Vigeland installation

About

In the middle of the 18th century Hans Jacob Scheel, then owner of the Frogner Manor, laid out a Baroque garden adjacent to his new manor house. It was expanded by the people who followed him, starting with Bernt Anker (1746–1805) who bought Frogner in 1790 and expanded the main building. Benjamin Wegner bought the manor in 1836 and he transformed the garden into a romantic park around 1840. Later, most of the arable land was sold to private developers.

Around one square kilometer remained when the City of Oslo bought the property in 1896 to secure space for further urban development. The municipal government decided around 1900 to make a park for recreation and sports. Frogner Stadium was opened near the road and the area near the buildings was opened to the public in 1904. Norwegian architect Henrik Bull designed the grounds and some of the buildings erected in Frogner Park for the 1914 Jubilee Exhibition.

The municipal government subsequently decided that Gustav Vigeland's fountain and all his monuments and statues should be placed in the park. The area was ready for Gustav Vigeland fountain in 1924 and the final plan was released in 1932 by the city-council. Most of the statues depict people engaging in various typically human pursuits, such as running, wrestling, dancing, hugging, holding hands and so on. However, Vigeland occasionally included some statues that are more abstract, including one statue, which shows an adult male, fighting off a horde of babies.

Would-be General and Chamberlain Hans Jacob Scheel (owner of Frogner from 1747) laid out a baroque garden around 1750

Industrialist Benjamin Wegner (owner of Frogner from 1836) transformed the garden into a romantic park around 1840

Landscape architect and city gardener Marius Røhne was a central person in the development of the park from the early 1900s

Sculptor Gustav Vigeland created the sculpture arrangement in the centre of the present enlarged park from the 1920s until his death in 1943

The Henriette Wegner Pavilion was built in 1824 at Blaafarveværket as a wedding gift to Henriette Wegner from Benjamin Wegner, the director and co-owner of Blaafarveværket. It was moved to Frogner Park in 1837 after the Wegner family acquired Frogner Manor. It is located within the section of Frogner Park known as Wegner Park, the romantic landscape park built for the Wegners around 1840.

The pavilion is a tea pavilion shaped like a classical octagonal round temple with a colonnade, inspired by structures from Greco-Roman antiquity but made with Norwegian materials.

The ceiling is a painted replica in miniature of the dome of the Pantheon, Rome, that makes the room appear larger. The pavilion underwent a restoration from 2023 and reopens in 2024, its 200th anniversary.

The manor buildings are located in the southern part of the park. The buildings in Danish country house style were built in the 1750s when Hans Jacob Scheel took over the property. After Bernt Anker, who was Norway's richest man, took over the estate in 1790, the buildings were further extended, and the manor house became one of the most important meeting places of Norwegian high society. They were rebuilt again by the industrialist Benjamin Wegner, who became owner in 1836 and who moved the tower to the main building.

Under Wegner, some surrounding buildings were also built, the Henriette Wegner Pavilion on the nearby hill "Utsikten" (The View) and the coachman house at the main gate in front of the manor house. In front of the main buildings is also a sundial built for Wegner.

Outside the manor buildings, there is also a café opened in 1918, Frogner Park Café, and a restaurant opened in 1960, Herregårdskroen (Frogner Manor Restaurant).

Frogner Park contains a large rose garden, the Frogner Rose Garden, with 14,000 roses spread across 150 different species. The roses in Frogner Park are maintained according to biological principles.

Today, there are approximately 3,000 trees in Frogner Park. Some of them are more than 250 years old, with trunk circumferences of up to 5.5 meters. Among the park's trees, there are many exotic varieties, such as magnolia, sequoia, ginkgo, and walnut.

In 2012, Frogner Park received the Nordic quality label Green Space Award, the first Norwegian green space to do so.

was built around 1840 by the manor's then-owners Benjamin Wegner and Henriette Wegner. The Wegner park replaced the old baroque garden. It was built in a romantic garden style that had replaced the baroque ideal in the late 18th century.

The Vigeland installation ( Norwegian : Vigelandsanlegget ), originally called the Tørtberg installation, is located in the present centre of Frogner Park. It is the name of the arrangement of sculptures and not of an area as such, as the entire park is called Frogner Park. The Vigeland installation in Frogner Park is sometimes referred to as "Vigeland Park," but this name has no official status, is not commonly used in Oslo and is considered inaccurate; the director of Oslo Museum Lars Roede said "Vigeland Park" "doesn't really exist" and is "the name of the tourists," as opposed to "Oslo natives' more down-to-earth name, Frogner Park." The legal name of the entire park in accordance with the Place Name Act ( stadnamnlova ) is Frognerparken (Frogner Park). The sculpture installation was, as part of Frogner Park, protected under the Heritage Act on 13 February 2009 under the name Frogner Park and the Vigeland installation ( Norwegian : Frognerparken og Vigelandsanlegget ), enshrining its name Vigelandsanlegget in law.

The sculpture area in Frogner Park covers 80 acres (320,000 m 2 ) and features 212 bronze and granite sculptures, all designed by Gustav Vigeland. The Bridge was the first part to be opened to the public, in 1940. The Bridge forms a 100 metre (328 ft)-long, 15 metre (49 ft)-wide connection between the Main Gate and the Fountain, lined with 58 sculptures, including one of the park's more popular statues, Angry Boy ( Sinnataggen ). Visitors could enjoy the sculptures while most of the park was still under construction. At the end of the bridge lies the Children's Playground, a collection of eight bronze statues showing children at play.

Originally designed to stand in Eidsvolls plass in front of the Parliament of Norway, the bronze Fountain ( Fontenen ) is adorned with 60 individual bronze reliefs, and is surrounded by an 1800 square metre black and white granite mosaic.