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Hallgrímskirkja: This is Reykjavik’s Iconic Church that Looks a Lot Like Glaciers of Iceland
Hallgrímskirkja Looks a Lot Like Glaciers of Iceland
Being the chief church in Iceland and among the tallest structures in this intrepidly beautiful country, the church of Hallgrímur is one of the first places that you should be seeing when you are in the Reykjavik City Center. Named after a famous Icelandic poet Hallgrímur Pétursson, this Lutheran parish church in Reykjavík is one of the city's best-known landmarks and everyone knows about it, even if you say “church”. And of course, for us, after seeing the famous Northern Lights a few hours before breakfast, our sleep-deprived group of friends knew that we wanted to offer some soulful thanksgiving to the heavens for being so generous the night before – we knew we had to visit Hallgrímskirkja.
Designed to look a lot like the trap rocks and glaciers of Iceland's landscape, the Expressionist architecture style of the Hallgrímskirkja took more than 4 decades to build. While we were walking outside, following our Google Maps, we could see the tip of the church from some of the streets we walked into! It was as if we were following the north star that’ll lead us to the holy place, if you know what I mean. It was quite evident that the Church was really really tall! Although it was a small city and we should have reached the place earlier, it took us a considerable amount of time because of the slippery streets still covered with old snow! Better to be safe then slipped-sorry, right? Snow only looks good if it’s new snow, yes? Good thing because the church opens pretty early: 9:00 A.M. be it winter (October – April) or summer (May – September). From the outside, the exterior of the Hallgrímskirkja has a minimalist yet impactful prominence.
In front of the church is a statue of Leifur Eiríksson, the first European to discover America. Did you know that records suggest that Leifur landed on the shores of the new world in the year 1,000 A.D., that's 500 years before Christopher Columbus? Pretty cool! And the statue seems to be in the direction of where America is! Whether my observation is correct or not, I am glad that a lot of people agree with me when they also decided to take tons of photos here. We couldn’t stop admiring the statue with the church as its backdrop, plus the sun lighting up the whole scene as if it’s a cinematic clip.
From the inside of the church, as soon as we entered this partially red-coated church door, most notably, I immediately noticed the gargantuan pipe organ. It was designed and constructed by the German organ builder Johannes Klais of Bonn, and it’s an impressive 15 meters with 5275 pipes. The organ is very Scandinavian looking, with its clean, minimalist, yet opulent looking features. The rest of the interior of Hallgrimskirkja holds the same – very simplistic yet classy. The architecture looks meticulously done but it’s not as intricate as the stereotypical olden European churches with all the full-blown wall to wall paintings. What’s unmissable though is the panorama view from the Hallgrímskirkja, via an elevator trip up the 74.5m - high tower. Unfortunately, it was closed during the time of our visit, so better luck next time for me, best of luck to you!
[ICELAND TRAVEL] Read the rest of Explore Iceland Travel Blog Series:
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