Architecture in Greenland

A historical journey through time via homes, churches and other interesting buildings!

When you arrive in Greenland, you quickly realize that Greenlandic architecture is very distinct, with its many colored houses placed on sloping hillsides. The big apartment blocks may have scared you off a little, and sometimes you stumble upon amazingly beautiful buildings, including some of the churches of Greenland.

You may also have wondered what houses in Greenland are made of and what they look like in Greenland? Many people are even surprised that people actually live in Greenland and tend to ask about what living is like in Greenland when they meet Greenlanders. We will try to give you an overview of Architecture and living conditions in Greenland in this article.

In our overview of Architecture in Greenland, we start with the traditional Inuit buildings, including the world-famous igloos. We then move on to the farms and churches of the Norse. Today, colonial buildings are visible in many towns, even though they are made from wood and several hundred years old. However, the dry climate has helped preserve these buildings and houses. After World War II, a new era started for the Greenland population, which is very visible in the new architecture of the country.

JESPER KUNUK EGEDE

About the author

Jesper Kunuk Egede grew up in Narsaq. He and his family first lived in the green four-story tower building (next to the yellow one). There have only ever been these two four-story apartment houses in Narsaq. After a year in Qaqortoq, his family moved back to Narsaq, and he lived in Block G until his parents built a so-called BB2 type house, a locally designed tract house.

For this article, he has relied a lot on the excellent Danish book “Greenland’s History of Technology” by Hans P. Steenfos & Jørgen Taagholt. Unfortunately, it is not translated into other languages.

Section 1 A Journey Through Time:

The Inuit and The Norse

Traditional Inuit Buildings

Inuit have arrived in several waves over the past 4,500 years. The first arrivals were the Saqqaq Culture, walking here from what would later become Canada. The Dorset culture followed, also from the west, about 2,500 years ago. The last major immigration was the so-called Thule culture, which arrived in Greenland 1,000-1,100 years ago. These cultures are not named after their origin but after places where their remains were found.

When we talk of Inuit houses, we are not talking about Inuit Architecture in a modern sense. The houses were not built to impress but to shelter. Inuit daily life was about survival, and the Inuit way of life reflected this in both housing, religions, and sustainability.

The Inuit of Greenland were a nomadic people, moving along to follow the food sources, so we do not have many old buildings, expressing the old Greenlandic way of life. However, several remains of early Inuit buildings have been found, and excavations have proved very important in telling us about the housing of the early Inuit and their way of life and food.

Also, when Greenland was recolonized in the 18th century, artists made drawings of and notes about the traditional houses. Sermermiut on the northern bank of the Ilulissat icefjord is probably the best known of these sites.

PEAT HUTS

Inuit housing in Uummannaq.
Photo by Aningaaq R Carlsen – Visit Greenland

So what were old Inuit homes made of? The winter houses were mainly built of rocks and turf. Driftwood and the ribs and jaws of whales were also used to hold the roof. Often, the houses were built next to a hill which would then function as one of the walls.

Peat is a cold and wet material, so the old houses were often quite damp, and many people were living in the crowded space of the peat huts, which also added to the dampness. Windows were made by using thinly stretched intestines from seals and other animals. Sometimes, the houses held one family, and in other cases, the houses were bigger, built for several families to live together.

The peat huts were in use for millennia, and as late as in the 1940s, people were still living in peat huts in many places in Greenland, including Old Narsaq, which you find on the town’s edge in modern-day Narsaq.

Inuit summer homes: Tents

A woman carving seal skin for a tent at the living
village museum in Qasigiannguit in Greenland.
Photo by Mads Pihl – Visit Greenland

In summer, the families would relocate to follow their catch and often stay overnight in tents made from sealskin. The tent pole would come from driftwood, and the sealskins would be sewn together and kept in place by a ring of rocks. The tents would house the families that were stocking up on foodstuffs for the long winters. Inuit had many ways of preserving foodstuffs to last long in case of hunting in winter proved hard.

The hunters also used the tents for winter hunting trips, but they would sometimes make igloos to stay in for the night.

You can see remains of traditional Inuit buildings in a lot of towns in Greenland, including Sisimiut, Ilulissat (Sermermiut), Saqqaq, and Narsaq.

Igloos

Igloo Lodges In Ilulissat. Photo – Filip Gielda, Visit Greenland

Obviously, igloos are the internationally best-known buildings of the Arctic, although they were not as common as popular myth suggests. However, most people around the world have some idea about a real Inuit igloo. Igloos were traditionally used by Canadian Inuit and the Inuit of the far north of Greenland (today’s Qaanaaq area), so you would not have stumbled upon one further south in Greenland, although you can try igloos built by both snow and metal in Ilulissat today.

An igloo is dome-shaped and built by putting hard snow blocks on top of each other. The principle used to build an igloo is reminiscent of the Fibonacci sequence, but in reverse, where the lower outermost ring is curving a bit towards the center. The ice blocks are not stacked right on top of each other in straight lines like bricks. Instead, they form a spiral where each layer is curved further towards the middle and gets thinner, so the upper blocks of snow are not too heavy. This way, the dome is made. Thin ice or animal intestines can make it out for a window to let light in, and a lowered entrance is made to avoid the wind blowing straight into the igloo.

Experience igloos in Ilulissat

where “World of Greenland” hosts Igloo Lodge every winter

The Norse with Their Farms and Churches

Greenland also had immigration from the east, notably from 982 when Erik the Red arrived here, and after 1721, when the Norwegian-Danish priest Hans Egede arrived to Christianize and recolonize Greenland.

The Norse arrived in 982, after Erik the Red had to flee Iceland for three years after being outlawed for killing another man. Together with his wife Tjodhildur, family, and friends, he set out towards the west to the hills in the far distance that sailors had described.

Farmhouse

Eric the Red Village, Qassiarsuk. Photo – Aningaaq R. Carlsen, Visit Greenland

Arriving in South Greenland in 982, Erik settled in today’s Qassiarsuk and built a village he called Brattahlid. Brattahlid and nearby Gardar (today’s Igaliku) would become the center of life in South Greenland at this time, as the Thule Inuit had not yet reached the south of Greenland.

The Norse used the building techniques of the Viking-style houses that had been perfected in their native Iceland. The Norse architecture called for quite big farms built together, so stables, housing for people, and stock housing were located in the same large structure. One of the perks of doing it this way was that the heat of the animals would help heat the whole building.

Some of these farms were quite big. For example, in Igaliku, you can see the remains of a 70 meter (230 feet) long stable. This stable would hold lots of livestock, including 65 cows and sheep, horses, and pigs. To secure enough food for the animals, the Norse also built irrigation systems for the fields in the area.

The Norse buildings were built using large rocks for stonewalls that were isolated on the outside with turf. The inside house often had wooden floors and walls, as you can see in the picture of the reconstruction of Erik the Red’s house.

More and more people followed Erik the Red, and Greenland became home to many immigrants from Iceland. They settled not only in South Greenland but up to the Nuuk area. In Nuuk’s fjords, you can still find many ruins from the Norse, or Vikings, as others call them.

For the most part, the Inuit stayed further up in North Greenland on both the eastern and western coasts, but they also traveled south where they encountered the Norse. The meetings between these two cultures were sometimes amicable, sometimes not so much.

The Old Church Ruins of Hvalsey. Photo by Aningaaq R Carlsen – Visit Greenland

See Norse in South Greenland

In the year 1000, Erik’s son, aptly named Leif Eriksson, returned from Denmark, and he brought along a Christian priest. Tjodhildur soon became a Christian and had a church built. This small, unremarkable building became the first Christian house of worship on the two American continents. In today’s Qassiarsuk, you can see both the horseshoe-shaped remains of the original church and visit a reconstruction of it. Not far from the Norse reconstructions, you can also see an Inuit house reconstruction.

In Igaliku, you can see the remains of the Gardar Diocese, a large complex consisting of the church, the bishop’s farm and stables, warehouses, and a forge.

Today’s best-kept Norse building is Qaqortukulooq, more commonly known as the Hvalsey Church Ruin. This large ruin is situated close to Qaqortoq, the largest town in South Greenland. This building was the scene of a wedding in 1408, which became the last recorded event among the Norse of Greenland in the Icelandic Sagas.

The climate was changing, and boats sailing to and from Scandinavia had become scarce. The next ship didn’t arrive until 30 years later, finding no Norse left. Still today nobody knows what happened to them although there are many theories. The areas where the Norse built their farms 800-1000 years ago are still in function. Many of today’s sheep farms are built near the Viking ruins, and the fields that the Norse cleared for stones are used by today’s farmers.

Colonial architecture

Colonial Architecture is probably the most famous architecture in Greenland, apart from the igloo. In our article about Hans Egede, you can read how Greenland was colonized and how trading stations were set up along the coast.

In time, many of these trading posts turned into villages, settlements, and towns. This means that a lot of the towns of Greenland have a neighborhood that relates to the former colonial status of Greenland. Since the old Inuit buildings are very rare, the colonial buildings of Greenland have a certain status among all inhabitants and visitors, for that matter.

The original colonial buildings were often made using a Norwegian tradition of log housing, or “laft houses.” They were made by wooden planks stacked on top of each other and easily taken apart again. This means that many colonial houses were built in Scandinavia, taken apart, and rebuilt in Greenland.

The colonial buildings were built for trade and housing for the Danish employees of, among others, The Royal Greenlandic Trading Department. However, the local population still mainly lived in the traditional peat and stone houses and tents in the summer.

Colonial neighborhoods are often placed close to the sea, making the transportation of imported goods easier. The colonial neighborhood in Qaqortoq also boasts a very unusual thing in Greenland: A square. Surrounding the square are old buildings which include the current museum, built in 1804, and, on the square, you find Greenland’s only public fountain.

Today, colonial architecture is often seen in pictures and postcards from Greenland. There is no doubt that the colonial buildings are often very beautiful and picturesque. However, as opposed to many buildings built after World War II, the houses and buildings are individual entities.

Color-coding of the houses

In colonial times, a color-coding system was introduced to the houses in Greenland. Later, GTO (Greenland’s Technical Organisation) stuck with this color-coding which made it easy to identify the function of a building.

Let’s say someone had fallen ill in a settlement or on a traveling ship. Then, upon arriving in a town in Greenland, whoever was helping this person would take a look at the town and go straight for a yellow building, simply because they knew that yellow buildings would house either a hospital or be the private home of the town doctor.

This was practical and, for a long time, the colors of the houses in Greenland stuck to this regime:

Red buildings would signify churches, schools, teachers’ or ministers’ houses, and trade, yellow colors were assigned to hospitals, doctors, and health care personnel.

Green houses and buildings were assigned to power works, auto mechanics, teleoperations, and such. Blue buildings and housing were related to the fish factories and police stations were black.

Kulusuk public school. Photo- Aningaaq Rosing Carlsen – Visit Greenland

The Hospital in Uummannaq. Photo – Jason C. Hill

Pastel Color Houses. Photo by Peter Lindstrom

A striped and colourful house in Upernavik in Greenland

Today, this system is no longer in use, and we paint our houses in any color we like. So now you will find purple, pink, and any pastel color on the houses. While walking around Nuussuaq, the large suburb of Nuuk, you sometimes feel like you’re wandering inside a candy factory, as there are houses of any color.

Why are there sometimes two numbers on the houses in Greenland?

Pastel pink houses in Nuuk. Photo – Peter Lindstrom

Many people have wondered why there are several numbers on the houses in Greenland. The answer is simply that each building in a Greenland town gets a chronological number based on when it was built. This gives old buildings low numbers and new buildings higher numbers. However, as proper streets became more and more common – and sometimes very long – it made sense to number the houses with street numbers as we see in most Western countries.

Hence the two numbers.

Rooftop Numbers along the Coast

Many colonial buildings along the coast have had a large number painted on the roof, but this is not a colonial tradition. Nevertheless, some of these numbers are still visible, such as A34 in Narsaq and H8 in Oqaatsut.

The numbers were painted on the rooftop of a building in most towns and settlements during World War II, aiding the navigation of the United States Air Force pilots as they were trying to locate the American bases in this vast country.