Between August 19 and 20, 2025, thousands of spectators watched as one of Sweden's largest wooden buildings was lifted onto beams and wheeled across town. The Kiruna Church, constructed between 1909 and 1912, was designed to echo the form of a Sámi hut in Sweden's far northern region, within the Arctic Circle. The building was designed by architect Gustaf Wickman, who served as the church's architect at the time, and combines elements of Gothic Revival with an Art Nouveau altar. The building, one of the city's main tourist attractions, was moved to a new location between the cemetery and the new city center to prevent damage caused by the expansion of the local mine.
Kiruna is home to the world's largest underground iron ore mine, which opened in 1898 and remains in operation today. As mining activities compromise land stability, the city has been gradually moved eastwards since 2004. This process involved relocating, demolishing, and constructing buildings and culminated in the unveiling of a new town center on September 1, 2022. Mining weakens the ground, creating risks of subsidence and structural collapse.
Kiruna also holds cultural and historical significance as part of Sápmi, the traditional homeland of the Sámi people, which extends beyond the national border and whose culture informed the design of the church. The Swedish Lutheran church was offered to the town by LKAB, the state-owned mining company, and built on a hill overlooking Kiruna. In 2001, the church was named one of Sweden's most beautiful buildings and voted by the Swedish public as the country's most popular building.
During a two-day operation coordinated by LKAB, the church was transported along a five-kilometer (three-mile) route. According to the Associated Press, it was the largest of the 16 buildings remaining in their original locations to be moved, while 25 others had already been relocated after cracks appeared in roads and structures due to underground mining. The church, measuring 40 meters (131 feet) in width and weighing 672.4 metric tons (741 tons), required major infrastructure adjustments for the move. Roads were temporarily widened from 9 to 24 meters (30 to 79 feet), and the Lombolo viaduct was dismantled and replaced with a three-way intersection.
The building was carried on remote-controlled flatbed trailers, guided by a driver, moving for roughly 12 hours each day at a pace of 0.5 to 1.5 kilometers per hour (0.31 to 0.93 miles per hour). LKAB reported that the move proceeded according to plan and without complications. According to the company, the church's new location, between the cemetery and the new city center, was selected to preserve its character and relationship to its surroundings. The building was rotated 180 degrees, with the altar now facing west, echoing the orientation of traditional folk churches. It will remain closed to visitors until its reopening at the end of 2026.
Relocating the monument raises questions about preservation. While the move safeguards the building's physical integrity, it removes the church from its original context, reflecting a paradox in heritage conservation: preserving cultural value through transformation. Such interventions often generate debate on identity and authenticity in architecture, touching on broader strategies that range from adaptive reuse to planned demolition and posterior reconstruction.
