Church Architecture

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I would like to point out the extremely commonly overlooked principle that traditional church architecture can be very clean and simple, almost humble (but in a good way). Where modern architecture is mechanistic and cold, simple traditional architecture is clean but still glorifies nature rather than trying to recreate nature.
 
i_am_a_Catholic said:
The liturgy of the church, may take various forms, but the liturgy is the liturgy. The primary goal of a church is to celebrate the liturgy, which for most people, would mean mass and not just the office. While one could pray the office in their bedroom, I am sure you would disagree that one can not have the mass in ones bed room.

In either case, it should be clear to you why the church you had in your OP is not that beautiful (as a church). Thankfully, it is not ugly (as in contradicts outright what a church is suppossed to look like) but it isn’t really very beautiful either (as in it does not satisfy most of the things that could have been brought forward in the church to reflect the liturgy and spiritual realities).

As for time constraints, I think its safe to say the unless someone is not willing to do proper research and spend time studying a topic, they should probably refrain from making claims or comments about it as well.

I am sure you would agree that if I had no expertise on medical science and I were to argue about a medication a person is taking, or recommend certain medication as good, that would be unfair. So I think, if someone really wants to discuss church architecture, they do have to spend the time to learn about it. That does take time.
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I’m sorry we don’t meet your standards of research. However on the question of liturgy, as. Benedictine I can say you are dead wrong. The conventual chapel of a monastic community is also its oratory. The primary purpose is to celebrate the liturgy in community. For monastics the liturgy is an organic whole, both the Divine Office and Mass, with the Mass being its summit. Unless you are a Carthusian who celebrates part of the Office in your cell, as a monk you have the obligation to sing the Office in choir, in the oratory with the community unless specifically exempt for a specific reason by the abbot.

The church in the OP is in fact perfectly adapted as a conventual chapel and oratory. So far you have not provided a single argument on why you think that church is deficient.

And if you want to criticize our abilities at research, I suggest you might benefit from a bit of study of the Rule of St Benedict and monastic architecture. If you had, I’m sure you wouldn’t have spouted off nonsense about where the monastic community should celebrate the Divine Office. Hint: it’s not in their “bedrooms”.

So in order to avoid wasting our time please provide YOUR reasons why the church in the OP doesn’t fit its role as a conventual chapel.
 
malphono said:
Indeed, there are lots of examples of pre-conciliar “modern” churches around. Most, actually, are from the 1950s and early '60s, but some date from the late 1940s. While it seems that the trend got progressively worse as time has gone on (and let’s face it, the tide hasn’t turned yet), I suppose it could be considered post-WWII utilitarian-ugly more than anything else. And of course it doesn’t affect only Roman churches. There are plenty of Eastern and Oriental churches (both in and out of union with Rome) that fit the category.

(Even though it’s actually post-conciliar from the '70s, I can’t help but think of the Maronite cathedral in St Louis and it’s “living room” look. Oy …)
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Or. perhaps they are drawing from Bauhaus architectural ideas an approach which developed earlier in the century.
architecture.about.com/od/20thcenturytrends/ig/Modern-Architecture/Bauhaus.htm
 
YoungTradCath said:
I would like to point out the extremely commonly overlooked principle that traditional church architecture can be very clean and simple, almost humble (but in a good way). Where modern architecture is mechanistic and cold, simple traditional architecture is clean but still glorifies nature rather than trying to recreate nature.
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I most certainly agree with this. The Cathedral of our diocese (in our city) is an example. The word that many of use is “elegant.” I think “clean” is another good word.
 
ByzCathCantor said:
You presume (i) that I have not watched the video and (ii) that I have raised objections.

Rather, I simply asked you to clarify your own stated position (that liturgy is liturgy, irrespective of form), citing an example of architecture impacting worship in the context of a ritual church.
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So what does this mean. Have you seen the video?

The reason why I “presumed” you didn’t watch it is because if you did, you wouldn’t ask me if I meant that “it should fit a prototype church”.

So I admit I made an inferential conclusion from your first post to me that you have not seen the video. I still do think you have not seen the video because of the questions you are asking.
 
jwinch2 said:
The top picture is beautiful. Do you have any pics of the inside of the monastery church building?
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Yes, it is. 🙂

Wait, I think that I do. Gimme a sec.

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

Yes, it is very plain. (The monk-priest in this pic is now 95 years old 🙂 ) The altar is out of the pic, to Father’s left. Really plain, too.
 
Cat said:
I’m not a sir.

I will try to view the video later, but I’m at work right now.

If you will be so kind as to read my post, you will see that I am not stating that a church should look a certain way to please my personal tastes. My post merely stated my own individual, personal feelings.

If Holy Mother Church decrees that all Catholic churches must be designed along certain architectural specs, then that is the way it shall be and I certainly shall not object.

But Holy Mother Church cannot possibly command everyone to feel the same way about art forms or about anything. If it were possible for Holy Mother Church to control feelings, then Holy Mother Church could command everyone in the world to feel loving, peaceful, and charitable towards all mankind. The Church can suggest that people try to bring their feelings into line with Church ideals, but the Church cannot control human emotions.

Finally, I am curious to know if you believe that all the Catholic churches with modern architecture are abominations and should be torn down and rebuilt? I hope not. Apparently Holy Mother Church has not asked that this be done, either.
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What the Church can do, is say what a Church should look like. The ontology of the church can be defined by the Church and what Dr. Mcnamara does is define these things using Theological truths.

So the main underlying concept here is that beauty of a church is not relative. Which church is beautiful is not a matter of my emotional response to the Church. Here the beauty is measured objectively by asking whether it conveys the truth about itself. The truth about a church can be well defined.
 
i_am_a_Catholic said:
So what does this mean. Have you seen the video?

The reason why I “presumed” you didn’t watch it is because if you did, you wouldn’t ask me if I meant that “it should fit a prototype church”.

So I admit I made an inferential conclusion from your first post to me that you have not seen the video. I still do think you have not seen the video because of the questions you are asking.
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OK - the blunt approach. I have indeed seen this video, several times in fact. I first saw it as part of an adult education program given by a Byzantine Catholic priest, and later shared it with my religion class (7th & 8th graders).

The analysis is very consistent with the view in Byzantine Christianity of the significance of church architecture (and religious imagery) in the religious experience of the faithful, as “signs and symbols of heavenly reality” (to quote the speaker).

Yet, the statement of position I had first questioned implied the opposite. I found this odd given your insistence that we all avail ourselves of the definitive wisdom included in the video, knowing in advance the “punch line” of the presentation.

That statement, taken together with the video, might lead a Byzantine like myself to believe that all churches should look like, well, my own. Was that your point?

BTW - welcome to the CAF. You’ll get used to the norms of exchange here with experience (took me a while, and still learning). Contributors are interested in the informed opinions of others, but as mentioned here by a few posters, not everyone has the luxury of watching a nearly one hour video in order to figure that out.
 
Thanks for the articles and the posts offering examples of art and architecture far from my home.
Out west, we have some wonderful missions and I am awestruck by what our priests were able to build with very limited resources in harsh circumstances. the Saint Ignatius Mission at Ravali Montana and the Cataldo mission are wonderful examples. The photo links I am posting do less than justice.
One sees beautiful candle holders with lovely cut-outs that look to be fashioned from silver only to discover that they were at one time containers for canned fish. The effort to design and complete frescoes while ministering to the native population and providing food and shelter is humbling. Our missionaries were amazingly creative in their efforts to present the faith to those they met.
I can walk into a mission and spend hours being catechised without conversing with another.
It is hard for me to discuss aethetics-to find common understanding and reference points.
As i looked at the simple Benedictine walkway in a previous post, I had a sense of being drawn to God, and yet this walkway did not have the catechetical art that I love. I wondered if the architect might have been so drawn to Our Lord that this desire was somehow transferred into the created walkway and I was responding to something I could not see but could sense. Oftentimes, I find the more Bauhaus influenced architecture to be overly utilitarian or to have a sense of being created to call attention to the architect rather than to Our Lord.
Perhaps as I grow closer to our Lord, I will become better at communing with him without the aid of missionary frescoes, or a Benedictine walkway, but for now I find such things most helpful and want to share them with others in the hopes that they will resonate with them as well.
Some Cataldo mission images below:
members.virtualtourist.com/m/pb/bd4dc/
Some St. Ignatius images below:
tripadvisor.in/LocationPhotos-g45343-Saint_Ignatius_Montana.html
May God bless us all!
 
i_am_a_Catholic said:
What the Church can do, is say what a Church should look like. The ontology of the church can be defined by the Church and what Dr. Mcnamara does is define these things using Theological truths.

So the main underlying concept here is that beauty of a church is not relative. Which church is beautiful is not a matter of my emotional response to the Church. Here the beauty is measured objectively by asking whether it conveys the truth about itself. The truth about a church can be well defined.
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Beauty can be definied, but what the Church defines as “beautiful” will not invoke the same emotional response in every person.

That is all I’m trying to say. I do not believe that popular opinion or trends should shape the Church’s decisions.

But I think it is charitable for Christians to accept that not everyone will be positively affected by certain architecture (or music, or homilies, or literature, etc.)
 
Cat said:
Beauty can be definied, but what the Church defines as “beautiful” will not invoke the same emotional response in every person.

That is all I’m trying to say. I do not believe that popular opinion or trends should shape the Church’s decisions.

But I think it is charitable for Christians to accept that not everyone will be positively affected by certain architecture (or music, or homilies, or literature, etc.)
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I am not sure I quiet understand. If someone is not happy with a book being a book, or a flower being a flower, that is a problem with the person.

I am not saying everyone can appreciate true beauty immediately. But, to say that because someone cannot appreciate it, they should also be accommodated is not the answer. The person simply needs to get in to the right pattern of thinking. Otherwise, we do go down the road of catering to individual tastes.
 
ByzCathCantor said:
OK - the blunt approach. I have indeed seen this video, several times in fact. I first saw it as part of an adult education program given by a Byzantine Catholic priest, and later shared it with my religion class (7th & 8th graders).

The analysis is very consistent with the view in Byzantine Christianity of the significance of church architecture (and religious imagery) in the religious experience of the faithful, as “signs and symbols of heavenly reality” (to quote the speaker).

Yet, the statement of position I had first questioned implied the opposite. I found this odd given your insistence that we all avail ourselves of the definitive wisdom included in the video, knowing in advance the “punch line” of the presentation.

That statement, taken together with the video, might lead a Byzantine like myself to believe that all churches should look like, well, my own. Was that your point?

BTW - welcome to the CAF. You’ll get used to the norms of exchange here with experience (took me a while, and still learning). Contributors are interested in the informed opinions of others, but as mentioned here by a few posters, not everyone has the luxury of watching a nearly one hour video in order to figure that out.
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Thank you for the clarification 🙂

What I meant to say was that there need not be a highly detailed prototype that one must follow. But there would be certain core rules that one must follow. Within these, one could use Eastern, Western, Modern, Ancient or whichever architecture through which they can communicate these spiritual truths.

For an example, lets say the church needs to represents the spiritual reality of heaven, our destination. This can be done in multiple ways. A Roman church might choose to do it differently from a byzantine Church and vice versa. But the core idea has to be the same for everyone. A church is a church.

What I was against was the idea that someone might say, we do not need to reflect spiritual realities and all we need is a venue to pray/celebrate the liturgy that reflects my own personal idea of a church etc. So in that same token, I think the specific rite it-self does not factor in to the core rules.

But as a private thought on this matter, and perhaps even irrelevant to this matter, I do think that adopting different methods of architectural expression from different rites perhaps needs some caution. One cannot convey a reality through things that people are unaware of on how to interpret. So while possible, the expression it-self probably needs some thought rather than simple adoption. I think this applies for adopting modern vs. more classical architecture as well.
 
i_am_a_Catholic said:
What I was against was the idea that someone might say, we do not need to reflect spiritual realities and all we need is a venue to pray/celebrate the liturgy that reflects my own personal idea of a church etc. So in that same token, I think the specific rite it-self does not factor in to the core rules.
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Understood and agreed. Likewise, thanks for your further remarks.

BTW - I did think that the video came out largely in favor of a more traditional church, again only in that rejection of architectural and artistic elements would preclude opportunities for “visual catechesis” normally attributed to more classic structures. Was that your overall take?
 
i_am_a_Catholic said:
I am not sure I quiet understand. If someone is not happy with a book being a book, or a flower being a flower, that is a problem with the person.

I am not saying everyone can appreciate true beauty immediately. But, to say that because someone cannot appreciate it, they should also be accommodated is not the answer. The person simply needs to get in to the right pattern of thinking. Otherwise, we do go down the road of catering to individual tastes.
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I have not said that everyone should be accomodated, if by accomodated, you mean that the Church should only build church buildings that Cat likes.

I have said that we need to be charitable to those who do not see things the way we do. I don’t consider that “accomodation,” I consider it Christian love.

Your flower analogy is a good one. There are certain flowers that I like, and others that I dislike intensely. E.g., I really dislike Easter lilies. I think they’re hideous and that they smell sickening.

I am NOT saying that Easter lilies are hideous and that they smell sickening. I’m sure that many others find them beautiful and think they have a lovely scent.

What I’m saying is that I personally find them hideous and sickening.

There’s a difference.

Of course I am not the “Authority” on flower beauty. But I have my own ideas about what is beautiful, and so does everyone else.

One of my friends hates most bulb flowers. She has lovely flower gardens at her house in the countyr, but no bulb flowers (tulips, daffodils, hyacinths, etc.) because she thinks they’re ugly.

Do you see what I’m saying? What is beautiful to one person is ugly to another person. This is not a “problem” with any person. It’s just personal taste, developed over many years for many personal reasons that are hard to pin down.

I can’t tell you why I dislike Easter lilies so much–I just do. There’s no logical reason why my friend dislikes bulb flowers–she just does.

Why is it that some people like country music and others despise it?

Why is it that some people think hairless cats are beautiful, and others think they look like monsters?

It’s personal taste, and unless someone is being obnoxious about it, we all need accept each other.

Your comment about getting into the right pattern of thinking is interesting. Do YOU like figure skating? Do you LOVE figure skating? IMO, you need to “get into the right pattern of thinking” and accept that figure skating is the world’s most beautiful sport.

Now does that sound right to you? Of course not. If you don’t happen to find figure skating appealing, that’s fine. There is no “problem.” It’s just you. And I’m just me.

When it comes to the Church, we are not asked to “get into the right pattern of thinking” when it comes to art. We are only asked to obey and submit, and when it comes to art, Holy Mother Church gives us a huge amount of freedom.

If and when the Church commands that all Catholic Churches must follow certain architectural guidelines, that will be fine with me. (The Church has NOT commanded this, at least to my knowledge.)

I would suggest that the person who obeys and submits to the Church against their own personal taste is actually going to end up with a much greater blessing because they are making a sacrifice.
 
Cat said:
I have not said that everyone should be accomodated, if by accomodated, you mean that the Church should only build church buildings that Cat likes.

I have said that we need to be charitable to those who do not see things the way we do. I don’t consider that “accomodation,” I consider it Christian love.

Your flower analogy is a good one. There are certain flowers that I like, and others that I dislike intensely. E.g., I really dislike Easter lilies. I think they’re hideous and that they smell sickening.

I am NOT saying that Easter lilies are hideous and that they smell sickening. I’m sure that many others find them beautiful and think they have a lovely scent.

What I’m saying is that I personally find them hideous and sickening.

There’s a difference.

Of course I am not the “Authority” on flower beauty. But I have my own ideas about what is beautiful, and so does everyone else.

One of my friends hates most bulb flowers. She has lovely flower gardens at her house in the countyr, but no bulb flowers (tulips, daffodils, hyacinths, etc.) because she thinks they’re ugly.

Do you see what I’m saying? What is beautiful to one person is ugly to another person. This is not a “problem” with any person. It’s just personal taste, developed over many years for many personal reasons that are hard to pin down.

I can’t tell you why I dislike Easter lilies so much–I just do. There’s no logical reason why my friend dislikes bulb flowers–she just does.

Why is it that some people like country music and others despise it?

Why is it that some people think hairless cats are beautiful, and others think they look like monsters?

It’s personal taste, and unless someone is being obnoxious about it, we all need accept each other.

Your comment about getting into the right pattern of thinking is interesting. Do YOU like figure skating? Do you LOVE figure skating? IMO, you need to “get into the right pattern of thinking” and accept that figure skating is the world’s most beautiful sport.

Now does that sound right to you? Of course not. If you don’t happen to find figure skating appealing, that’s fine. There is no “problem.” It’s just you. And I’m just me.

When it comes to the Church, we are not asked to “get into the right pattern of thinking” when it comes to art. We are only asked to obey and submit, and when it comes to art, Holy Mother Church gives us a huge amount of freedom.

If and when the Church commands that all Catholic Churches must follow certain architectural guidelines, that will be fine with me. (The Church has NOT commanded this, at least to my knowledge.)

I would suggest that the person who obeys and submits to the Church against their own personal taste is actually going to end up with a much greater blessing because they are making a sacrifice.
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But isn’t the basic assumption of your position that beauty is relative? I do not agree with that position though.

Something is beautiful if it bring about the truth about itself. This would not be a matter of personal opinion.

I also disagree with your statement on art. The church is clear that art should represent the truth and not lies. This is in-fact the reason why it rejects pornographic art because it does not express a truth about the person. If someone prefers pornographic art, it is not considered a matter of taste but a disorder.

Same would apply with respect to a church. To prefer a church that does not communicate the proper ontology of a church would be disordered.

EDIT: After reading your post again, I think it is possible that we might be in agreement on most things. It might be that you are saying you and I can prefer different ways of expressing spiritual realities? As in, I might prefer to see a Roses in church whereas you might prefer to see Daisies sort of thing? So they both point to the spiritual reality of the Garden but we just prefer to see different flowers. Is that what you meant?
 
ByzCathCantor said:
Understood and agreed. Likewise, thanks for your further remarks.

BTW - I did think that the video came out largely in favor of a more traditional church, again only in that rejection of architectural and artistic elements would preclude opportunities for “visual catechesis” normally attributed to more classic structures. Was that your overall take?
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Yes, I felt the same as well.

I think at one point when he speaks on pillars and columns, he actually says something like ‘If we choose the modern, we sometimes loose the expressive power that was there in traditional architecture’.

So I think there might be two problems related to modern architecture.
  1. Distorted theology (so things like broken looking altars)
  2. Some Modern designs that are not as expressive as traditional designs (so maybe a plain glass pillar, transparent walls/roofs that show outside etc. )
The first should be rejected directly on the fact that it represents a lie.

The second, probably should not be outright rejected. But it could be rejected on relative merits how well it expresses truths effectively compared to something traditional. Or maybe at this point it is a matter of finances. One might simply have to accept it and say that the church is just not as beautiful as another church but its the best we could do with the budget we had. I think it would be reasonable as long as we are dealing with (2).

Overall, the work presented in the talk seems to have given us objective things to consider when building or evaluating a church. I think its almost like a language so that both sides can now start discussing what is needed and perhaps find ways to better adopt the modern designs. That was something that really made the talk stick with me after listening.
 
We know what ugly is:

Imgur

Just remember when we complain about the aesthetics of Churches this is what City planners were putting humans into in the 60’s and 70’s
 
triumphguy said:
Like this:

Which is more beautiful?
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The point worth mentioning for both I guess is that one cannot know if its beautiful unless they know what it is suppossed to be. If you showed me the first picture as being of a human being, then I would have said its not beautiful i.e. it doesn’t seem to express qualities of a human being.

The reason why some people go “beautiful” to the first picture is that they implicitly realize it is a tall mountain line. The image captures the ‘tallness’ aspect, the daunting size of it perfectly. So one could say it is a beautiful image.

But in any case, its important to know what it is that the images wanted to capture to judge whether it is a beautiful image of it. Otherwise, one will just have to assume what it is.
 
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