'Temppeliaukio' The Rock Church, Helsinki

LastSeptember my wife had to go to a conference to Helsinki, Finland, so I decidedto tag along and see what Helsinki is all about.

On arrivingI quickly noticed that much of the buildings and stone walls in Helsinki aremade of a lovely pink granite. If you had a geologist to hand he wouldtell you the reason for this is because Helsinki sits on an indented Pegmatitic(pink) granite peninsula that makes up part of the Baltic shield. I did nothave a geologist to hand, but walking in some of the many green areas inHelsinki, large outcrops of this rock were poking out of the ground everywhere I looked.

Most of the buildings built with this stone are highlymanicured and well dressed. The central train station and the parliamentbuildings are fine examples of this. One building that I was very muchtaken by was a place called The Temppeliaukio Church or The Rock Church. 

Exterior, dry stacked wall of the rock church.

A stark contrast to the well dressed pink granite buildingsaround Helsinki, the rock church is rugged and unmanicured.

360º view of the inside

Temppeliaukio Church is a Lutheran church in the Töölöneighborhood of Helsinki. The project comes from an architectural competitionwon by the architect brothers Timo and Tuomo Suomalainen in 1961. The design oftheir project was recognized by the jury as “completely original” andrespectful of the competition goal to “include the organization plan to keep asmuch of the giant granite outcrop that makes up Temppeliaukio Square intact.”

Their original solution to saving the square was to have theinterior of the church site excavated and built into the rock. It dawnedintuitively on the Suomalainen brothers when they visited the building sitethat in order to save the character of place, the rock itself had to be understoodas a church and everything built at the site should be adjusted to accompanythe character of the rock.

Before the Suomalainen brothers started designing the TemppeliaukioChurch, they had done planning work for the Ministry of Defence and thus hadbecome familiar with rock building.

The brothers' aim was to locate the floor of the sanctuaryat the level of the widest and highest street, Fredrikinkatu Street, which endsat the square. This required the church hall to be cut into thebedrock. As a result this leads the visitor to the sanctuary without the needto climb stairs, simultaneously offering a friendly rather than overbearingexperience of the church space.

The Rock church looking down at Temppeliaukio Square. Photo by MKFI via Wikipedia 

The seemliness transition of the rock walls from inside to outside. 

The 24m diameter roof is made up of a copperplate-covered dome, using a impressive 13.6 miles (22 km) of copper plate strips. The dome is connected to the natural rock wall by 180 window panes thatlet in natural light. Due to the varying height of the rock wall, each glasspart of the roof is different in size.

As a result of the natural slope of the bedrock walls, the glass panes above the altar area are bigger, allowing the altar to become more illuminated compared to the other parts of the sanctuary 

13.6 miles (22 km) of copper plate strips covered the inside of the dome.

The alter

The colour scheme of the interior was based on the  red, purple and grey shades of granite. The metals were also carefully selected to match the colours of the stone. Steel, made bluish by hammering, non-oxidised copper for the entrance doors as well as for the front facing of the gallery and interior of the dome, concrete left in its raw state.

The brothers' vision was for the church to have a strong connection with nature and its surroundings, and they wanted the natural rough quarried stone to have a leading role in creating the atmosphere inside the sanctuary. To achieve this the bedrock walls were left rough, with all drill markings from the quarrying visible, while the resulting quarried rock was stacked on top to create the rest of the walls that continue out and over the park surface.

Drill marks leftover from  quarrying

Aside from the aesthetic and structural benefits, an additional benefit of the solid rough walls is its acoustic qualities, and with a seating capacity for 940, it is no wonder that the church is also a popular concert venue.    

The glistening Non-oxidised copper entrance doors to the church. 

Located right in the heart of Helsinki, The Temppeliaukio church is one of the most popular tourist attractions in the city, with half a million people visiting it annually. Lots more great photos of the church can be seen here. If you would like to see more photos of various stonework I came across on my trip to Helsinki you can check out my flickr album.

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Drystone walling on the foot of The Rock of Cashel

On Monday a few of the members of the association met up at the foot of The Rock of Cashel to promote both the DSWA of Ireland and Fellow association member  Tom Pollard's Fly a flag for Ireland campaign, for a segment to be shown on an RTE documentary "How to be Irish"  

Tom's Fly a flag for Ireland campaign. Please show your support by clicking on the link and 'like' the facebook page  

Tom's Fly a flag for Ireland campaign is looking to put some colour, positivity and pride back in our Country. Showing our elected representatives and European neighbours that we are a proud and colourful independent nation. Tom is asking for everyone who calls Ireland their home to show their pride for this amazing country and decorate early for St. Patrick's Day. We decorate early for Christmas Day and Halloween, so why not St. Patrick's Day? asks Tom. 

And what better way of showing our pride and Irishness than building a traditional drystone wall in the epic backdrop of one of our most visited national monuments?

The Rock of Cashel

For those of you unfamiliar with The Rock of Cashel here is a brief description from megalithicireland.com
The Rock of Cashel, banded with limestone outcrops, rises 200 feet above the surrounding plain. AKA Cashel of the Kings or Patrick's Rock (Irish: Carraig Phádraig), it is asscociated in legend with St Patrick, but the site was originally the seat of the Kings of Munster. The site was donated to the church in 1101 by Muirchertach O Briain, King of Munster. The buildings we see today date from the 12th century, the oldest and also the tallest being the 28 metre ( 98 feet ) high round tower. The other building at Cashel are influenced by Hiberno-Romanesque or Germanic architecture.
Follow the link above to read more about The Rock of Cashel.

There is something very special about repairing old drystone walls, each stone rich in lichen and moss, once again sitting proud in the wall where it came from. Looking up at the masterful craftsmanship of the stone structure that makes up the Rock of Cashel not only inspires you to do quality work, it also fills you with a sense of responsibility to ensure that these skills are kept alive and passed on, so that future generations will have the knowledge and the will to keep this integral part of our heritage and countryside intact.    

For more photos and information about our Dry Stone Wall Association of Ireland meetup at Cashel check out my blog post on the DSWAI site here

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Jeffrey Bale's Mosaic Pilgrimage, a labour of love, a labour of pebbles!

Lotus Medallion Patio in San Francisco

Many of youmay already be familiar with the work of Jeffery Bale, but for those of you whoaren’t, I feel the need to share his work with you. I am a big fan of mosaics.One of my favourite city to visit is Barcelona, mainly because of all the wonderfulmosaics of Gaudi that decorate much of the city. I have even ventured to make afew mosaics myself upon occasion (see my blog post on making mosaics) but nothing as large, detailed or impressive as the mosaics of Jeffery.

Jeffery at work

For JefferyBale, gardens and stones are not just his passion and his livelihood, they are instilled in his blood, passed on through a family history of gardeners andgeologists. Quite possibly onsome kind of subconscious level, these family genetics helped pave the way forhis future carer. Jeffery likes to think so anyway. It would also explain whyhe developed a passion for these traits at a very young age.

Following his passion for gardening, Jeffery graduated with adegree in Landscape Architecture from the University of Oregon in 1981, butafter a short stint working a desk job designing for a landscaping firm, Jefferyfelt the need to get his hands dirty.

He spent the next few years experimenting in friends gardens and gaining onsite experience, before in 1987 deciding to set out on a sort of mosaicpilgrimage, to go and see the gardens of the Alhambra in Granada and ParqueGuell in Barcelona as the images of these places had mesmerized him back incollege, and stayed with him long after.

Round step stone with marbles, Indonesian Turquoise, Red Montana Rainbow, Black Mexican Beach and center beach stone

Jeffery began his ‘mosaic pilgrimage’ travelling to Madrid in Spain  and then on to Lisbon, Portugal, and like any good pilgrimage, it didn’t take him long tohave an epiphany.  Here, standing in a city encrusted in mosaics made fromsmall hand split blocks of white limestone and black basalt,  every plazaand sidewalk had a different design, everywhere he went he was looking at marvellousdecorative pavements, something he had never seen back home. So this was it. Jeffery Bale from of Eugene, Oregon, USA felt destined to return home to Americato replace its concrete pavements with stones and jewels.

So when he returned home he set to work on a patio for his newly purchased home in N.E. Portland.  His design was inspired afterreading the ‘Tao of Physics’ by Fritjof Capra.  Not really knowing themethods of construction in Spain, he developed his own technique, setting thepebbles in a bed of wet mortar.

From here Jeffery honed his mosaicing skills by creatingmosaics whenever the opportunity arose, mainly making mosaics for friends andfamily.  It wasn’t until a few yearslater that he convinced a client in Northwest Portland to let him build apebble mosaic patio for him, along with a mosaic path and parking strippavements.  The patio is a 12 by 18 foot Persian Carpet. This patio wouldlater be photographed by Alan Mandell and Jerry Harpur of England, being published several times, and even making the cover of Landscape ArchitectureMagazine in August of 2005.

The Persian Carpet

 Suddenly Jeffery was not just a garden designer anymore, he was bonafide pebble mosaic artist as well, meaning that he could frequently incorporate these lovelymosaics into many of his projects.

Parking Strip mosaic Mother giving birth with the moon in her hair

Looking at one of Jeffery’s mosaic creation, one can beginto appreciate the time and effort that must have been put in to create it. Eachstone has been carefully placed by colour, shape and size to fit into these wonderfulshapes and patterns. But what one might easily overlook is that every single stonein each mosaic has not only been laid by Jeffery, they have also been painstakingly picked by him. 

Jeffery carefully selecting stones in a big heap of Montana Rainbow Pebble Mix 

 "I’ve spent a fairamount of my adult life gathering the materials needed to build thesemosaics.  Each pebble is selected for shape and sorted by color, whetherbeach combing or sitting on piles of rainbow rock in a stone yard.  I haveto look at every single one to discern whether it will fit amongst thethousands of it’s brethren."  Jeffery Bale 

'Council Ring’ fire pit. Most of the stone for this project was gathered from the beach below the property, giving it a strong connection to it’s setting.

Cyphers and Constellations in Love with a Woman, inspired by the paintings of Joan Miro 

One of my personal favorite pieces by Jeffery is actually the footpath below. It makes up part of a number of mosaics around one of his clients houses. The group of mosaics are inspired by the paintings of Spanish painter Joan Miro (including the mosaic 'Mother giving birth with the moon in her hair')

Molalla stone footpath with another mosaic inspired by Miro's work 

I love the simplicity of the footpath. The skilfully arranged Molalla flagstones are cut and tightly fitted together, with the gaps filled with pebble mosaic which connects to the other Miro inspired mosaics in the garden.  Jeff also cleverly incorporated gaps between the rectangle pads to allow for permeability in the pavement, and for the garden to flow through the work in planted lines.

 'The River of Life'

The ‘mosaicpilgrimage’ that Jeffery set out on back in 1987, is in fact one that hecontinues throughout his career. When ever the opportunity arises Jeffery setsoff to get inspired by the different cultures and mosaics from around theworld. 

Looking through his portfolio of work you can see much of what he hastaken back home with him from socking in these different cultures.

The Moroccan inspired Sunken Garden

Jeffery has a wonderful blog that I recommend checking out.In his blog Jeffery documents his ‘mosaic pilgrimage’ sharing many of the wonderful mosaicsites, architecture, culture and mind blowing colours from around the world. http://jeffreygardens.blogspot.com

Mosaic inspiration from Jeffery's blog

Moroccan inspired fire pit. The pit is built up of bands of pebble mosaic using black and gold Mexican beach pebbles, which are then capped with a band of eight pointed stars matching the other mosaics in the garden.  

Islamic Geometry in a small patio in one of Jeffery's gardens in Portland

Brazilian Carnival inspired mosaic parking strip

Lotus Step Stone Path.The lotus blossoms, alluding to a Buddhist Jataka Tale about Sidhartha Gautama being born, and having lotus blossoms spring from his footprints.

Full Moon Spiral Mosaic

There is much more amazing work by Jeffery that I was hoping to share with you, but as this post is starting to get quite long I will leave it at that. To see more information about Jeffery and more photos of his work check out his website http://www.jeffreygardens.com.

For a more complete and comprehensive look at Jeffery's work, I highly recommend getting a copy of his self-published book 'The Gardens of Jeffery Bale' This book along with other publications by Jeffery can be ordered online through the following link Books by Jeffery Bale

And don't forget to check out his wonderful blog http://jeffreygardens.blogspot.com.

Thanks to Jeffery Bale for his kind permission for the use of the photos and writings from his website and blog for this post. 

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Newgrange and the winter solstice.

One of the exterior walls of Newgrange

As the winter solstice is coming up, I thought it would be an appropriate time to talk about one of Ireland's oldest and most impressive stone structures.
I am talking of course about Newgrange in County Meath. (County Meath  is well known as Ireland’s Heritage Capital)
According to the most reliable Carbon 14 dates available from archaeology, it is believed that Newgrange (or Sí an Bhrú as it is know in Irish) was constructed over 5,000 years ago, around 3200BC. This makes it more than 600 years older than the Giza Pyramids in Egypt, and 1,000 years more ancient than Stonehenge in the UK. It was built during the Neolithic or New Stone Age by a farming community that prospered on the rich lands of the Boyne Valley. Knowth and Dowth are similar mounds nearby that together with Newgrange have been designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.

Archaeologists classified Newgrange as a passage tomb, however it is now recognised to be much more than a passage tomb. Ancient Temple is a more fitting classification, a place of astrological, spiritual, religious and ceremonial importance, much as present day cathedrals are places of prestige and worship where dignitaries may be laid to rest. The Mound or Cairn at Newgrange is about 300 feet in diameter covering an area of over one acre, and has 97 Kerbstones at the base of the cairn, some of which are richly decorated with megalithic art. The 19 metre long inner passage leads to a cruciform chamber with a corbelled roof. The amount of time and labour invested in construction of Newgrange suggests a well-organised society with specialised groups responsible for different aspects of construction. 

 

Newgrange through one of the native Hawthorn hedges that surround the site



The entrance into Newgrange with the famous entrance stone, kerbstone 1

To gain entry to the tomb, it would have been necessary to climb over the highly decorated kerb stone and then slide the heavy stone door that closed the entrance to the passage (now visible bolted to the right of the entrance.)

Newgrange is an incredibly popular tourist attraction, and is a particularly popular place to visit at this time of the year because of its alignment with the winter solstice.

Immediately above the entrance to the passage is a small opening known as a roof-box, which is in alignment with the Sun at the winter solstice and allows the Suns rays to penetrate the tomb and light up the central chamber during this period (December 19th to 23rd).

 

Short National Geographic Video about Newgrange



The inner passage of Newgrange (image from Wikipedia)



Looking down the inner passage (photo from Boyne Valley Tours)

Inside the chamber of Newgrange (photo by OPW)

Megalithic art carved on the roof stone of the east recess off the main chamber inside the mound at Newgrange.  (photo from Boyne Valley Tours)

Building Newgrange

The white quartz facade of Newgrange

As a stonemason what I find most fascinating about Newgrange is its construction.
Many of these stone slabs, 550 in number, were collected from where they had been lying in the landscape. Because many of the stones were found to be weathered, it is believed they were not quarried, so there would have been a huge logistical task in finding suitable boulders dotted throughout the landscape.


Some of the large kerbstones at the rear of the structure

Great effort and time was needed for the planning, gathering of materials and construction of these monuments. This is clearly evident from the vast distances the builders travelled to acquire the particular stone types. The majority of structural stones in the Boyne Valley tombs are greywacke. This stone type was quarried in the Clogherhead area, north of Drogheda, and shipped along sea and river, then finally log-rolled from a docking point on the Boyne up to the construction area at Newgrange.

The white quartz facade of Newgrange

The facade at Newgrange consists of white quartz, which has its origins in the Wicklow Mountains to the South of the site.
The interspersed granite boulders were collected from the North shore of Dundalk Bay. The long distances involved suggest a similar sea-faring route may have been a more practical choice than travelling across land. The majority of the cairn consists of a river rolled stone acquired from the banks and terraces of the river Boyne around 1km below the monument. It is estimated that some 200,000 tonnes of material are present in the cairn. It is not known for certain the exact building practices used by this Neolithic Culture. Archaeologists have suggested various theories. It is most likely that log-rolling, the erection of wooden scaffolding and earthen ramps were employed to shift the large boulders.
Michael J. O'Kelly, who excavated Newgrange, felt that the workforce involved in building Newgrange would have been divided up into about six gangs or teams, each with its own set of tasks and area of expertise.

Kerbstone 52 on the North-western side of the mound

There is no doubt that the people in charge of Newgrange's construction, from the master builder and architect down to the team foremen, were "intelligent and experienced", according to O'Kelly.

The corbelled roof  from inside the main chamber of Newgrange (photo from Boyne Valley Tours)

The passage and chamber orthostats (large stones set upright) would have been put in place before construction of the cairn itself actually began, and it is probable the kerb would have been marked out at this stage too. The addition of grooves onto the top surface of the passage roof stones shows that the builders were aware of the need to redirect water seepage from the cairn, and therefore keep the passage water-proofed.
The corbelled vault of the chamber is one of the finest of its kind in Western Europe today, standing intact without conservation or repair of any kind exactly as it did when first erected 5000 years ago. All of the orthostats (standing stones) in the chamber are used to support the corbelled roof. Some have leaned inwards over time due to the weight of the cairn material pressing down on the chamber. The tomb builders filled the gaps between the roof stones in the passage with sea sand and burned soil to keep the passage dry. The corbelled roof was constructed of horizontally laid courses of large slabs, each course partly resting on the one below it and partly oversailing it so that with each course the diameter of the roof diminished, until finally the vault was closed by a single capstone six metres above the floor. The outer ends of the corbels were buried in the cairn and were tilted slightly downward; this served to throw off the rainwater percolating through the cairn. It was a most effective weather-proofing and kept the chamber dry even in prolonged bad weather except in a few spots, now cured.

It is known that the white quartz, which was found on the ground in front of Newgrange during excavations, was not originally placed there by the builders. Some of the kerbstones which had fallen forward some time after the construction of the monument were found to be directly in contact with the subsoil, with no quartz beneath them. The reconstructed façade of Newgrange is controversial - many people feel that it is only an educated guess as to what the original tomb looked like. The reconstruction also cut away some of the mound so that visitors can walk around the carved kerbstone, rather than having to climb over it.
Professor Frank Mitchell suggested that the monument could have been built within a space of five years, basing his estimation upon the likely number of local inhabitants during the Neolithic and the amount of time they would have devoted to building it rather than farming. This estimate was however criticised by M.J. O’Kelly and his archaeological team, who believed that it would have taken thirty years to build at the very least.

Stonehenge buit 1000 years after Newgrang
e (photo by Gareth Wiscombe)

In the later centuries following the initial construction and use of the passage toumb at Newgrange, ritual practices changed but the site remained an important ritual focus. As elsewhere in Ireland and Britain, rituals shifted from the enclosed spaces of megalithic tombs to large open air enclosures called ‘henges’. Henges derived their name from the ultimate henge – Stonehenge – but were more typically formed from circular earthen banks, circles of pits, circles of upright timbers, or circles of upright stones (without the famous horizontal lintels that Stonehenge possesses.)   

The entrance to Newgrange as it looked when it was redescovered

The passage tomb was rediscovered in 1699 when material was being taken for a road building project, a local landowner, Charles Campbell, ordered some of his farm labourers to dig up a part of Newgrange, which then had the appearance of a large mound of earth, so that he could collect stone from within it. The labourers soon discovered the entrance to the tomb within the mound.

I must admit, I have been living in Dublin for over two years now, and I have only recently made the 45minute trip by car to Newgrange. I would definitely recommended making the trip if you are in the area, or even just visiting Dublin.

Admission to the chamber of Newgrange for the Winter Solstice sunrise is by lottery. Application forms are available at the reception desk in the Brú na Bóinne Visitor Centre, where there is a special post box for completed application forms. There were 31,531 applications submitted for the 2011 Winter Solstice Draw. Application forms are now available for the 2012 Solstice Lottery Draw which will take place on September 28th 2012.

For more information on tours check out http://www.boynevalleytours.com/
For more informtion on Newgrange check out http://www.newgrange.com/

Thanks to Michael Fox from Boyne Vally Tours for the use of the photos from his website for this post.

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