Blindern is the main

campus A campus traditionally refers to the land and buildings of a college or university. This will often include libraries, lecture halls, student centers and, for residential universities, residence halls and dining halls. By extension, a corp ...

of the

University of Oslo The University of Oslo (; ) is a public university, public research university located in Oslo, Norway. It is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation#Europe, oldest university in Norway. Originally named the Royal Frederick Univ ...

, located in

Nordre Aker Nordre Aker (Northern Aker) is a borough of the city of Oslo, Norway. History This area became part of the city of Oslo in 1948. Before that it was a part of the former Aker municipality in Akershus county. Demographics and housing With a pop ...

Oslo Oslo ( or ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of 1,064,235 in 2022 ...

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...

Campus

Most of the departments of the University of Oslo are located at Blindern; other, smaller campuses include Sentrum (law), Gaustad (medicine), St. Hanshaugen (odontology) and

Tøyen Tøyen is a residential area in the central parts of Oslo, Norway, part of the borough of Gamle Oslo. Location There are two different stations which carry the name Tøyen. Tøyen Railway Station is located on the Gjøvik Line, while Tøyen (st ...

(botany, zoology, geology and paleontology). The central building is the new

university library An academic library is a library that is attached to a higher education institution, which supports the curriculum and the research of the university faculty and students. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, there are an es ...

Georg Sverdrup Georg Sverdrup (born Jørgen Sverdrup; 25 April 1770 – 8 December 1850) was a Norwegian statesman, best known as one of the presidents of the Norwegian Constituent Assembly at Eidsvoll Manor in 1814. He was a member of the Norwegian Parlia ...

's house. Other buildings of note are Eilert Sundt's house, the social studies building; the

humanities Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture, including Philosophy, certain fundamental questions asked by humans. During the Renaissance, the term "humanities" referred to the study of classical literature a ...

buildings, named after Sophus Bugge, Henrik Wergeland, Niels Treschow and P. A. Munch; Frederikke, the welfare building; and

Niels Henrik Abel Niels Henrik Abel ( , ; 5 August 1802 – 6 April 1829) was a Norwegian mathematician who made pioneering contributions in a variety of fields. His most famous single result is the first complete proof demonstrating the impossibility of solvin ...

's house, for mathematical studies, the biology building, named after

Kristine Bonnevie Kristine Elisabet Heuch Bonnevie (8 October 1872 – 30 August 1948) was a Norwegian biologist. She was the first woman to graduate with a science doctorate in Norway (and the second woman overall), Norway's first woman professor, a women's rights ...

, the first female professor at Oslo University. Though the construction of a university campus at Blindern was decided on as early as 1921, the first buildings were not ready for use before 1931. Only in 1960 was Upper Blindern, the area most associate with the university today, finished. UiO today has approximately 32,000 students.

Etymology

The campus is named after the old farm Blindern from Norse ''Blindarvin''. The first element is probably the

genitive In grammar, the genitive case ( abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can ...

of an old name of the brook, Blindernbekken (''Blind''), the last element is ''vin'' f '

meadow A meadow ( ) is an open habitat or field, vegetated by grasses, herbs, and other non- woody plants. Trees or shrubs may sparsely populate meadows, as long as they maintain an open character. Meadows can occur naturally under favourable con ...

'. The word ''Blind'' is derived from the fact that parts of the brook were hidden to see since the brook had a deep course.

History

Blindern was ancient farmland. In the 18th and 19th century the owners were among the progressive farmers who employed modern methods of agriculture, sold refrigerated milk to the city.

Halvor Blinderen Halvor Blinderen (16 June 1733 – 29 June 1804) was a Norwegian farmer noted for his progressive cultivation of plants. Halvor Haagensen Blinderen was born at Aker, Norway, Aker in Akershus at the family farm ''Nedre Blindern gård''. ...

(1733–1804) was a pioneering farm owner and was among the first farmer to grow

potatoes The potato () is a starchy tuberous vegetable native to the Americas that is consumed as a staple food in many parts of the world. Potatoes are underground stem tubers of the plant ''Solanum tuberosum'', a perennial in the nightshade famil ...

in Norway. In the 1850s parts of the Blindern farm were made the vicarage of

Vestre Aker Vestre Aker (Western Aker) is a List of boroughs of Oslo, borough of the city of Oslo, Norway. It has a population of 50,157 as of 2020. The previous Aker Municipality was merged into the city of Oslo in 1948. The borough of Vestre Aker was org ...

parish. Among the parsons was poet and folklorist

Jørgen Moe Jørgen Engebretsen Moe (22 April 1813–27 March 1882) was a Norwegian folklorist, bishop, poet, and author. He is best known for the '' Norske Folkeeventyr'', a collection of Norwegian folk tales which he edited in collaboration with Pe ...

, who is buried at the churchyard (''Vestre Aker kirkegård'').''Jørgen Moe'' (Store norske leksikon)
/ref>

References

University of Oslo Neighbourhoods of Oslo University and college campuses in Norway {{Oslo-geo-stub