In northern Sweden, in Kiruna, the city church was moved by five kilometers to the new urban center. The operation, carried out in two days last week, concerned a building of 672.4 tonnes and 40 meters wide. It required several years of preparation to secure the building and its journey.
The displacement, made at a speed of 0.5 km/h by the company Mammoet, first required the consolidation of the interior and the protection or the disassembly of certain elements, including the altar. The church was then lifted 1.3 meters from the ground, installed on metal beams themselves placed on 56 lines of axles.
The operation was funded by the Luossavaara-Kiirunavaara AB mining company (LKAB), owner of the world’s largest iron mine. Swedish legislation prohibiting mining companies from operating under inhabited areas, LKAB has taken care of the building, at a cost of 500 million Swedish crowns (around 45 million euros). The event attracted nearly 10,000 spectators.
The church of Kiruna, a place of Lutheran worship, was built between 1909 and 1912 by the architect Gustaf Wickman. Its construction had cost 270,000 Swedish crowns. LKAB, owner, offered it to the city in 1913. The whole also includes a belfry built in 1907. The architecture of the church is inspired by both the traditional huts of the Samis, a north of Northern Scandinavia, and the Neogothic. The interior houses an Art Nouveau altar and a painting by Prince Eugène produced in 1897, the sacred grove.
If the displacement has been positively perceived by part of the population, local Samies communities express reserves. These people, present in Lapland and still living in part of Rennes breeding, sees in mining activity a threat to their lifestyles. Lars-Marcus Kuhmunen, president of the local Samie community, told Al Jazeera :: “It is a grazing zone and a birthplace for Rennes calves”. For other representatives, this trip illustrates a selective choice of what deserves to be preserved. Although recognized in Sweden, the Samie community has undergone many years of discrimination, which feed this resentment.
It is not the first time in history that a building has been moved. In Sweden itself, the village of Malmberget had to transfer 47 historic buildings, still due to LKAB’s activity. In 1985, the Mihai Voda church in Bucharest, in Romania, was moved 285 meters on rails so that the Dictator Ceausescu could reshape the neighborhood as he pleases. But the most famous example dates back to the 1960s, when the construction of the Assouan dam in Egypt had led to the dismantling and displacement of the temples of Abu Simbel, built under Ramses II around 1264 BC. AD more than 1,000 blocks of 20 to 30 tonnes had then been numbered and raised 280 meters further and 65 meters higher.
