Grundtvig Church, Copenhagen

“The most characteristic form was the whitewashed church with stepped gables on the tower and the porch, everything roofed with red tile. It is this single church in which its simple form, unfolded in a single east- west direction from the chancel to the tower, that between the cemetery’s old trees, with its powerful proportions and colours, became the most beautiful ornament of the Danish landscape. It became the mother of the Grundtvig church; this is not the first time in which a farmers son becomes a bishop”(Jensen and Jensen-Klint, 2009)

The leap between the farmer’s son to the bishop cannot be taken in one stride without abstraction. It is the abstraction in which makes the Grundtvig church so fascinating and far from everyday life.

The building is brought back into reality through shadows, through perspective. Jensen’s drawings are also contributing to effect as the thin india ink linings of individual bricks wrap the building in a ‘dream like’ manor. The sections however contrast this, making the building seem more tangible.

Segregated into three parts, the body, and below this the crypt, almost five million small yellow bricks were used, depicting the height of Danish masonry.