The University Museum of Bergen ( no, Universitetsmuseet i Bergen) is a university museum in

Bergen Bergen (), historically Bjørgvin, is a city and municipality in Vestland county on the west coast of Norway. , its population is roughly 285,900. Bergen is the second-largest city in Norway. The municipality covers and is on the peninsula ...

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 th ...

. The museum features material related to anthropology, archaeology, botany, geology, zoology, art, and cultural history.

History

The University Museum of Bergen was founded in 1825 by

Wilhelm Frimann Koren Christie Wilhelm Frimann Koren Christie (7 December 1778 – 10 October 1849) was a Norwegian attorney. He was a member of the National Assembly at Eidsvoll in 1814 and served as the Norwegian Constituent Assembly secretary. Background Born in Kristiansu ...

, at the time president of the

Storting The Storting ( no, Stortinget ) (lit. the Great Thing) is the supreme legislature of Norway, established in 1814 by the Constitution of Norway. It is located in Oslo. The unicameral parliament has 169 members and is elected every four years bas ...

. Founded under the name University Museum of Bergen with the intent of building large collections in the fields of culture and natural history, it became the grounds for most of the academic activity in the city, a tradition which has prevailed since the museum became part of the

University of Bergen The University of Bergen ( no, Universitetet i Bergen, ) is a research-intensive state university located in Bergen, Norway. As of 2019, the university has over 4,000 employees and 18,000 students. It was established by an act of parliament in ...

. The University Museum of Bergen is divided into two departments, the Natural History Collections and the

Cultural History Cultural history combines the approaches of anthropology and history to examine popular cultural traditions and cultural interpretations of historical experience. It examines the records and narrative descriptions of past matter, encompassing the ...

Collections and Public Outreach and exhibitions. It is also the caretaker of the museum garden, formerly the botanical garden, surrounding the natural history building, and the city's

arboretum An arboretum (plural: arboreta) in a general sense is a botanical collection composed exclusively of trees of a variety of species. Originally mostly created as a section in a larger garden or park for specimens of mostly non-local species, ma ...

. This was the first dedicated museum building in Norway. In its early years, the museum contained numerous art collections, including several works by the painter Johan Christian Dahl, cultural artefacts, and craftwork items. In 1931, the museum moved from its location in the Seminarium Fredericianum building near Bergen Cathedral School (''Bergen katedralskole''), to a new building southwest of Lille Lungegårdsvannet. The current natural history building was designed by

Johan Henrik Nebelong Johan Henrik Nebelong (20 July 1817 – 2 March 1871) was a Danish architect. He worked in Norway from 1840 to 1853 and was best known for interior design work on ''Oscarshall'' (1847–1852). Nebelong also taught at the Royal Academy of Arts in ...

and finished in 1865. Bergen Museum moved in during 1866. The wings of the building were added in 1898 and the botanical garden was laid out between 1897 and 1899. The cultural history department got its own building in 1927. The increasing research activity at the museum from the late 19th century and onward led directly to the founding of the

in 1946.

References

External links

Universitetsmuseet i Bergen

University Museum of Bergen

Universitetsmuseet i Bergen blir stengt på ubestemt tid
Museums in Bergen Natural history museums in Norway University museums in Norway University of Bergen History museums in Norway 1825 establishments in Norway Museums established in 1825 {{norway-museum-stub