EXTERIOR PHOTOGRAPHS
Byggingen av Polhøgda startet i april 1900. Huset sto ferdig i august 1901, og Fridtjof Nansen flyttet inn med sin gravide kone og tre barn.
Polhøgda in summer
Construction at Polhøgda started in April 1900, and when the house was finished in August 1901, Nansen moved in with his pregnant wife and 3 children.
Nansen had drawn the construction plans himself, with assistance from architect Hjalmar Welhaven. Nansen wanted his new house erected in a kind of "Norwegian castle style, in stone". Changes along the way made the plans less castle-like and more inspired by Lawnhurst, the home of his friend Henry Simon near Manchester in England. By giving Polhøgda a touch of English 'mansion', Nansen got a representative and stately home with room for entertaining.
Externally the mansion is reminiscent of the early Italian renaissance, whereas the shape of the windows and the tower draw our thoughts to medieval Romantic churches and castles.
Fridtjof Nansen's grave
Fridtjof Nansen died at home, on 13 May 1930, while enjoying the spring sun on the balcony seen in background of this photo.
Before his death, Nansen had clearly expressed that he did not wish a church burial. He wanted to be buried in the garden, under "my good birch tree", as he is reported to have put it. In the early 1930s, private burials were not allowed in Norway, and it took the Nansen family and the Norwegian Academy of Sciences six years to obtain permission to establish a private tomb for the late national hero.
Fridtjof Nansen's son, the architect Odd Nansen, had prepared a plan for the tomb which was approved by the authorities. On 10 October 1936, with the King in attendance, the new tomb on the slope to the south of the house was inaugurated, (MP4, 22MB) and the urn containing Nansen's ashes was finally interred.
