The Fram Museum
The museum is located at Bygdøy, a short distance from the centre of Oslo and is easily accessible by bus or, in the summer season, by ferry from the City Hall quayside. Its closest neighbors are the Kon-Tiki Museum and the Norwegian Maritime Museum. The Viking Ship Museum and the Norwegian Folk Museum are within 15 minutes walk. The Bygdøy peninsula is therefore popularly known as the museum peninsula. Bygdøy is one of Oslo´s main places to go.
The area itself is an attraction with, among other things, its rich hiking and recreational areas and the opportunities it provides for swimming in the sea. It is also home to His Majesty the King´s summer residence, Kongsgården.
The number of visitors has varied from 18 000 the year it opened down to 5000 during World War Two 1940-1945. After the war the number of visitors increased annually and in 2009 we achieved the current record of 286 155 visitors. On August 5th 1999, the member of total visitors reached 10 million.
The main exhibition has explanatory texts in nine languages and describes the three great Fram Expeditions. We also tell the stories of the expeditions of the Gjøa and the Maud, of the airplanes N24 and N25 as well as of the airship Norge.
Temporary exhibitions are made continually concerning different polar issues. Around the ship you will find objects from the different expeditions. We have exclusive polar merchandise and probably the world’s biggest polar book store in our museum with 220 different titles.
Norway is an Arctic nation. More than 40 % of its territory lies north of the Arctic Circle. Svalbard, Jan Mayen, Bjørnøya and many small islands are Norwegian territory. Norway claims approximately 2 million square kilometers of the Antarctic continent in the south. Bouvetøya is Norwegian territory. It is therefore natural that Norway has participated on many important expeditions to both the Arctic and the Antarctic. The Fram Museum contains exhibitions of the most famous voyages of global historical significance. The centerpiece of the museum is of course the world´s strongest wooden ship, the polar ship Fram. The public can board and take a look around in her cabins, lounges, cargo hold and engine room.
The Fram returned home from Buenos Aires in 1914 and was moored at Horten, exposed to wind and weather. After World War One, a number of committees worked on preserving the Fram, but without results. The project´s strongest proponent, Otto Sverdrup, was elected chairman of the Fram Committee in 1925. He struggled on untiringly together with the committee´s members and several other key people. In 1929 the Fram was towed to a shipyard, the Framnæs Mekaniske Verksted in Sandefjord. Here, under Otto Sverdrup´s supervision, the ship was repaired with the excellent support of Consul Lars Christensen.
In 1930 the Fram was finally restored to the condition it was in during Otto Sverdrup´s expedition to the islands to the northwest of Greenland. Otto Sverdrup died in the same year the Fram participated in a large exhibition in Trondheim. It took a long time before she finally got a permanent home. In 1934 the Oslo Association of Architects offered to hold an architecture competition to design a building for the honored vessel. Sixty entries were submitted and the winner was an architect called Bjarne Tøien with his entry “Saga”. The Fram was pulled into its new home by an electric motor. The ship moved one centimeter per minute. On May 20th 1936 the Fram Museum was finally opened. Both His Majesty King Haakon VII and His Royal Highness Crown Prince Olav were present. A national monument was finally in place.