Blindern is the main

campus A campus is traditionally the land on which a college or university and related institutional buildings are situated. Usually a college campus includes libraries, lecture halls, residence halls, student centers or dining halls, and park-like se ...

of the

University of Oslo The University of Oslo ( no, Universitetet i Oslo; la, Universitas Osloensis) is a public research university located in Oslo, Norway. It is the highest ranked and oldest university in Norway. It is consistently ranked among the top universit ...

, 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 Aker municipality in the former Akershus county. Demographics and housing With a popula ...

Oslo Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) 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 ...

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

Campus

Most of the departments of the University of Oslo are located at Blindern; other, smaller campuses include Sentrum (law),

Gaustad Gaustad is a neighborhood in Nordre Aker borough of Oslo, Norway. It is located between Vinderen and Kringsjå. At Gaustad are The National Hospital and Gaustad Hospital, as well as residential areas that border to Nordmarka. The area is serve ...

(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 ...

(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 and serves two complementary purposes: to support the curriculum and the research of the university faculty and students. It is unknown how many academic librar ...

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 in Eidsvoll in 1814. He was a member of the Norwegian Parliament and ...

's house. Other buildings of note are

Eilert Sundt Eilert Lund Sundt (8 August 1817 – 13 June 1875) was a Norwegian theologist and sociologist, known for his work on mortality, marriage and other subjects among the working class. He was an early pioneer of the field of sociology in Norway. Earl ...

's house, the social studies building; the

humanities Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture. In the Renaissance, the term contrasted with divinity and referred to what is now called classics, the main area of secular study in universities at the t ...

buildings, named after

Sophus Bugge Elseus Sophus Bugge (5 January 1833 – 8 July 1907) was a Norwegian philologist and linguist. His scholarly work was directed to the study of runic inscriptions and Norse philology. Bugge is best known for his theories and his work on the runic ...

Henrik Wergeland Henrik Arnold Thaulow Wergeland (17 June 1808 – 12 July 1845) was a Norwegian writer, most celebrated for his poetry but also a prolific playwright, polemicist, historian, and linguist. He is often described as a leading pioneer in the develop ...

Niels Treschow Niels Nicolas Treschow (5 September 1751 – 22 September 1833) was a Norwegian philosopher, educator and politician. Biography Treschow was born in Strømsø, now part of Drammen in Buskerud. He was the son of Peter Treschow (1718-1773) ...

and

P. A. Munch Peter Andreas Munch (15 December 1810 – 25 May 1863), usually known as P. A. Munch, was a Norwegian historian, known for his work on the medieval history of Norway. Munch's scholarship included Norwegian archaeology, geography, ethnograph ...

; 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, 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. Nedre Blindern gård

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 al ...

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 these areas maintain an open character. Meadows may be naturally occurring or artifi ...

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

potatoes The potato is a starchy food, a tuber of the plant ''Solanum tuberosum'' and is a root vegetable native to the Americas. The plant is a perennial in the nightshade family Solanaceae. Wild potato species can be found from the southern United ...

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

Vestre Aker Vestre Aker (Western Aker) is a 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 organized as part of the 1 Ja ...

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