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Vigeland Sculpture Park

Christian David, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Attraction · Oslo

Vigeland Sculpture Park

Two hundred sculptures by one man, arranged along a single axis, open at every hour of every day and free — which for Oslo is remarkable in itself.

Time needed1 to 2 hours
Best timeEarly or late
CostFree, always open
SculpturesOver 200
About

One artist, one axis, no admission

The sculpture park sits inside Frogner Park and holds more than two hundred works in bronze, granite and wrought iron, all of them by Gustav Vigeland, who worked on the scheme from the 1920s until his death in 1943. It is the largest sculpture park anywhere devoted to a single artist. Everything is arranged along one long axis: the bridge with its bronzes, the fountain, the granite staircase, and at the top the Monolith — a column 17.3 metres high carved from a single block of granite with 121 figures climbing it. There is no gate, no ticket and no closing time. Vigeland died in 1943, so the works are long out of copyright and photographing them carries no restriction.

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What to See

What to look at

The park is designed to be walked in one direction.

🗿 The Monolith

  • Seventeen metres of granite carved from one block, with 121 intertwined figures
  • The circular staircase around it carries granite groups showing the stages of life

🌉 The bridge

  • Fifty-eight bronzes along the parapets, and the best-known of them all — Sinnataggen, the stamping, furious small boy

⛲ The fountain

  • Six figures holding a basin, ringed by reliefs of the human life cycle

🎡 The Wheel of Life

  • The wrought-iron ring beyond the Monolith, which closes the composition
Getting There

Getting there

It is a short ride west of the centre, and the tram stops at the gate.

🚊 By tram

  • Trams run to Vigelandsparken and to Frogner plass, both at the park edge

🚇 By metro

  • Majorstuen is about ten minutes' walk from the main gate

🚶 On foot

  • Roughly forty minutes from the centre if you want the walk; the park is large once you are in it
Best Time

When to go

Nordic light does most of the work here, and it changes enormously by season.

🕰️ Time of day

  • Early morning is close to empty, and low light gives the bronzes their modelling
  • Midsummer evenings stay bright very late, which is the best time the park has

📅 Season

  • Summer for the long light and the fountain running
  • Winter under snow is startlingly good, and almost nobody is there

⏱️ How long

  • An hour to walk the axis; two if you stop at the individual groups
Visitor Intelligence

Worth knowing

The simplest major sight in Oslo to fit into a day.

🎟️ No ticket, no gate

  • Open at all hours in all seasons, which makes it the obvious thing to do on an arrival or departure day

👀 Look for Sinnataggen

  • The Angry Boy is on the bridge, is small, and is easy to walk straight past

📷 Photography

  • Unrestricted; Vigeland died in 1943 and the works are long out of copyright

♿ Access

  • The main axis is broad and level as far as the staircase; the Monolith plateau is reached by steps
Nearby

Nearby

The rest of Oslo.

Akershus Fortress
On the harbour, the other side of the centre
The Opera House
On the waterfront, and you can walk on the roof
Oslo
The city guide
Good to Know

Frequently asked

Yes, entirely, and it has no gate and no closing time — you can walk in at any hour of any day in any season. In a city where most attractions are firmly ticketed, that makes it the easiest thing in Oslo to fit around a flight or a change of plan. The adjacent Vigeland Museum, which is a separate building, does charge.
A granite column 17.3 metres high, carved from a single block, with 121 human figures climbing over one another towards the top. It stands on a raised plateau at the head of the park's axis, ringed by a circular staircase carrying granite groups on the stages of human life. It took three carvers around fourteen years to complete from Vigeland's model.
An hour is enough to walk the full axis from the gate over the bridge, past the fountain and up to the Monolith and the Wheel of Life beyond it. Two hours is more comfortable if you want to stop at the individual groups, which reward it — the bridge bronzes in particular are easy to walk past in a hurry.
On the bridge, among the fifty-eight bronzes along the parapets, on the left-hand side walking away from the main gate. Sinnataggen is small and low, and a great many visitors walk the length of the bridge without noticing him. He is the single most photographed object in Oslo, so in high season the queue beside him is the giveaway.
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