Description of Historic Place

The Nidaros Lutheran Church is a stucco-clad wood-frame two-storey church with a steepled tower, built on a sloping site at the junction of Merivale and Carnarvon Streets in the New Westminster neighbourhood of Albert Crescent.

Heritage Value

The Nidaros Lutheran Church is significant for its strong cultural and spiritual associations with the local Norwegian community. In 1891, the Norwegian Lutheran congregation was founded in New Westminster, and unable to afford their own church the members worshipped in rented quarters. The congregation grew over time, and a committee was elected in 1920 to begin fundraising to build their own church. This lot was acquired the following year, and work commenced on the basement level in 1924, where services were held for the next decade. In 1934, construction commenced on the upper floor, and the church was completed on March 3, 1935.

The name of the church was significant to the Norwegian community as the old name for the city of Trondheim, the first capital of Norway that remains the place where new kings receive their ceremonial blessing. After Norway was invaded in the Second World War, the congregation became actively involved in Norwegian relief activities, and the church was a focus for community events.

Typical of Lutheran churches, the architecture of the church is unpretentious and unornamented. The form and massing of the church, designed to take advantage of its sloping site to allow natural light into the lower level hall, clearly indicate its liturgical function. The congregation moved to a new church in 1958, but the building remains in active use by another denomination as a place of worship.

Source: Heritage Planning Files, City of New Westminster

Character-Defining Elements

Key elements that define the heritage character of the Nidaros Lutheran Church include its:
- prominent corner location on a steeply sloping site with views to the Fraser River
- continuous use as a place of worship
- complex articulated massing that steps down the sloping site, with a hall on the lower level
- prominent square steeple located at the highest point of the site, with octagonal roof surmounted by a crucifix
- front gabled roof with clipped eaves
- wood-frame structure, with original wooden siding under later stucco coating
- flat-roofed side extension with crenellated parapet that provides an entry to lower level
- fenestration, including: multi-paned pointed-arch Gothic double-hung wooden-sash windows with wooden tracery in the upper light and coloured glass panels; large Gothic pointed-arch window in the rear facade; double-hung 2-over-2 wooden-sash windows on the rear facade; and nine-paned wooden-sash casement windows in the basement level
- interior features, including a barrel vault running the length of the nave, with flat roofs over the side aisles, unadorned plaster walls, wooden floors and a pointed-arch opening to the apse