Oslo's Art and Culture on a Budget

Founded by King Harald Hardråda in 1048, Oslo is Scandinavia’s oldest capital, but it was almost entirely rebuilt after a disastrous fire in 1624, on the orders of the Danish King Christian IV, who renamed it Christiania in his honor. Such superciliousness may have been justified, since the upshot of his plan was that the city moved west, making it more easily defensible and better located for trade and allowing Oslo to replace Bergen as Norway’s most important city under Danish rule.

Norway was awarded to Sweden in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars to punish the Danes, who had been allies of the French. Although the Swedes crushed an attempted Norwegian rebellion, they allowed a measure of autonomy. As Norway’s largest major city, and the closest to Sweden, Christiania flourished, and when disagreements over trading policy led to Norwegian independence in 1905, it became the country’s capital, endowed with its major cultural institutions. It regained its original name in 1925.

Akershus Festning, built on a hill overlooking Oslofjorden in 1299 by King Håkon V to defend the city from Swedish invasions, is today a large park open to all, offering excellent views of the city and harbor. Akershus Slott, the castle where Norway’s kings are buried and the Norges Hjemmefront Museet, devoted to the country’s resistance to Nazi occupation, are located on its grounds. The Rådhus (Town Hall), where the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded annually, and the antique harbor from which ferryboats run to the museum-studded Bygdøy peninsula are nearby.

The Nasjonalgalleriet(National Gallery), which displays Edvard Munch’s "The Scream", and the fine Historisk Museet(History Museum) are next to one another. The Stortinget(Parliament), Domkirke(Cathedral), and Det Kongelige Slott(Royal Palace), surrounded by a pleasant public park, are all within easy reach. The Munchmuseet (currently closed), devoted to the work of Norway’s most famous artist, is worth the journey outside the center, as is the former studio of the sculptor Gustav Vigeland, at the southern end of Frognerparken. Many of Vigeland’s works are displayed in the park, deservedly Oslo’s most popular sight.

The Bygdøy Peninsula is home to the incomparable Norwegian Folk Museum and the Vikingshiphuset which displays two impressively preserved Viking ships and fragments of a third. At the other end of the peninsula, there are museums devoted to maritime history (with an excellent film presentation on Norway’s coastline), polar exploration, and the voyages of Thor Heyerdahl (of Kon-Tiki fame.)

Quick Tips:

Oslo’s tourist office has an excellent website.

Saving Money
Many of Oslo’s sights are free (please see my entry "Oslo for Free"), and there are several large, pleasant, and interesting public parks in the city.

If you intend to do much sightseeing, pick up an Oslo Pass, which provides free entry into all museums, discounts for many tours, free parking, and free transport on the city’s superb bus, tram, and subway network immediately upon arrival. It’s sold at all tourist offices, most hotels, and many Narvesen kiosks.

Even humble cafeteria meals in Oslo can be surprisingly expensive. However, ethnic restaurants (many of which are located in the Grønland area northeast of the center) are a relatively good value. Locals told me that the Indian restaurants tend to offer the highest quality. Bakeries and convenience stores also offer inexpensive fast-food meals.

A Breath of Fresh Air
The Holmenkollen Ski Jump north of the city has an excellent museum covering this essential part of Norwegian culture. The observation tower also has a fine view of Oslo and Oslofjorden and a ski simulator. Further north, you can gaze across the Nordmark’s seemingly limitless forests into Sweden from the Tryvannstarnet.

Best Way To Get Around:

Getting to Oslo:
Comprehensive information regarding getting to Oslo is available at http://www.visitoslo.com/All-Transportation/. If possible, try to arrive into Oslo by train–-the journey from almost any direction is gorgeous. Oslo Sentralstasjon (Oslo S) is located in the heart of the city and contains a tourist office, as well as several inexpensive eateries. Timetables may be found on the Norwegian State Railways’ website. The bus station is approximately ten minutes east of Oslo S on foot.

Getting Around Oslo
With the exceptions of the museums on the Bygdøy Peninsula, Holmenkollen, and Tryvannstarnet, it’s possible (and very enjoyable) to walk to all of Oslo’s major sights. Should you choose to use public transportation, the bus, tram, and T-bane (subway) systems are excellent, although scheduled services tend to be less frequent than in other European capitals because of Oslo’s relatively small population.

The Bygdøy Peninsula is served by Bus 30 and a ferry from the dock by the Town Hall (Ferry 91). Holmenkollen and Tryvannstarnet are both on T-bane Line 1, which emerges from the ground to provide some stunning views. If this scenic journey leaves you antsy, however, there are many hiking and skiing trails near its terminus!

Out of the hundreds of museums I visited during a two-month journey to the Baltic and Nordic countries, I can say with certainty that the Norsk Folkemuseum was by far the finest. Despite, or perhaps because of, Norway’s wealth and high level of technological advancement, the level of respect for traditional cultural practices seems to be higher than in any other European country I have visited. The old and the new don’t seem to be separated but rather blend together in a single cultural garment, and nowhere illustrates it better than this museum’s collections.

Open-air museums that consist of old buildings transferred from various sites (known as skansen, after the original located in Stockholm) are common throughout Northern Europe, and the Folkemuseum’s collection in this area alone is, in my experience, unmatched. Pride of place belongs to the 13th-century Gol Stave Church, one of less than a dozen such churches, a uniquely Norwegian phenomenon whose roofs resembled upside-down Viking longboats, still in existence. While less spectacular, the clusters of buildings arranged geographically to represent the regions of Norway are equally interesting. A recreated village known as "Kolonialen" contains shops from late 19th-century Oslo.

The Folkemuseum’s more modern elements are what elevate it beyond a simple nostalgic skansen. Nestled among the antique pseudo-villages is a 1940s gas station, and across from it is a house whose second floor contains a 1960s flat occupied by a professional Oslo couple of somewhat bohemian tastes. The implication is that despite their comparative lack of historicity, attractiveness, or novelty, these exhibits represent just as important a part of Norway’s history as bucolic villages that could have been lifted directly from postcards. Downstairs from the flat is an exhibition on the history of alcoholism (and temperance movements) in Norway, which seems to suggest that both have weathered the country’s emergence from an agricultural and maritime society to one of the richest in the world.

Indoor exhibits near the entrance display a comprehensive array of traditional Norwegian folk art and folk dress, painstakingly labeled in Norwegian and English. Others in the same building present the country’s first parliament hall and the tragic history of the Sami people (sometimes known as the "Lapps"), the aboriginal people of Northern Scandinavia, much of whose nomadic reindeer-herding culture was destroyed by Swedish missionaries (inspired by the writings of the scientist Linnaeus, among others). Most of the museum building is given over to temporary exhibitions–-I was fortunate to see one dedicated to the history of Norway’s historical relations with Russia (and the Soviet Union), which was hugely enlightening.

While its slogan, "See Norway in a day", might be slightly exaggerated because it’s simply impossible to recreate the country’s natural beauty in such a setting, the Folkemuseum provides a very thorough survey of its cultural history. If you visit one museum in Norway, make it this one, and if you’re visiting more than one, make this your first stop, since it will immeasurably inform everything you see afterwards.

The Munchmuseet is closed until summer 2005.

Although his paintings have spread nearly as far as his reputation, the lion’s share of the work of Edvard Munch (1863-1944) are to be found in this museum, built by the city of Oslo to display the collection he donated to them upon his death. The spacious and airy building, northeast of the city center and adjacent to the city’s botanical garden, sharply contrasts in its location and architecture with many (but by no means all) of the works inside. Haunted by the deaths of his mother and sister by tuberculosis, Munch gave up his own illness-plagued engineering studies to enter the Royal Academy of Painting in 1881. While Munch’s talent was recognized early on and he became the first artist ever to have a solo exhibition in the capital at in 1889, his early adulthood was cursed by long periods of poor health, alcoholism, and several disastrous relationships.

Despite, or perhaps because of, these difficulties, Munch produced a vast and largely coherent body of work distinguished by his so-called "Synthesist" idiom, utilizing a combination of natural light and somewhat exaggerated (and highly symbolic) color choices. In order to heighten the level of psychological tension in his paintings, he placed his subjects in front and made relatively little use of perspective, thrusting directly into their psychological torment. Although his two best known works, "The Scream" and "A Madonna" were both stolen from the museum in August 2004 (which is why the museum is currently closed), versions of both paintings are on display in Oslo’s Nasjonalgalleriet. In any case, what makes the Munch Museum such a rewarding experience is not so much individual pieces as the collective nature of their presentation, accompanied by helpful descriptive panels in English and Norwegian, covering the artist’s entire career.

For all his angst and his employment of a remarkably consistent style over his long and productive career, Munch did not exclusively portray tortured souls. The museum’s auditorium contains smaller versions of the optimistic murals in Oslo University’s Aula Maxima, including "The Sun" and "History", which he based upon his observations of the area around his summer house near Oslo, in Kragerø. After completing the commission, Munch remarked that "never has work given me so much pleasure." Together with Munch’s charming watercolors of fairy-tale forests, on display elsewhere in the museums, these depictions of the rise of civilization and knowledge suggest that Munch did, in fact, find some peace later in life, as his remarks to friends and contemporaries suggest.

While there are works by Munch scattered throughout his native city, with which he had an extreme love-hate relationship, the finest selection are to be found here, and if you have an interest in either Munch or art, a visit is absolutely essential. If you have the time, the Nasjonalgalleriet, Aula Maxima, and Rådhus, all save the last of which are free to enter, are the other main locations in Oslo for his work.

Edvard Munch is Norway’s most famous artist worldwide, but it’s the park displaying the sculpture of his friend and former roommate, Gustav Vigeland, that is Oslo’s most visited attraction. The son of a carpenter, Vigeland (1869-1943) displayed great skill at woodcarving as a boy and, after coming to Oslo at age 15 to serve an apprenticeship, realized sculpture was his true calling. Although he experienced financial difficulties early in his life, by the time Norway achieved its independence in 1905, he was regarded as the country’s greatest sculptor and received many official commissions.

Such was Vigeland’s acclaim that the city provided him with a studio in 1902. When that building had to be torn down in 1921, the city council had a studio and residence built for him just south of Frognerparken, in exchange for Vigeland donating his works to be displayed in the building, which was converted to a museum after his death. Relatively few visitors make the pilgrimage here, which is a pity since it provides an excellent background on Vigeland’s life, not to mention displaying the wide array of commissions he executed during his life. It’s surprising that the product of a strict Lutheran upbringing created many blatantly erotic works, and perhaps even more so that he was held in such high regard by bureaucrats as well as critics.

I’d go so far as to say that no visit to Oslo is complete without visiting "Vigeland Park", as the central area of Frognerpark is known. I made a point of going there every evening I spent in Oslo. Its central walkway, best entered through attractive wrought-iron gates on Kirkeveien, rather than approached from the side, is lined with dozens of nude bronze figures depicting humans ranging in age and emotion from screaming babies to peaceful pensioners. Beyond these is an impressive fountain surrounded by an interesting array of bronze caryatids.

The summit of Vigeland’s achievement and indeed the park is a monolith composed of human forms, supposedly the world’s largest granite sculpture. It took him the final 14 years of his life to complete, although he was working on the park’s other statues simultaneously. Surrounded on all sides by other granite sculptures and reached by steps on all four of its sides, it offers a superb vantage point over the park and Oslo. I’d recommend visit at least once just to see it, and then with a camera, as you’re certain to want to take pictures. Looking out over the park, which is popular with people as diverse as its statuary, I recall thinking that Vigeland’s work is as worthy an appreciation of human endeavors as there is, and as stunning in its way as Norway’s famed natural beauty.

An excellent website covers Vigeland’s life, the park, and museum.

The half-hour walk from the city center takes you through some of Oslo’s poshest neighborhoods. Alternatively, take Tram 12 to its terminus opposite the entrance. Get off at Frognerveien to visit the museum.

Oslo is a wonderful city... and a very expensive city. If you can’t afford the Oslo Pass, which entitles you to free entry to all museums, free public transportation, and free parking, don’t worry. You can visit all of the following attractions free of charge, and they’re all within walking distance of Central Oslo, so you won’t have to pay for transportation, (except, perhaps, to refuel, but be warned--food in Norway is rather expensive as well)...

Frognerparken
About half an hour’s walk northwest of central Oslo is Frognerparken, which might be described as the city’s lungs, but for the fact that Oslo is so verdant and spread out that comparing the city to an amphibian that breathes through its entire skin might be rather more apt. Even such animals have gills, however, and Frognerparken serves this purpose for them (it contains numerous ponds and is bisected by a stream), as well as much of Oslo’s human population. What distinguishes it from being a merely pleasant city park, however, is the presence of dozens of bronze figures lining its central walkway, executed by Gustav Vigeland (1869-1943), Norway’s greatest sculptor. These lead to a fountain and an even more impressive granite monolith composed of interlacing human forms.

Royal Palace and Slottsparken
Norway’s citizens voted overwhelmingly for the country to become a monarchy when it achieved independence from Sweden in 1905. As Norway had not been an independent state since 1380, it lacked a royal family, and Prince Carl of Denmark (Norway’s other former ruler) was chosen as king, taking the name Håkon VII. He ruled until 1957 and is beloved by Norwegians for his role heading the country’s government in exile during the Nazi Occupation (1940-1945). His son, Olav V, known as "Folkekongen" ("The People’s King") for his common touch, ruled until 1991. His son Harald V, who shocked the country by marrying a commoner in 1968, is currently the country’s monarch.

Although the relatively modest Royal Palace itself is only open to the public for irregular tours (usually at 2pm in the summer, and there is a charge), you can watch the changing of the guard daily at 1:30pm in front of the palace, which faces down onto the city center. Slottsparken, a green area which surrounds the palace, is open to all, and surprisingly seems to be one of Oslo’s least visited public parks. The area to the rear of the palace, with benches overlooking a pair of ponds, is thus an excellent place to take a solitary respite from this most relaxed of capital cities.

Aula Maxima
Just down the hill from the Palace, on Karl Johan’s gate, sit the classical buildings of the University of Oslo, Norway’s oldest and most prestigious university. The largest, appropriately named the Aula Maxima, contains a little-visited lecture hall containing a series of murals painted by Edvard Munch between 1911 and 1916. Representing life, education, and the arts and sciences, their bright colors and optimistic themes stand in stark contrast to the morbid master’s more famous small canvases, although they’re rendered with the same broad, expressionist brushstrokes.

Nasjonalgalleriet(National Gallery)
Just behind the Aula Maxima, the Nasjonalgalleriet (National Gallery) contains many of Munch’s darkest and most famous works, including "The Scream" and "Madonna" (copies of which were stolen in August 2004 from the Munch Museum). As well as the inevitable collection of 19th-century Norwegian artists, their Danish contemporaries are well-represented. In particular, the works of the neoclassicist Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg (1783-1853) and the under-appreciated Vilhelm Hammershøi (1864-1916) merit particular attention. Unfortunately, the rather confusing floorplan, relative dearth of explanatory materials, and cursory collection of non-Scandinavian paintings (assembled with more emphasis placed on the reputation of the painters than the quality of the individual works) make the museum pale in comparison to its impressive counterpart in Bergen. As it’s stuffy in summer and chilly in winter, there’s no reason to see much more than the highlights.

Stortinget (Parliament)
Situated on Karl Johans gate, at the end of Eidvollsplass, the park which bisects central Oslo, stands the peculiarly shaped yellow-brick Stortinget (Parliament) building. Completed in 1866 to a plan by the architect Victor Langlet, it can be visited on daily English-language-guided tours at 10am and 1pm from July 1 to August 15, and at the same times on Saturdays only during the rest of the year.

Norway’s Parliament has met since 1814, when a group of revolutionaries sought independence from Denmark and promulgated the country’s constitution. Seeking to recall the medieval assemblies that ruled Norway prior to Danish rule, the framers named the body the "Storting" (literally "Great Assembly.") This accounts for its unusual "qualified unicameral" system, where all members are elected simultaneously by popular vote every four years, but a quarter of these members are then elected by their colleagues to form a Lagting (Upper House), while the remainder compose the Odelsting (Lower House). Legislation originates in the Odelsting, while the Lagting only has the power to amend legislation.

Although Norway fell almost immediately under Swedish rule, the new overlords allowed the consitution to remain, meaning that it is the world’s second-oldest constitution still in force, after its American counterpart. Unfortunately, it too reflected the prejudices of its times, as Article 2, included at the behest of the clergyman Nicolai Wergeland, banned Jews from the country. Ironically, it was through the efforts of his son Henrik Wergeland, Norway’s national poet, that this restriction was removed in 1851. It was subsequently reinstated under Nazi occupation by Vidkun Quisling, the collaborationist whose name has since become a synonym for treason.

Akershus Festning
Quisling’s Nazi masters used Akershus Festning, the medieval fortress overlooking Oslo’s harbor, as a prison and execution ground. Today, however, its grounds are given over to a large park, whose walls afford a host of attractive views over the city and Oslofjord. While there’s a charge for entering the Norges Hjemmefront Museum (Norwegian Resistance Museum) and Akershus Slott (the fortress’ castle in which Norway’s kings are buried), you can get a reasonable summary of the fortress’ history at the information center. Whatever you choose to do, the fortress contains a wealth of old buildings that reward idle strolls and lawns that positively invite sunbathing during the brief, but beautiful, Norwegian summer.