Urnes: wooden construction with more than one tradition

Useful to know

The wooden church in Urnes is an example of a Nordic building tradition from the 12th-XIII century. UNESCO points to a combination of Viking and Celtic art traces with a Romanesque spatial organization. [1]

For observation, separate the detail from the general plan. The carving can point to one tradition, and the way of organizing the interior - to another. This is a more accurate reading than attributing the whole church to one decorative style. Wood is not just a surface material: it is involved in the construction and in the way the individual parts are shaped.