VIKING LOCATIONS

Hallgrímskirkja

The Church That Remembers

It does not look like a church. It looks like something that grew out of the earth and

decided to become a building

Built 1945 — 1986 · Reykjavik, Iceland

But the architect

understood something important that a building in Iceland needs to look like it belongs to

the landscape, not like it was imported from somewhere else.

“It feels old. Impossibly old. As if Reykjavik grew up around it.”

GUDJÓN SAMÚELSSON — THE MAN WHO LISTENED TO LAVA

The architect was Gudjón Samúelsson. State Architect of Iceland for thirty years. A man who

spent his career asking one question — what does Icelandic architecture look like when it

grows from Icelandic ground?

His answer was basalt. The hexagonal columns of volcanic rock that form along Iceland’s

coastlines when lava cools slowly Reynisfjara, Svartifoss, the Giant’s Causeway across the

water in Ireland. Nature’s own architecture. Perfectly geometric. Entirely organic.

Hallgrímskirkja’s facade is those columns — abstracted, scaled up, rendered in concrete that

catches the grey northern light and holds it differently at every hour of the day.

Samúelsson designed it in 1937. He died in 1950, long before the tower was finished. He

never saw it complete.

“He designed it in 1937. He never saw it complete
Some things are built for the future”

THE MAN WHO STANDS OUTSIDE

Before you reach the church door, you pass him. He faces west. Always west.

Leif Erikson son of Erik the Red, the Norse explorer who reached North America five

hundred years before Columbus stands on his plinth with one hand raised, pointing at

something beyond the horizon.

The statue was a gift from the United States to Iceland in 1930, presented on the

thousand-year anniversary of the Alflingi the Icelandic parliament, one of the oldest

democratic institutions in the world.

It stands in front of a church built to resemble volcanic rock, in the capital of the island where

the sagas were written down, pointing west toward the continent Leif’s people found and then

forgot. There is no better place in the world to understand what the Norse world was and what it

left behind.

“There is no better place in the world to understand
what the Norse world left behind”

Ari comes from this place. Not metaphorically literally. The landscape that shaped his face,

his stillness, his way of standing in cold water as if it costs him nothing this is where that

comes from.

When Ari stands in front of Hallgrímskirkja, he is not a tourist. He is someone coming home to

a building that was always in the background.

ARI SPEAKS

HALLGRÍMSKIRKJA — THE FACTS

HEIGHT

73 metres — tallest church in Iceland, sixth tallest structure in the country

CONSTRUCTION

Designed 1937 by Gu›jón Samúelsson. Built 1945—1986. 41 years.

ARCHITECT’S INSPIRATION

Svartifoss waterfall and Iceland’s basalt column lava formations

THE ORGAN

5275 pipes. One of the largest organs in the world. Installed 1992.

THE VIEW

Elevator to the tower — 360° view of Reykjavik and surrounding mountains

LEIF ERIKSON STATUE

Gift from USA to Iceland, 1930. Sculptor: Alexander Stirling Calder.

NAMED AFTER

Hallgrímur Pétursson — Icelandic poet and clergyman, 1614—1674

Hallgrímskirkja sits at the top of Skólavördustígur — the main street that leads up from the old

harbour. You can see the tower from almost anywhere in the city centre. Walk toward it. You

cannot get lost.

The church is open daily. The tower elevator costs a small fee but the view is worth it

especially on a clear day when you can see Snæfellsjökull glacier on the horizon.

Go early morning or late evening when the light is low and northern and the concrete holds the

colour of the sky. That is when it looks most like what it is a building that grew from volcanic

ground and pointed itself at heaven.