Villa Grande

The Villa Grande is a residential building in the district of Bygdøy in Oslo. The building was in 1917 for the Norwegian entrepreneur and founder of Norsk Hydro, Sam Eyde, designed by urban planners and architects Christian Morgenstierne and Arne Eide and built until 1921, but not completed in his lifetime. After his death in 1940 the unfinished building was the property of the Norwegian state. The villas building was then completed and rebuilt and was in 1941 the residence of and Vidkun Quisling and his wife Mary. The Norwegian fascist politician and Prime Minister lived in the villa until his arrest on May 9, 1945. During the time in which he lived in the villa, it was called Gimle. Quisling himself gave his domicile based on Norse mythology the name Gimle, which means a place where the survivors of Ragnarök gather in heaven.

According to later extract from Maria Quisling, the British commander in chief of Norway, General Andrew Thorne took together with his staff, Villa Grande hogging and was directed here from May 22 1945 until his return to the UK on 31 October 1945.

The building was later renamed Villa Grande, and then used for different purposes, eg as a French embassy building, the sanatorium and as a training center for health professionals. Since 2005, it houses the Center for Holocaust and Minority Studies ( Senter for studier av Holocaust og livssynsminoriteter ).

Cultural monument

Villa Grande has been registered as a cultural monument under the number 90331 when Riksantikvaren.