Description

The former fortress town of Kongsvinger lies in southeastern Norway, close to the border with Sweden. The municipality numbers nearly 18,000 inhabitants and – because the country is largely Protestant – only a very small Catholic following of around 200 persons, mostly immigrants from the Philippines, Vietnam or Poland. Accordingly, the church on the outskirts of Kongsvinger had to be built to a modest budget. However, the building makes a virtue out of its limited resources. Only on two occasions does the church employ what one could loosely term precious materials: thin external light brown sandstone panels for the external cladding and white marble panels for the altar.

Arranged with its long sides in an east-west orientation and its narrow sides running north-south, the low, elongated building exhibits refined 4:1 proportions. Through the way the church sits in its urban surroundings and announces its presence through the sign of the cross, one enters the building from the centre of the west side through four open portals with sturdy columns. The building is divided into three parts. One hall for the church service and one hall for the parish, both approximately equal in size, stand either side of an open colonnaded courtyard in the form of a square.

This very simple and clear typology, with regard to its volume, function and the relationship of its parts, is not uncommon in northern Europe. The effect is heightened in Kongsvinger by axial symmetry, but one can find this kind of basic structure – here two examples, which in all other respects are quite different – in the Centrumkyrka in Bjuv from 1970, designed by Bengt Blasberg and Henrik Jais-Nielsen or the Mortensrud Church in Oslo, completed in 2002 and designed by Jan Olav Jensen and Børre Skodvin.

The St Clara Church has a large central nave with narrow side aisles on either side, to the west a niche for the baptistry and font, to the east a niche for the confessional box and a statue of the Virgin Mary. The processional route from the entrance wall to the altar wall measures 15.7 metres, from side wall to side wall 12.45 metres. Compared with the space for the priests, the congregation is given a stronger emphasis. Sixteen columns, each made of 20 centimetre thick laminated pine, surround the oak pews for the congregation. The roof over the 112 seats is raised to form a lantern-like skylight with clear perimeter clerestory glazing.

The building has a solid character with a concrete floor and light brown plastered walls. The rural character of the interior gives the impression that the building has been there for a long time. It is not without reason­ that some have termed St Clara Church a “miniature basilica”.

The Architectural Review, no. 3/2003, pp. 62- | Byggekunst, no. 8/2001, pp. 20- | Detail, no. 9/2004, pp. 966-, p. 1080

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Originally published in: Rudolf Stegers, Sacred Buildings: A Design Manual, Birkhäuser, 2008.