To Save Norway’s Stave Churches, Conservators Had to Relearn a Lost Art - The iconic wooden buildings require ancient weatherproofing technology.


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TO STEP INTO ONE OF Scandinavia’s surviving stave churches is to enter the past. Shadows shift and tell stories in the elaborate carvings of intertwined beasts that are hallmarks of the churches’ unique architecture. Sounds reverberate off the timber as if traveling across centuries. The air feels dense with the tang of hewn wood, peat smoke, and pine tar.

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As early as the 11th century, builders began erecting these churches all over the region. Much of Europe was raising massive cathedrals of stone during this period, but the Scandinavians knew wood best. While each house of worship was unique, all of them had staves, or load-bearing corner posts joined to vertical wall planks with a tongue-and-groove method.

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A stave church on Washington Island in northeastern Wisconsin gets sprayed with a commercial protectant every few years. The allure of Woodguard is not lost on Egenberg and other Norwegian conservators—but neither is their responsibility, even if the government didn’t require traditional methods be used. “We know that, from a purely technical perspective, modern materials probably would prove superior. But then the stave churches would lose their authentic appearance and smoky smell,”




https://www.atlasobscura.com/article...r-conservation