Norwegian stave church thread

[Christian]

Norwegian stave church thread

This thread is originally from my the thread which i've created at ssc. I will present all 28 stave churches in Norway over a period of time. Hope you'll enjoy the thread!

History of the stave church

Norwegian Stave Churchs is one of the worlds most impressive churches, and the oldest wooden structures which is left on earth. The first stave churchs was built when the christianity came to Norway in the 10th and 11th century. Between 750 and 1 250 Stave churchs was built between the 10th century and the 15th century. Only 28 is left.

With the introduction of Christianity to Norway in the 10th and 11th centuries, churches of different sizes and forms were built. Some may have been made partly of stones and wood. Some wooden buildings had earth-bound posts, and some had their lower construction set on a frame. Even though the wooden churches had structural differences, they give a recognizable general impression. Formal differences may hide common features of their planning; while apparently similar buildings may turn out to have their structural elements organized differently. Certain basic principles must have been common to all types of building. Basic geometrical figures, numbers that were easy to work with, one or just a few length units and simple ratios, and perhaps proportions as well were among the theoretical aids all builders inherited. The specialist was the man who knew a particular type of building so well that he could systematize its elements in a slightly different way from what was the case in the buildings known hitherto, thus carrying developments a stage further.

List of churches in Norway:

Borgund stave church - L

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Borgund stave church

L

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Heddal stave church

Notodden - Norway

Heddal stave church is a triple nave stave church and is Norways largest stave churches. The legent say the church was built in three days by Finn which was a troll. This probably happend in the beginning of the 13th century. After the reformation the church was in a very poor condition, and a restoration took place during 1849 - 1851. However, because those who did it didn't have the necessary knowledge and skills, yet another restoration was necessary in 1950's. The interior is marked by the period after the Lutheran Reformation in 1536/37 and is for a great part a result of the restoration that took place in the 1950's.

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Fantoft stave church

Bergen, Norway

Fantoft stave church was originally built in Fortun, a village deep inside the Sogne fjord around year 1150. In the 19th century this church was threaten by demolishion as hundreds of other stave churchs around Norway. But the church was saved, and moved to Fantoft in Bergen in 1883. But in 1994 the church was totally destroyed after a well known satanists burned down the church. A new version was built, and finally completed in 1997. This version is supose to be exactly like the old version.

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