Gladsheim
Golden hall of the gods, the first building erected by the Aesir.
Gladsheim is the golden hall of the gods in Norse cosmology, described in the Prose Edda as the first building erected by the Aesir. It contained twelve seats plus a high-seat for Allfather, and was "the best and largest house ever built on earth," both within and without "like solid gold" (Prose Edda, The First Works Of The Asas. The Golden Age).
The Prose Edda's account of Gladsheim places it at the very beginning of divine civilization: it is the gods' "first work," preceding all other construction in Asgard (Prose Edda, The First Works Of The Asas. The Golden Age). The twelve seats plus Allfather's high-seat establish a governing structure -- a divine council with a presiding authority -- that mirrors the arrangement of earthly assemblies. The description of the hall as entirely golden, inside and out, belongs to the mythological language of the Golden Age, a period before corruption, which the Prose Edda explicitly links to this phase of divine activity.
Appears in: Places, Entities in Prose Edda, Norse Tradition