Description

The building stands in the midst of fields and meadows on the banks of the Pyhäjoki river. The site lies in the direct vicinity of a former mid-18th-century church that was destroyed in the mid-19th-century. At the end of the 20th century, the idea arose to rebuild the church in its original form but was discarded when it became impossible to find reliable historical documentation. As a result, the parish initiated a competition for a church of the 21st century built with the materials and techniques of the 18th century.

In the new church, the archaic enters into a close relationship with the modern. Four walls and four roof surfaces form a cube and a pyramid, entirely covered in a blackened exterior skin. The building is almost entirely made of wood. The structural construction is made of pine, the covering of aspen. Around 50,000 wood shingles were dipped in tar and individually nail-hung. The locks, bolts, hooks and nails have all been made of second-hand iron. The logs and slats inside and the wood shingles outside are all visible. From an ecological point of view, the building is flawless.

The plan of the building is a square 10 metres wide and 10 metres long surrounded by a 2 metre wide 12 metre­ long strip on all four sides. This simple device enables clergy and congregation to be separated: the sacristy lies in the south and east wing; the entrance and vestibule in the north and west wing. One enters the vestibule from one of the two ramps. In the corner of the north and west walls, ten narrow openings afford a view outwards across the fields. These openings span from floor to ceiling and allow light into the room.

From the opposite corner of the building, the route leads via the vestibule to the main space of the church. The church space itself has the dimensions of a cube. Although a cube has no particular directionality, the room exhibits an extreme centrality, due not only to the steep pyramidal roof but also to the lantern that crowns the building. The lantern’s supporting structure points downwards in a wedge shape to a spot on the centre of the floor. It would appear that this place is predestined for the altar. In actual fact, the table of the altar and the pews, their wood whitened with leach, have no permanent position and can be arranged differently as desired to seat the 100-person-strong congregation. During Finland’s long dark days, the room is lit by candlelight.

The four windows of the lantern are subdivided by mullions in the shape of a cross. Slightly to one side of the building, a series of bells hang in a supporting framework. The building is not otherwise marked or signified. Simple and angular with its fusion of wall and roof, the building is all the more compelling for its unrevealing nature: the church in Kärsämäki is enigmatic and monumental. It shares this quality with a number of other important buildings from the last one and a half centuries.

Architecture and Urbanism, no. 8/2006, pp. 18- | Arkkitehti, no. 4/2004, cover, pp. 38-, p. 87 | Bauwelt, no. 35/2005, pp. 26- | Kasvio, Maija, Mänttäri, Roy (Ed.): Arkkitehtuura Puusta, exhibition catalogue, Helsinki 2005, back cover, pp. 32-, pp. 42- | Techniques et Architecture, no. 476/2005, pp. 86-

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