When The Master Builder (Bygmester Solness in Norwegian) was published in Scandinavia in 1892, the public response was greater than for any other Ibsen play since A Doll House. Henrik Jaeger praises the structure of the play in Dagbladet, writing that it becomes "a dialogue" between Solness and Hilde "so powerful and brilliant that it is more gripping than the most exciting 'scene."' Christian Brinckmann, in his review in Nyt Tidsskrift, applauds the way "despair resounds like jubilation and madness sounds like wisdom" in the play.

Some reviewers, however, criticized what they considered obscure subject matter. George Göthe, in Nordisk Tidskrift, insists that the play presents "precious and pretentious abstract grandiloquencies." He notes that solving riddles can "be amusing," but "when the riddles are so complex that one suspects that even the riddler himself does not really know the answer, the game ceases to...