There are few things in life that I enjoy as much as a ramble in the park. Any city park will do. Maybe it’s being surrounded by greenery and breathing in fresh air. Or perhaps it is watching people and dogs of all shapes and sizes embrace their temporary freedom from the concrete jungle that most of us live in. Whatever it is, time spent wandering the grass-lined thoroughfares of any city park always rejuvenates me. I purposely chose to live just blocks from Balboa Park for this very reason and soak in its beauty as often as I can.
One of my favorite activities when traveling to a new city is to carve out time to explore the city park on offer. Throughout the years, I have logged a fair amount of miles roaming some of the world’s most fantastic city parks.
The park I would like to showcase this week is Vigeland Park. Vigeland Park has the distinction of being the world’s largest sculpture park all thanks to the talents of a single artist, Gustav Vigeland (1869-1943). Vigeland Park contains over 200 bronze and granite sculptures which can be found scattered throughout the park.
Name: Vigeland Park (also known as Frogner Park or Frognerparken)
Location: Frogner - a suburb of Oslo, Norway
Size: 80 acres
Park Highlights
The Fountain and Tree Groups
The Fountain is a bronze sculpture of six male giants holding up a large circular vessel. Surrounding the outer rim of the fountain are 20 bronze sculptures called the tree groups. The tree groups represent the evolving stages of human life, from cradle to grave.
The Bridge
There are 58 bronze sculptures along the 100 meter long bridge. Most of the sculptures depict relationships between men and women and adults and children.
The Monolith
The Monolith is a single granite column that is 46 feet high and consists of 121 figures. It took three men 14 years to complete the sculpture. One interruption of this sculpture is that it represents our struggle for existence.
No comments:
Post a Comment