectural and industrial historical significance. On 31 December 2001 the wider Falun Mine complex, including Oscarslaven, received UNESCO World Heritage status as part of the inscription covering Falun Mine, the city of Falun, and the bergsman landscape of the surrounding area. The shaft site today forms part of the Gruvpromenaden, a 1.6-kilometre heritage trail around the edge of Stora Stöten, linking Oscarslaven and Gruvstugan with the other surviving surface structures of Falun Mine.