Hallgrimskirkja dominates the skyline of Reykjavik, Iceland. It’s the first thing you see as you head into the city from the airport. For many years it was the tallest building in the entire country. It’s design mimics the basalt columns found across the geology of Iceland. This Lutheran church is essentially Icelandic.

Hallgrimskirkja is the largest church in Iceland. It was designed in 1945 but it was not completed until 1986. This gives hope to the continuous mass that is Barcelona’s unfinished Gaudi masterpiece La Sagrada Familia. It will be finished, someday.

This church topped my sketch list for Reykjavik. I love to sketch architecture. It is the best way to get to know a building and I sketched Hallgrimskirkja from a few different angles and perspectives. It is a building that holds up to many sketches. Here’s one:

While in Reykjavik, my apartment was a block and a half from Hallgrimskirkja, so it was easy to wander back to my home base. All I had to do was look for the tall spire, like a beacon announcing my Icelandic digs and wander towards it. It worked every time.

One sketch I did was from a children’s playground at Njalsgata (half a block from my digs). The sketch was dominated by the tall spire of Hallgrimskirkja and in the foreground was my local coffee shop, Reykjavik Roasters. Here I enjoyed an double cappuccino and a blueberry muffin. Coffee in Europe always seems so much better. Perhaps it’s the porcelain. Perhaps it’s the view, perhaps it’s the knowledge of being somewhere exciting and new.