Oslo Folk Museum

The Oslo Folk Museum is largely an open air museum - the paths around the grounds take you from one century to another, and from one region to another. Entire buildings have been transferred here, just to give a sense of what it was like to live there, then.

I expected to spend a couple of hours here, then go on to the Kon-tiki and Fram museums. Hah! We spent over 4 hours, and still missed a lot! And it was continually interesting!

I had a hard time picking just a few to show here - for more, see my Oslo Folk Museum 2022 album (it includes a video of a folk dance).

Beer anyone?

"1814 marks a dividing line in the history of Norway. During the Napoleonic wars Denmark had to give up Norway to Sweden. In opposition to the great powers, the Norwegians adopted the Constitution of 1814, but were forced to enter into a union with Sweden. Two interiors represent the important role of public officials in the governing of the country, in the Danish-Norwegian monarchy before 1814, and in the union with Sweden after 1814. In the years leading up to the dissolution of the union in 1905, Norwegian public officials worked to defend Norway's independence enshrined in the Constitution and to uphold an equal position in the union." - museum description 

"The decorative art of the painter Gerhard Munthe (1849-1929) combined the undulating Art Nouveau lines with inspiration from Norwegian folk art and many other sources. In this way he created a very individual expression which is quite unlike anything else. This imaginative chair - with its mixture of a "Norwegian" dragon and an Oriental peacock on the back - was originally created for Holmenkollen Tourist Hotel in 1896 (destroyed by fire in 1914)." - museum description 

Fresco ceilings

"The ceiling above [...] depicts the seven virtues of faith, love, hope, justice, fortitude, prudence and temperance. These symbolic images of the virtues reflect 17th century religious and moral thought and the values people were ideally expected to live up to." - museum description

Art Deco cabinet

Model ship, hanging from the ceiling

Sleigh with hood ornament 

Typical Bride gifts - elaborately carved laundry tools: mangler, bats, iron...

Church from 1574

"Hardanger is the area along and around the Hardanger Fjord. Here the farms were crowded together in cluster or row farmsteads, which emerged through repeated partition of the farms, where the houses of the new holdings were built on the original farmstead. Soil could be of varying quality, and each strip of land was therefore partitioned in order to create fairness. At the museum, the farmhouse (81), the guest house (82), the bakehouse (83) and the store house (84) come from the same farm, and the buildings are placed in their original positions.

The farmhouse (81) has a smoke oven and ceiling vent. Windows were installed in the early 18th century. 

The buildings are made in a notched log construction. The walls are stabilised with vertical battens and the boards are mounted horizontally. This is known as vestlandspanel. (West Coast Panel) If the panelling closest to the ground was exposed to rot, it was easy to replace the lower boards. In earlier times turf was the usual roof covering, but in the early 19th century I slate became more common." - museum description 

This wall is made from braided juniper branches - it keeps out the rain, but allows ventilation, ideal for drying hay!

Folk music and dancing - the horn is very lightweight, and the sound really carries!

Painted chest

"This exhibition shows some features of daily life in Sami communities at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries. Emphasis is on subsistence such as hunting, fishing and farming and also reindeer pastoralism, which is a Sami speciality and therefore has been given much space in the exhibition.

The exhibition also deals with some important features of earlier times, such as pre-Christian religion. A large costume collection reflects the diversity of Sami culture, with garments from North, East, Lule and South Sami areas. The exhibition does not attempt to tell the history of the Sami. However, some important historical events have been included, such as the carving up of Samiland between the states or the devastations of the Second World War." - museum description 

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