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Copenhagen Churches

Photography & text from an Architectural pilgrimage to 3 unique churches in Copenhagen, Denmark 

Introduction:

I’m an agnostic. 
I’ve never visited a church that doesn’t have a TripAdvisor review. 

Yet, I’m still curious of churches - their architectural and often Volumatic grandness in a city commands attention, they are adored and are often quite beautiful. What makes them so admired, celebrated, and often regarded as the pinnacle of architectural design? 

I’m thankful to have visited Copenhagen on a few occasions. Having  exhausted the architectural interest in the city centre, I took to Instagram for recommendations of places I should visit in the wider Copenhagen area. As my Instagram following consists largely of architects, I got some great suggestions with three contenders emerging. So, a day bus ticket was bought, and an architectural pilgrimage had begun.

 

Grundtvig’s Kirk

Vilhelm Jensen Klint & Kaare Klint, 1940

I arrived just before 10am, burrowing myself in the large arched entranceway in an effort to shelter from harrowing winds. At 10, the doors swung open, and the sound of the wind was sharply replaced by the organ’s melody. 

A private concert, an unexpected but welcomed treat. I regretted wearing such hard soled shoes. I walked slowly, gently softening my steps on the buff brick floor. Following the central aisle, like a solo procession I made my way towards the apse, illuminated by the soft morning light.

I absorbed the dramatic volume of the space: its materiality, vaulted ceiling, and elongated pillars are a celebration of brick. Their subtle warmness complemented by flickering candlelight chandeliers, a subtlety hard to achieve in such a grand space. There was a certain elegance to it, its restrained materiality, warmth, slender windows, cascading light. How soft the space felt, even without people. I imagined what it would feel like with people singing to the hymns the organ played. How I would have sung, if I knew the words. 

I found a seat and looked back at the organ as it played its last note. Now it’s silent. More tourists enter with muffled gasps, absorbing a prescribed solitude and silence this space whispers.

 

 

Bagsværd Kirke

Jørn Utzon, 1976

It’s interesting visiting a church whose elegant sectional drawing has been repeatedly displayed in architectural history, theory, and structural lessons. The reality of such a glowing review is often hard to live up to. At first glance of the exterior I was underwhelmed. It reminded me more of a stark 60’s shopping centre than the architectural masterpiece I was promised.

I soon realised that I should have paid more attention in all these prior architectural lessons. I couldn’t find the entrance. So, after repeatedly pushing on a few locked doors I presumed to be the entrance, I gave up. Confused, and not wanting my 50min bus ride to be in vain, I started photographing the outside before another architect, I assume, emerged...
Ah ha! A way in. 

I passed through an unassuming door adjacent to a small portico opening and hidden behind a wall. Pushed open a large, whitewashed timber door, top light washed the corridor walls painted in cool white onto the glossy white tile floor. I was taken aback by how bright and almost clinical it feel’s, even on a typical overcast Danish day. I followed a small stream of tourists (other architects) and was soon confronted with what I had seen on so many times before. 

Somehow Uzton has formed this effortlessly light concrete ribbon-esque roof whose subtle curves soften the light, and the somewhat austere feeling of the shuttered concrete whose rough texture is only picked by the slightest of shadows. It is otherwise a modest space in size. As I sat on one of the beech pews lining the room below a pristine organ, I started to understand how religion can evoke a higher meaning in architecture, how space is symbolic and why so many architects recommended I visit. I’m drawn to the silence, now more than the light. I started contemplating how my feelings have changed since I’ve entered. Now, the bright white doesn’t feel clinical, it feels heavenly.

 

 

Islev Kirke

Inger & Johannes Exner, 1970

Off a busy main road, pushed back from the street the fortress-like volume of Islev Kirke appears through narrow birch trees. Its blank burnt brick façade made me wonder what kind of building I was about to walk into. I’m welcomed by a kind lady who opens the church for me. It’s her favourite when like this, with the lights off. 

It’s unsurprisingly dark. Almost tomb like. The suspended roof floats above the burnt brick windowless walls, allowing small slithers of light to trickle down. I sat in the corner under a soft ray of light, waiting patiently for my eyes to adjust. 

I started to notice the details: how the solid form of the building plays with the light, a soft curve of the apse smooths a subtle stream for light to flow. How contrast is key - the darkness creating moments for the light to subtly highlight the heavens and the apse, alluding to their higher importance.

As my eyes slowly start to adjust the warmth of the red in the brick emerges, softening solidity of the space. Sitting in silence I looked upwards at the celebrated timber roof resting lightly on the church’s fortress like walls. I followed the sun’s path through a narrow band of light, visible even on the dimmest of days. I saw how time could pass slowly in this space, the peace of it. Even in the darkness, warmth emerges. 

Conclusion

I wonder if I should compare a common thread between the three churches. Maybe it’s the architectural simplicity in palette with each building being a masterclass in the celebration of materiality using brick or concrete. Maybe it’s the silence I felt in each place: how it felt somehow wrong to be behind a camera because the eye captures it better. Maybe it’s the use of light, how each space felt symbolic in an intrinsically different way. Maybe it’s how these relatively “modern” churches live up to and hold their own against the grandeur and significance of historic churches with the spiritual feelings these spaces evoke not only reserved for those with faith.
 

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