"These [stave churches], the only temples in wood to have survived in the West, have triumphantly succeeded in every respect: foreign influence has been ideally adapted to native form and to local needs, in a country with vast tracts of forest and a scattered population..."

"In stave-built architecture, the timbers are placed vertically, differing in this respect from the log bonding technique. The problem of stability to which this gives rise has been solved in stave churches, and particularly in the so-called Çmast churchesÈ, in a very special way.

The exterior may recall the pagoda, but, with its stepped masts and ingeniously cantilevered roofs, one above the other, [the pagoda] aims rather at an exterior effect. In the stave church, on the other hand, the place of worship is of primary importance, with through-running free masts as much as 9 metres high."

— Gunnar Bugge. Stave Churches in Norway. p5-8.