Uppsala Cathedral
— — the tallest church in the north, in pale brick.
Not only on a wall.
“The seat of the Swedish archbishop, two slim brick spires rising 118.7 metres above the Fyris River — the tallest church in the Nordic countries. Construction took the better part of two centuries; the cathedral was consecrated in 1435. Inside it, Gustav Vasa is buried, and Carl Linnaeus, and Emanuel Swedenborg. The light through the high windows of the nave comes thin and northern most of the year, and the sound of the bells carries clear across the town. — from the studio
Uppsala Cathedral, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Uppsala Cathedral, Uppsala domkyrka, stands on the rise above the Fyris River in the centre of Uppsala, about 70 kilometres north of Stockholm. Construction of the present French-influenced Gothic building began around 1272 on the site of an earlier church, and the cathedral was consecrated in 1435 by Archbishop Olaus Laurentii. The twin west spires reach 118.7 metres above ground, making it the tallest church building in the Nordic countries. It has been the seat of the Archbishop of the Church of Sweden, the country's Lutheran national church, since the Reformation.
The cathedral is built of red brick on a granite plinth, in the French High Gothic mode brought north by the master mason Étienne de Bonneuil from Paris in 1287. The present twin spires are a Helgo Zettervall restoration of 1885-93 after a series of fires; the side chapels and the broad ambulatory behind the high altar preserve much of the medieval fabric. Inside, the gilt-bronze shrine of Saint Erik, Sweden's medieval patron king, sits behind the high altar, and the polychrome funerary chapel of Gustav Vasa holds the founder of modern Sweden and two of his queens.
The cathedral is open to visitors free of charge most days of the year, with services held daily and the main Sunday high mass at 11:00. The treasury museum in the north tower holds the medieval textiles, the funeral regalia of the Swedish kings, and the cope of Saint Birgitta, charging a small admission. Carl Linnaeus, the eighteenth-century botanist who classified the plant kingdom from his garden a few hundred metres away, is buried in the south aisle, as is the philosopher Emanuel Swedenborg. The carillon plays from the south spire on the quarter hour.