Lonely Planet - EARTH

Reykjavik’s most attention-seeking building is the immense concrete church Hallgrimskirkja, star of a thousand postcards and visible from 20km away. For an unmissable view of the city, we should take an elevator trip up the 75m-high tower. In contrast to the high drama outside, the church’s interior is puritanically plain. The most startling feature is the vast 5275-pipe organ, which has a strangely Weapon-like appearance. Between mid-June and mid-August we can hear this mighty beast in action three times per week at lunchtime/evening concerts. The church’s radical design caused huge controversy, and its architect, Guojon Samuelsson, never lived to see its completion – it took a painstaking 34 years to build. Those sweeping columns on either side of the tower represent volcanic basalt – a favourite motif of Icelandic nationalists. Hallgrimskirkja was named after the poet Reverend Hallgrimur Petursson, who wrote Iceland’s most popular hymn book. Gazing proudly into the distance outside is a statue of the Viking Leifur Eiriksson, the first European to stumble across America. It was a present from the USA on the 1000th anniversary of the Alþing.

Tags: Iceland

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