Petajavesi Old Church, Finland - Monuments

Monuments, Church

Petäjävesi Old Church, in Central Finland, was constructed of logs between 1763 and 1765. This Lutheran country church is a characteristic exemplar of an architectural tradition that is exclusive to eastern Scandinavia. It combines the Renaissance conception of a centrally designed church with older forms deriving from Gothic groined mausoleums. This is the official UNESCO criteria for engraving Petajavesi Old Church in Unesco´s World Heritage List in 1994. Petajavesi Old Church is an outstanding memorial of wood architecture. It represents a long Nordic custom of constructing of timbers. The cathedral is an extraordinary suggestion of how local carpenters erudite the style features of the church architecture which was ordinary elsewhere in Europe and applied them to their own skills of constructing of timbers.