Society for the Preservation of Ancient Norwegian Monuments

Fortidsminneforeningen is a Norwegian association for the preservation of cultural and historical monuments. The association has its headquarters in Oslo and has about 8,000 members.

He'd founded in 1844 under the name norske Foreningen til Fortidsminnesmerkers Bevaring. One of the founding fathers included the painter Joachim Frich and Johan Christian Clausen Dahl, as well as some historians and archaeologists. The Company has emerged from a movement that campaigned for the preservation of the stave churches that threatened to disappear in the 19th century. The reason for the disappearance was the population growth in many Norwegian municipalities and so most of the old stave churches had become too small for the congregation and had to be replaced by larger new buildings. This threatened to disappear in Norway a 600 -year-old cultural treasure.

Before the club was founded, the founding fathers dealt first with the translocation of the Wang Church, in Bridge Hill near Karpacz in the years 1842 to 1844, now part of the Polish town of Karpacz in the Karkonosze mountains, was rebuilt. 1841 acquired by the Prussian King and After this successful action was followed by the foundation of the association and, thanks to the club are still 29 of the 30 received today stave churches with medieval buildings worldwide. The club now has even forty buildings such as the stave churches Borgund Hopperstad, Kaupanger Kvernes, Nore, Rødven, Torpo Uvdal, Urnes and other buildings such as churches in other style, chapels, monasteries, Villa Lysøen on Os (Hordaland ) or old houses.