The 4.5-metre bronze tiger crouching outside Oslo Central Station is probably the first thing you notice when you arrive. Sculptor Elena Engelsen created it in 2000 to mark Oslo's millennium celebrations, and the city's residents voted for a tiger as their symbol. The reason goes back to 1870, when Norway's national poet Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson wrote the poem Sidste Sang, describing a battle between a horse and a tiger. The horse represented the safe countryside, the tiger the dangerous city. Oslo has been called Tigerstaden, the Tiger City, ever since.
What started as an insult gradually became a badge of pride. When Oslo needed a symbol for the year 2000, citizens embraced their old nickname and chose the tiger. The statue quickly became the city's unofficial meeting point, the place where locals say "meet me at the tiger." Engelsen, who specialises in animal sculptures, worked in bronze to capture the predator mid-prowl, as if it is about to leap into the crowd at Jernbanetorget.
The square itself, Jernbanetorget, is Oslo's busiest transit hub, with the central station, metro, trams, and buses all converging here. It has a reputation as a slightly rough area, which only adds to the tiger metaphor. Love it or not, the tiger is where most visits to Oslo begin.
What started as an insult gradually became a badge of pride. When Oslo needed a symbol for the year 2000, citizens embraced their old nickname and chose the tiger. The statue quickly became the city's unofficial meeting point, the place where locals say "meet me at the tiger." Engelsen, who specialises in animal sculptures, worked in bronze to capture the predator mid-prowl, as if it is about to leap into the crowd at Jernbanetorget.
The square itself, Jernbanetorget, is Oslo's busiest transit hub, with the central station, metro, trams, and buses all converging here. It has a reputation as a slightly rough area, which only adds to the tiger metaphor. Love it or not, the tiger is where most visits to Oslo begin.