Tjuvholmen is a neighborhood in the borough
Majorstuen in
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 ...
. It is located on a peninsula sticking out from
Aker Brygge into the
Oslofjord. It is located east of
Filipstad
Filipstad is a Urban areas in Sweden, locality and the seat of Filipstad Municipality, Värmland County, Sweden, with 10,644 inhabitants in 2019.
Filipstad was granted city privileges in 1611 by Charles IX of Sweden, who named it after his son Ch ...
and south of
Vika. At the tip of the peninsula, next to the sculpture park, is an outdoor bathing area. The water leads out to the Inner Oslofjord.
The area was bought by the shipyard
Akers Mekaniske Verksted in the mid 19th century, who planned to build a
drydock there. Instead, it was bought by the municipality in 1914, and transferred to the port authority in 1919. They built docks and artificial land, increasing the area from . From the 1960s,
Fred. Olsen & Co. rented the docks, and from 1971
Nylands Mekaniske Verkstad had a shipyard on the spot. Since 1982, the area has been used for office space, terminals, and warehouses. The
Norwegian National Academy of Ballet was located there.
Since 2005, the area has been sold to private developers, who are conducting an
urban renewal
Urban renewal (sometimes called urban regeneration in the United Kingdom and urban redevelopment in the United States) is a program of land redevelopment often used to address real or perceived urban decay. Urban renewal involves the clearing ...
with housing. The area has about 1,200 apartments since 2012. It is part of the
Fjord City urban renewal program. This program has seen the opening of several art galleries, amongst them the
Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art and the Gallery Haaken.
Tjuvholmen skulpturpark, next to the museum, was created by
Renzo Piano.
Geology
The geology of the former islet is of great interest. The German geologist
Leopold von Buch visited the area in 1806–07, and he then discovered and described
rhomb porphyry for the first time.
The name
The first element is ''tjuv'' (''thief''), the last element is the finite form of ''holme'' (''
islet
An islet ( ) is generally a small island. Definitions vary, and are not precise, but some suggest that an islet is a very small, often unnamed, island with little or no vegetation to support human habitation. It may be made of rock, sand and/ ...
''). The islet was later turned into a peninsula because of
post-glacial rebound
Post-glacial rebound (also called isostatic rebound or crustal rebound) is the rise of land masses after the removal of the huge weight of ice sheets during the last glacial period, which had caused isostatic depression. Post-glacial rebound an ...
. Thieves were executed here in the 18th century. An older (Danish) spelling of the name was "Tyveholmen".
References
Neighbourhoods of Oslo
Fjord City
{{Oslo-geo-stub