Parks And Open Spaces In Oslo
Parks and open spaces are an integral part of the landscape of Oslo, the capital and largest city of Norway. The various parks and open spaces are interconnected by paths so that the city's inhabitants can walk between them.
As the city expanded in the middle of the 19th century, areas were appropriated for parks and recreational purposes. The eastern part of the city (Østkanten) was prioritized due to congestion and industrialization. The residential and more affluent western parts of the city (Majorstuen, Frogner) have comparably fewer parks and open spaces. 95% of the city's inhabitants have a park or an open green space within 300 meters of their home.
Some of the many parks have a special place in the life and history of Oslo:
- Frogner Park with the Vigeland Sculpture Park, Norway's most visited tourist attraction.
- Eidsvolls plass and Studenterlunden along the main street Karl Johans gate.
- Slottsparken, which surrounds the Royal Palace.
- St. Hanshaugen, the first large public park outside the city center.
- Birkelunden and Olaf Ryes plass in Grünerløkka.
- Akerselva environment park, with walks around structures from early stages of Norwegian industrial development.
- Bygdøy and Ekebergsletta, large natural parks.
Read more about Parks And Open Spaces In Oslo: Landscape and Parks, Early Parks in Oslo, 1812–1865: The First Public Parks, 1865–1916: Refuge From The City, 1916–1940: An Active Public Park Policy, 1940–1945, List of Parks
Famous quotes containing the words parks and, parks, open and/or spaces:
“Perhaps our own woods and fields,—in the best wooded towns, where we need not quarrel about the huckleberries,—with the primitive swamps scattered here and there in their midst, but not prevailing over them, are the perfection of parks and groves, gardens, arbors, paths, vistas, and landscapes. They are the natural consequence of what art and refinement we as a people have.... Or, I would rather say, such were our groves twenty years ago.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Towns are full of people, houses full of tenants, hotels full of guests, trains full of travelers, cafés full of customers, parks full of promenaders, consulting-rooms of famous doctors full of patients, theatres full of spectators, and beaches full of bathers. What previously was, in general, no problem, now begins to be an everyday one, namely, to find room.”
—José Ortega Y Gasset (1883–1955)
“The open frontier, the hardships of homesteading from scratch, the wealth of natural resources, the whole vast challenge of a continent waiting to be exploited, combined to produce a prevailing materialism and an American drive bent as much, if not more, on money, property, and power than was true of the Old World from which we had fled.”
—Barbara Tuchman (1912–1989)
“In any case, raw aggression is thought to be the peculiar province of men, as nurturing is the peculiar province of women.... The psychologist Erik Erikson discovered that, while little girls playing with blocks generally create pleasant interior spaces and attractive entrances, little boys are inclined to pile up the blocks as high as they can and then watch them fall down: “the contemplation of ruins,” Erikson observes, “is a masculine specialty.””
—Joyce Carol Oates (b. 1938)