Alvar Aalto Church of Three Crosses plan. Imatra. Church of the Three Crosses in Vuoksenniska. What is the Church of the Three Crosses famous for?

Church of Three Crosses (Finland) - description, history, location. The exact address and website. Tourist reviews, photos and videos.

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The Church of Three Crosses owes its name to an unusual altar on which three crosses are installed, symbolizing the crosses of Golgotha. This Imatran temple was built more than half a century ago and remains active to this day.

The Church of Three Crosses is also interesting because its bell tower is made in the shape of an arrow. The tower with bells (there are three of them) is stretched high, like a slender rod. The architect who designed the temple achieved another unique feature in his work.

There are more than a hundred windows in the Church of Three Crosses (103 to be exact), and each has a unique shape and size! To fully appreciate this design move, it is better to examine the outside of the temple in the evening, when the lights are on in all its windows.

By the way, the temple stands in the middle pine forest, therefore, an excursion walk with a visit to the Church of Three Crosses will also be beneficial for health.

The Church of Three Crosses is open daily, admission for believers and tourists is free. In total, the temple can accommodate about 800 people.

But please note that services in the Church of Three Crosses are conducted exclusively in Finnish.

Address: Imatra, Ruokolahdentie, 27.

“Modern architecture does not mean the rigid use of new materials;
the main thing is the processing of materials for humans.”
Alvar Aalto

The small border town is well known to many St. Petersburg residents and especially to those who have repeatedly come here for shopping. The famous Imatrankoski waterfall in upper reaches the Vuoksi River, and the Royal, or rather Crown, Park (Kruununpuisto), located on its banks, and the impressive building of the Valtionhotelli hotel, built at the beginning of the twentieth century in this park. But not everyone has seen the masterpiece of Finnish modernism of the mid-twentieth century. It is located (the masterpiece) in the area of ​​​​the city of Imatra, which is called Vuoksenniska, at a distance of about 8-10 kilometers from the main attractions of Imatra, located in its center - the Imatrankoski area. It’s a long walk to Vuoksennisk; you need to take a bus or, in extreme cases, a bus. Those who stay in Imatra for several days can afford it, but “one-day travelers” rarely get there. There is no time.

By the way, this masterpiece was built by the famous Finnish architect of the twentieth century, designer, academician of architecture and, as he is called, “the father of modernism” Northern Europe Alvar Aalto. This is the Church of Three Crosses (Kolmen ristin kirkko). It is also called the Vuoksenniska Church. It is one of the finest examples of iconic Art Nouveau architecture in Finland and is one of the country's most internationally renowned Modernist churches. The Church of Three Crosses is considered the most original church project.

Aalto began designing a church for the city of Imatra in 1955 in connection with the master plan for the construction of the city created two years earlier. Aalto based the project on the starting point caused by the conflict between religious and practical tasks churches. He understood that the church in an industrial area has a special social task, that it should not stand out among other public buildings because of its monumentality.

Aalto solved this problem by connecting the church hall with rooms for clubs and practical work parish, creating a church hall consisting of three parts, which can be separated from each other if necessary. The northwestern part of the hall is the main sacred room. The other two can be separated from it by movable partitions for the simultaneous holding of various events. The partitions, moved by an electric motor, are 42 cm thick and completely soundproof. Their division into straight and curved parts was conceived by Aalto to solve acoustic problems. Each hall has about 300 seats. The church has only six entrances, so each individual part of the hall can be used autonomously without disturbing others. The lobby can be used as a chapel, from where you can go out onto the street, directly onto the territory of the cemetery, located in pine forest. There are also additional work spaces in the basement. IN total The church has more than 800 seats.

Lutheran worship involves three main objects in the church hall: the altar, the pulpit and the choir with an organ, where the choir is often located. The modern organ was built by Veikko Virtanen in 1990 and has three keyboards and 34 stops. All organs built by Virtanen are made by hand. Traditionally, the preacher's pulpit is located to the left of the altar when viewed from the hall. There is no altar painting in the church, but in its place there are three white wooden crosses, which gave the church its name. They symbolize Golgotha. The bishop who consecrated the church confirmed in his speech that the three crosses point to the crucified Christ and the two thieves.

The choir with an organ was placed on the right side of the altar, above the entrance. The acoustics of the interior were designed using a small model, using light beams to visualize the sound waves reflected by the pipes.

The main window wall of the church hall is on the southwest side of the building. The windows and lighting fixtures are located at the top, which creates a charming play of light and shadow in the church hall. The locations of the crosses and windows are designed so that during services the shadows of the crosses fall on the wall. Of the 103 window sashes, only two have the same shape.

Details interior decoration Alvar Aalto also designed it himself. It's simple and clear. The altar and solea are carved from Italian marble, the benches are from Karelian red pine. All textiles are linen. Church textiles are the work of artist Greta Skogster-Lehtinen.

The internal and external walls of the north-eastern facade, between which movable partitions are removed, differ in their design from the other walls, as does the 34-meter reinforced concrete bell tower, which in allegorical form represents an arrow pointing downwards. The bell tower is quite thin; three bells ring on it. Two of them were made in 1958, and the third was brought from Enso - modern Svetogorsk. With its decision, the sliding formwork technique was used for the first time in the construction of a bell tower in Finland. Aalto sought to make the white bell tower stand out among the factory chimneys.

White color dominates the color scheme of both the interior and exterior of the building. The facade is plastered and painted in White color bricks and concrete. The interior is completely white, not taking into account the stained glass window designed by Aalto himself, depicting the crown of thorns. The dark copper roof sloping down in the southeast corner also creates a striking contrast.

The church complex also includes a detached one-story house with a wavy roof on the southwestern side of the church; in the house there are apartments for the priest and parish servants. A white concrete wall connects the house with the church and borders the church garden, creating a quiet, cozy corner for the soul to rest.

Church of the Three Crosses (Finnish Kolmen Ristin kirkko), also known as the "Vuoksenniska Church", is one of the most outstanding examples of modernist church architecture in Europe. Built in the suburbs of a South Karelian city Imatra according to the project and under the supervision of a recognized master of the Scandinavian architectural school Alvar Aalto in 1958. The project executor was a local construction company"Isola" ( Finnish Isola). The church got its name from the three crosses installed in the altar.

Architecture

The interior of the church is divided into three consecutive parts, which can be separated from each other by sliding walls, which allows you to organize the space based on the needs of the parishioners. In total, the church can accommodate up to 800 people, the altar can accommodate up to 240. The altar is raised slightly above the floor level, its platform is made of marble. The prayer benches are made from valuable local wood. The uniqueness of the church is given by numerous (more than a hundred) windows, significantly different in shape and size. Aalto traditionally attached great importance to glazing and the placement of lighting devices: through careful observations of changes in lighting throughout the day and architectural and design experiments, he achieved a unique play of light and shadow. Attached to the church is a 34-meter bell tower in the shape of the tail of an arrow; there are three small bells on it.