Church of Breidholt

The Church of Breidholt stands in Mjódd. The Breiðholt parish was founded in 1972 and worshipped first in Bústaðakirkja and then in Breiðholtsskóli, a school. Nineteen designs were entered in the competition for the church, and the one chosen in 1977 was by the architects Guðmundur Kr. Kristinsson and Ferdinand Alfreðsson, working with Hörður Björnsson. Kristinn Sveinsson was the master builder and Örn Erlendsson the foreman, and the church was consecrated on 13 March 1988. Twelve glulam beams clad in dark brown steel meet at a single point like tent poles and carry a large cross above the church, and in the parish it is called Tjaldkirkjan, the tent church. The plan is close to a circle, but the lower walls fold between the beams to make a twelve-pointed star, and the rooflights repeat the star in the ceiling of the nave. The nave is on the upper floor and the parish hall on the lower, and the inner walls are clad in Californian redwood. Björgvin Tómasson built the organ of nineteen stops, consecrated on 20 September 1998. Three bells from Nauen Klokkestøperi in Tønsberg, Norway, hang in a free-standing bell tower in front of the church.