Tjuvholmen is a neighborhood in the borough Frogner in Oslo

Oslo

Oslo is a municipality, as well as the capital and most populous city in Norway. As a municipality , it was established on 1 January 1838. Founded around 1048 by King Harald III of Norway, the city was largely destroyed by fire in 1624. The city was moved under the reign of Denmark–Norway's King...

, Norway

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

. It is located on a peninsula sticking out from Aker Brygge

Aker Brygge

Aker Brygge is an area in Oslo, Norway. It is a popular meeting place for shopping, dining, and entertainment. Oslo residents, tourists from all over the world, business people on the move, as well as musicians, artists, actors, A-, B- and C-celebrities find Aker Brygge their favourite place to...

 into the Oslofjord

Oslofjord

The Oslofjord is a bay in the south-east of Norway, stretching from an imaginary line between the Torbjørnskjær and Færder lighthouses and down to Langesund in the south to Oslo in the north....

. It is located east of Filipstad

Filipstad, Norway

Filipstad is a neighborhood in the borough Sentrum in Oslo, Norway. It serves as a container port for Oslo.The neighborhood grew from a single property, named after the pharmacist Philip Moth around 1650 - the last element is stad m 'farm'...

 and south of Vika

Vika, Oslo

Vika is a neighborhood in the borough Frogner in Oslo, Norway. It is located between the Oslofjord, Aker Brygge, Pipervika, Slottsparken and Oslo City Hall....

.

The area was bought by the shipyard Akers Mekaniske Verksted in the mid 19th century, who planned to build a drydock there. Instead, it was bought by the municipality in 1914, and transferred to the port authority in 1919. They built docks and artificial land, increasing the area from 5 to 33 ha (12.4 to 81.5 acre). From the 1960s, Fred. Olsen & Co.

Fred. Olsen & Co.

Fred. Olsen & Co. is a large shipping company based in Oslo, Norway. The company was founded by Petter Olsen in 1848. Today it is the holding company that controls the Olsen family's interest through Bonheur and Ganger Rolf.-History:...

 rented the docks, and from 1971 Nylands Mekaniske Verkstad had a shipyard on the spot. Since 1982, the area has been used for office space, terminals and warehouses. The Norwegian National Academy of Ballet

Norwegian National Academy of Ballet

The Norwegian National Academy of Ballet was established in 1979 as a three-year education in ballet. The school was given collegiate status in 1982....

 was located there.

Since 2005, the area has been sold to private developers, who are conducting an urban renewal

Urban renewal

Urban renewal is a program of land redevelopment in areas of moderate to high density urban land use. Renewal has had both successes and failures. Its modern incarnation began in the late 19th century in developed nations and experienced an intense phase in the late 1940s – under the rubric of...

 with housing. The area will have about 1,200 apartments by 2012. It is part of the Fjord City

Fjord City

The Fjord City is a urban renewal project for the waterfront part of the center of Oslo, Norway. The first redevelopment was at Aker Brygge during the 1980s. Bjørvika and Tjuvholmen followed up during the 2000s, while the remaining parts of the Port of Oslo will be developed in the 2010s. The port...

 urban renewal program.

Geology

The geology of the former islet is of great interest. The German geologist Leopold von Buch visited the area in 1806-07, and he then discovered and described rhomb porphyry

Porphyry (geology)

Porphyry is a variety of igneous rock consisting of large-grained crystals, such as feldspar or quartz, dispersed in a fine-grained feldspathic matrix or groundmass. The larger crystals are called phenocrysts...

 for the first time.

The name

The first element is tjuv 'thief', the last element is the finite form of holme m 'islet

Islet

An islet is a very small island.- Types :As suggested by its origin as islette, an Old French diminutive of "isle", use of the term implies small size, but little attention is given to drawing an upper limit on its applicability....

'. (The islet was later turned into a peninsula because of post-glacial rebound

Post-glacial rebound

Post-glacial rebound is the rise of land masses that were depressed by the huge weight of ice sheets during the last glacial period, through a process known as isostasy...

.) Thieves were executed here in the 18th century. An older (Danish) spelling of the name was "Tyveholmen".