For an English speaker, this blog title has altogether too many “k’s” and “kj’s” in it, and the ratio of words to syllables is way out of whack, so let’s just call it Hallgrim’s Church, shall we?
It’s a national sanctuary, so says its website, and I believe it. It’s also reportedly a Lutheran parish church, but it doesn’t look like any Lutheran churches in Kanada that I’ve seen. (Sorry, those k’s are sort of katching.) Any similarities, of course, would be surprising: it was designed by the State Architect. Does Canada even have a position like that?
Not having done any homework for this on-my-own leg of my Iceland trip, I wasn’t at the church at 5 AM for a photo without tourists posing in front of it. I sort of stumbled across it, because it’s tough to miss if you’re oot and aboot at all.
The inside is spectacular. These are so worth clicking on.
To me, the exterior looks like a giant pipe organ, but apparently it’s meant to evoke Iceland’s landscape, which I have not yet seen. I tried to get a shot of the front, over the heads of the tourists, but it was chopped-off looking. Flat. Boring. Bleh.
So I circumnavigated the building, catching a restoration crew in action at the back, and looking for interesting angles. And no people.
And that’s why/how I found not just another item for my facial pareidolia collection, but one that reminded me of three characters:
- Ganesha, the Hindu elephant deity
- A fithp, one of the elephant-like alien invaders from Footfall (Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle)
- Horton, from the mind of Dr. Seuss
And all of them seem to be crying.
Finally, I wonder whether this might be the start of a new collection: inadvertent elephants. Stay tuned.
Your imagination is soaring!
Judith – Thanks! The unexpected is a lot of fun.
I think there was a church in Copenhagen that looked from the outside like a pile of bricks, but turned out (perhaps the wrong phrasing there) from the inside to be soaringly beautiful and inspiring. Perhaps the Scandinavians have managed to capture the intent of the classic cathedrals without being bound to their architecture.
Jim T
Jim T – Maybe. It’s certainly beautiful inside – albeit an austere beauty.