The Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects project won an international architectural competition back in 2001. It is noteworthy that initially the participants were not tasked with developing the concept of the temple: the Alta administration was not going to build a "cult object", but was looking for a project of some landmark that could highlight a small northern town on architectural map of Norway. Alta's ambitions are not groundless: every year thousands of people come here to admire the northern lights, and one of the main local "attractions" is the Northern Lights Observatory.
However, for Danish architects, accustomed to thinking extremely rationally, the idea of creating a simple symbol against which tourists can take pictures seemed too simple. And when designing a building designed to emphasize the "proximity" of the town to a unique atmospheric phenomenon, Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects endowed it with several functions at once and, above all, one that personifies the connection with Heaven. In addition to the church itself and the parish services, there are also several auditoriums, an exhibition hall and administrative premises.
Outwardly, the church is a "ziggurat" crowned with a 47-meter spire in the form of a tightly twisted spiral. This unusual shape was chosen by the architects for its resemblance to the wave-like flashes of aurora borealis. And in order for the natural phenomenon and the man-made structure to complement each other even more harmoniously, the Danes tiled the facades of the building with metal panels that change their color depending on the light falling on them.
Daylight enters the building through vertical windows of different widths, visually splitting the main volume into uneven segments. In contrast to the external appearance of the temple, its interiors are made of materials traditional for Scandinavian design - natural wood and raw concrete.
A. M.
