Museums in Oslo, Norway
Oslo has several good museums. They are very varied both in what they exhibit and how they exhibit. I generally avoid visiting museums unless they have something special. But a glance over a list of over 20 museums brings up some interesting museums.
The Fram Museum
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The Fram Museum on the Peninsula of Bygdøy showcases the lives and the ships of the Norwegian Polar explorers Fridtjof Nansen and Roald Amundsen. Roald Amundsen led the first expedition to the South Pole – where he was locked in a tight race to reach the South pole first along with Robert Scott – who finally perished in his attempt to reach it first. Roald Amundsen was also the first person to reach both the north and south poles. The museum is built around the intact body of the ship Fram. Visitors can actually go onboard the ship and see how it was built. Fram is the wooden ship that has traveled farthest North and South. The whole journey is nicely chronicled in the displays around the ship and conveys the sense of adventure the men aboard the Fram must have experienced.
The Kontiki Museum
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The Kontiki museum documents one man’s quest to change history and it’s understanding by conducting expeditions. That man was Thor Heyerdahl. Before Thor Heyerdahl’s voyage across the Atlantic on a reed boats (The Ra), historians believed the people from the ancient world could not cross the great oceans using Papyrus boats and hence did not have any contact. The Ra Expedition, The Kontiki Voyage and his other voyages across the great oceans of the world changed the understanding of history and spawned several best-selling books and documentaries (Kontiki). Kontiki is the only film from Norway to win an Oscar. More about the Kontiki Museum
The Viking Ship Museum
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The Viking Ship Museum displays 3 Viking ships and artifacts that were recovered from Viking graves. The Tune, Gokstad and Oseberg Ships are displayed here. These are some of the most well preserved viking ships in whole of Scandinavia.
The Munch Museum
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The Munch Museum is located in one of the suburbs of Oslo, Norway and is dedicated to the life and work of famous Norwegian painter Edvard Munch (pronounced Moonk). The Munch museum has several famous paintings of Munch including the iconic “The Scream”, “The Madonna” and “Starry Night”. It also has several watercolour and charcoal paintings by him and his iconic master-series “The Frieze of Life”. Munch’s paintings have a certain minimalism and economy of colour but are able to convey emotions beautifully – especially the dark moods – fear, jealousy and melancholy. I later read that the brilliant colours of the sunset in the background of “The Scream” were inspired by the brilliant sunsets all over Europe in the aftermath of Krakatoa eruption.
The Folk Museum
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Oslo’s Folk museum is an open-air museum that has actual houses and building that have been reassembled from all over Norway. You can walk into some of these houses which have been preserved as they were built originally and can get a glimpse into the everyday lives of ordinary people from all over Norway including the Sami tribes that live north of the arctic circle in Norway. It also has a stave church built completely from Wood. Some of the Stave Churches around Norway have survived over several hundred years.