A brief history of premodern Oslo
The early history of Oslo is unknown to most, but for the occasional local patriot. This reflects the city’s somewhat provincial origins. Yet, the history of Oslo has always been heavily influenced by large events outside of Norway and it’s through the retelling of those events that we can begin to understand the city today. So, I present my very brief history of Oslo’s early history.
Oslo is located in a geological cauldron, between shallow mountains. After the ice age receded, huge amount of sediments were left in its wake, making the soil around Oslo among the most fertile in Norway. This made the area attractive for early settlers. There are signs of settlements in Oslo since the early stone age, with petroglyphys in the Ekeberg area still visible today.
Ekeberg petroglyphs
Even though a small town was already established in the area, the city was properly founded in the middle ages, when the Norwegian warrior king Harald Hardrada returned from his exile in Constantinople, in order to consolidate the area around the Oslo fjord under his control.
Medieval Oslo. The barren lands at the top of the image is where downtown Oslo is located today.
The young city was mostly confined to the area around what we today call the medieval park, in eastern Oslo. It was a typical Nordic town of its day, with densely built wooden houses, located along main roads leading down to the coast line, or out of the city towards the north, east and west. Apart from the simple timber housing there were a few stone churches and a small citadel.
In the 1300s the city became a bishopric and started to rival Trondheim and Bergen as one of the most important cities in Norway. For brief periods it was the acting capital and this was probably its medieval heyday. But everything was about to radically change. The advent of the black plague led to the loss of almost half the population of Norway. As a consequences the country was left weak and leaderless. This led to the Kalmarunion; a royal union between the kings and queens of the Nordic countries which marked the beginning of Oslo's decent in to obscurity, as the power center moved south to Copenhagen.
Between the late 1300s and 1600s Oslo was a small administration city under strong Danish influence. I imagine that serving as a provincial governor in Oslo was a step on the career ladder for Danish nobility in this period, before they could move on to more important positions in the relative metropolis of Copenhagen.
Due to the wooden framework of the city it experienced many destructive fires. In 1624 a particularly devastating one left the city in ruins and Danish king Christian IV, who took a larger interest in Norwegian affairs than previous kings, commanded that the city should be relocated to a protective sphere around the citadel of Akershus. He also decided that it should be built on renaissance principles of an ordered grid system, and entirely in stone to avoid fire in the future.
The area around Akershus citadel before the new city was built.
The new urban plan of Christiania.
The city was renamed Christiania, in the king's name. The new buildings were probably immensely cold in the Norwegian winter, and poorer folk who could not afford to purchase the relatively expensive brick material built new shanty towns outside of the city walls, in the manner to which they were accustomed. Traces of these shanty towns can still be seen today in the areas of Telthusbakken, Rodeløkka and Hammersborg.
In the 1700s the city experienced slow growth and was probably a relatively sleepy place. That was about to change when Denmark-Norway was dragged in to the Napoleonic Wars in the early 1800s. With Napoleon losing the war and Denmark being in a weak position, Norway declared independence. A democratic constitution, inspired by the Americans, was written in 1814. I seem to remember having read that Oslo, or Christiania, was so firmly established within the Danish system during this period that most of its citizens opposed independence. But the will of the rest of the country became decisive.
Christiania in the early 1700's
Freedom would however not come quite so easily. Norway was promised as a spoil of war to Sweden, by the victors of the Napoleonic Wars. A brief war on the Norwegian-Swedish border decided the matter and Norway would again cede in to a union. However, Norway was allowed to keep its constitution and parliament under the Swedish king, which resulted in much more freedom than in the previous union.
With its new freedom Oslo became more important than before. A series of large scale building projects were commenced to meet the needs of a range of new, modern institutions, including a hospital, university, public theater, government building, parliament and royal palace. Towards the end of the 1700s the Akershus citadel had become very old fashioned and most Danish rulers lived in "Paleet", a mansion built by a wealthy aristocrat in the area around where the central train station is located today.
Paleet before it was torn down in the 60s.
In the new Norwegian-Swedish union the Swedish king obliged himself to spend a large amount of time in Norway each year, and because of this a new royal palace needed to be built. The original plans were quite impressive, but a lack of funds led to a much reduced version getting actually realized.
A model of one of the early drafts for the palace.
Original plan for Oslo's main avenue Karl Johan, with an axis from the palace to a square which would house the university, parliament and a museum.
The new palace was built on top of a small hill in order to make it seem larger than it actually was.
The palace as it was actually built
The palace was built with an entirely flat facade facing the city. Upon reaching the palace square one could get the feeling that it lacks a certain sense of enclosed space. Because of this the palace itself could be said to look a little bit like stage scenery. The university building was built in a similar style, but was more successful in my opinion, due to the two flanking buildings.
A perspective showing how the original university square was intended.
Only half of the originally proposed square was built, with a university building.
But here too, due to a lack of funds the symmetry of the square could not be completed. When a parliament was eventually built, further down street, it had to be somewhat idiosyncratically placed off-axis from the royal palace - which is maybe symptomatic of a general trend in Oslo's urban planning history, for better or worse. Regardless, the new parade street and royal palace became a symbol for Norway and is much loved today.
Map of Christiania after the urban renewal of the early 1800s
Early proposal for a parliament building.
The parliament as it was built
The mid 1800s would become a golden age for Oslo. The new capital experienced massive population growth due to a new period of urbanization and industrialization. Especially along Akerselva river, with a lot of textile industry.
Industry at Vaterland
There was suddenly an influx of new money to invest. The city limits were expanded and a semicircle around the old Danish city was established. These areas are what we today know as Frogner, St. Hanshaugen and later, Grünerløkka. For the first time Norway also got its own architect class (in the modern sense of the word) and since most of them were educated in Germany the new districts were built in a distinct German manner.
Frogner
Grünerløkka
This period was however also marked by a lot of poverty and misery. There was not much in the way of public welfare, as people came flooding from the country side to work in factories. Means were very unevenly distributed and the east-west divide between rich and poor, which to a certain extent still exists in Oslo today, became a thing. All of this was however well documented by a new string of artists and public intellectuals who blossomed during this era.
The slum of Vaterland as it appeared before it was torn down in the 60s. This is where Knut Hamsun lived when he wrote his novel "Hunger".
"Kampen for tilværelsen" - a famous painting showing the fight for survival among Oslo's poor.
In 1905 Norway peacefully achieved independence from Sweden and Christiania became a proper capital city, for the first time since the medieval ages. In light of these events the decision was eventually made to rename Christiania back to the old medieval name of Oslo. This marks the beginning of the modern period. This is also a time of immense change to the city, but which I will discuss in a separate post.
A highly interesting map from the early 1900's showcasing the massive change that took place in Oslo during the 100 year period from 1814 to 1914.
An atlas of the change Oslo underwent during the timeframe discussed. Credits goes to Pisseguri82 from reddit.
Sources:
https://www.reddit.com/r/norge/comments/762n53/kart_over_oslo_de_siste_tusen_%C3%A5rene/
https://geouib.wordpress.com/2014/11/04/kartmoro/
http://oslohistorie.no/
https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oslos_historie