Y
YoungTradCath
Guest
We don’t design churches to be cost-effective office buildings.
- Status
T
TheMc
Guest
Having one freestanding altar with a baldacchino, and space on both sides might be very effective. Let’s go for it, if I hear no objections.
C
Colt
Guest
50% is unacceptable. That’s simply poor architecture.
Y
YoungTradCath
Guest
As long as it’s gorgeous.
C
Colt
Guest
Why are you artificially constraining the size of this building? Why are you trying to force it into the shape of a cruciform? Nostalgia? You’re not constrained by archaic building materials or technology. Depending on the shape of the lot you could building a far larger and more open structure for not much more money. Think Hagia Sophia rather than a bowling alley.
I am still amazed that people will attack “churches in the round” with nasty comments yet they just love long naves, long transepts and long presbyteriums all connected together by the sanctuary.
Y
YoungTradCath
Guest
What is wrong with a cruciform church? Perhaps you just personally love “churches in the round.” I personally think they are awful in about 95% of cases.Why are you artificially constraining the size of this building? Why are you trying to force it into the shape of a cruciform? Nostalgia? You’re not constrained by archaic building materials or technology. Depending on the shape of the lot you could building a far larger and more open structure for not much more money. Think Hagia Sophia rather than a bowling alley.
I am still amazed that people will attack “churches in the round” with nasty comments yet they just love long naves, long transepts and long presbyteriums all connected together by the sanctuary.
The church doesn’t look “forced” at all. It looks very natural and has great proportions.
P
PrayForMeStJude
Guest
If you’re attending a High Mass do you want some other altar in the way? I find it visually unapealing. I also think it makes more sense to have just one altar. The EF can be celebrated on a free-standing altar, and everywhere I have seen a free-standing altar installed in front of a High Altar it looks a little silly and de-emphasizes them both. That’s just my opinion.
I’m sorry my ten minute sketch in MS Paint wasn’t an architechtural masterpeice. Geesh.
The “wasted” space was designed to leave room for processions, following the way of the cross, confessionals, side altars, etc. Churches are used for more than just mass so trying to jam as many pews as possible into them actually robs space away from these other things.
I think its pretty nasty of you to attack someone who just posted a hypothetical design for some feedback. Especially the way to seem to impose your obviously negative feelings about traditional arcchitecture onto the discussion. Building churches is not about being unconstrained, using the newest materials, or making it as large as possible. Our churches are meant to teach and edify the faithful. They are prayers in stone. As someone who has worshipped in so-called churches in the round for most of his life, I generally find that they lack the educational and allegorical powers of the traditional cruciform plan.Why are you artificially constraining the size of this building? Why are you trying to force it into the shape of a cruciform? Nostalgia? You’re not constrained by archaic building materials or technology. Depending on the shape of the lot you could building a far larger and more open structure for not much more money. Think Hagia Sophia rather than a bowling alley.
I am still amazed that people will attack “churches in the round” with nasty comments yet they just love long naves, long transepts and long presbyteriums all connected together by the sanctuary.
Its also worth noting that many of the more “original” church designs end up costing way more to build than traditional designs.
C
Colt
Guest
I didn’t attack anyone. It’s you that is getting defensive and you making disparaging remarks about me.
That said I would encourage you to study architecture if you really want to design a church. Understand why many churches looked like they did in prior to 500 AD, then the next thousand years forward and so on. If those wide corridors are actually aisle ways on your drawing then you simply have a scaling issue. There are standards/codes for that type of stuff.
Have you ever attended Mass in a place like St. Pat’s in NYC? A nice, historic space in many ways but not my favorite to attend the Mass. Sit even 1/4 of the way back and you can barely see what’s going on in the sanctuary, unless you look at one of the many CCTV screens bolted to the many column. Yes, I know it’s not a must that we see and hear what’s going on in the sanctuary but I certainly like to – and without the intervention of CCTV!
At the same time I realize why St. Pat’s has the horrible sight lines. It’s pretty much the best they could do at the time and that’s great. But we are able to do better today and no, that does not equate to expensive or ugly buildings. And while I am a staunch preservationist when it comes to historic places like St. Pat’s, I certainly wouldn’t advocate replicating it today given its severe liturgical limitations.
C
Colt
Guest
Let me try again…
I find it ironic that some hate “churches in the round” (with comments like “putting the priest and not the Blessed sacrament on display”) yet they sing the praises of a nave, transepts and a presbyterium all connected by a sanctuary. Just another form of a “church in the round.” Just not nearly as space efficient, cost effective or easy to maintain.
M
MarkThompson
Guest
Having followed this thread and not yet made any remarks, let me say this. I think it would be useful if you started with a somewhat more clear idea of exactly what it is that you are trying to do. People keep suggesting “put in this, put in that.” Liturgical conservatives call for side altars and altar rails; fans of modern architecture want a church-in-the-round. Well, what is it you are trying to build? Where would it be? Who would use it? What principles would they want to express in their church?
So, are you just creating an infinite-budget, pipe-dream, awsomest-church-ever? Are you building something that could serve as an actual parish church in the United States in 2012? Or in the mountains of Peru? Are you trying to build it in the vein of a specific historical architectural style? Right now, nobody really knows what to suggest, so people are just suggesting whatever strikes their fancy. (And there’s nothing better than a building designed by committee, is there?) Somebody suggested choir stalls, which would make sense if the building is serving as an abbey church or a cathedral with a large chapter of resident canons, but would be absolutely ludicrous for a suburban parish.
If you are just having fun playing around with how to create different designs on the computer, I don’t fault you in the slightest. But if you want to go a bit deeper – and putting it up here for comments and suggestions makes me think you do – that process should start with a clearer picture of the purpose and functions of your church, the resources you would have to build it, and so on (all fictional, of course, but part of the fun should be coming up with the backstory). Imagine someone posting on a forum, “Hey guys, I’m trying to invent a superhero for a story. What super abilities do you think he should have?” Everybody chimes in: Invisibility! Shapeshifting! Casting lightning bolts! Turning into a dragon! Mindreading! Adamantium claws! Teleporting! If you throw everything in, then you rapidly see that the more “awesome” your superhero becomes, the lamer he actually gets. And super abilities only make sense if they tie into what kind of a person he is, where he came from, and what role he would play in a story, so it is impossible to know which ideas to keep and which to reject without a prior understanding of the story you want to write.
Can you tell us anything about the kind of story you want to write for this church?
M
mburn16
Guest
as I said…I started off trying to model a church included in one of the pictures earlier in the thread, and just decided to run with it. No, I’m not operating with any budgetary, space, or other restraints - I simply decided to invite the rest of the CAF community in to design a dream church.
I doubt this will be the last church I design, and the next one will probably follow a more modern design - very possibly “in the round”
I doubt this will be the last church I design, and the next one will probably follow a more modern design - very possibly “in the round”
S
SKWill
Guest
How do you define wasted. Not in use 100% of the time doesn’t automatically mean wasted.
C
Colt
Guest
It’s a very interesting exercise. Before you put pencil to paper (or electrons to LCD) did you happen to make a list of the qualities you wanted in a church along with requirements from the Church? Did you order them as something a long the lines of “must have”, “should have”, “nice to have”, etc?
Did you look at the different qualities from different viewpoints? Say from the view point of reverence to God, dignity to the liturgy, from the viewpoint of the structure’s ability to facilitate your own nourishment as you attend the Mass, the structure’s ability to facilitate evangelization, on and on and on? Just how important is it to copy a historical element if there are objectively superior ways of doing things today?
I suspect if I designed a church without (realistic) budget or real estate limitations it would look considerably different than many of the structures that are coveted here. I would take into consideration the amount of money and effort it would take to maintain them. I would want to design a church that would be around for centuries and not be a burden to future generations. I would want to spend so much time and effort on the interior decorating that in essence “that’s it”, it would never be re-decorated. Conserved yes, changed, no.
So many things need to be considered when designing a church…
C
Colt
Guest
Space that adds no value to the structure. You want aisles for processions? OK, you’ll need them anyway to meet code but to make an aisle half as wide as the nave would be a waste of space.
As drawn there wouldn’t even be an aesthetic value to the jumbo sized corridors. I think it would give the impression of unfinished space. It would probably get filled-in down the way by chairs at least at Christmas and Easter Masses.
I’m not a huge fan of confessionals either. They are especially hard on the confessor and the handicapped. They existed because they were a very inexpensive way to add that feature to a building. If I starting from a clean sheet of paper I would aim far higher than that with well designed confession rooms that allowed people to go to confession face to face or behind a screen.
Some people seem to crave objectively inferior (both from an aesthetic and functional viewpoint) building elements simply because they were used in the past and that’s bad design.
P
PrayForMeStJude
Guest
I doubt everyone would agree with you there.
I don’t want to design a church at all. I wasn’t the one who designed the hypothetical church in question here, “mburn16” was. So you’re really doing your venting to the wrong person here. And again you seem to miss the point: the illustration I did was in Microsoft Paint, for crying out loud! That’s probably the internet equivalent of a sketch on the back of a napkinI I can’t for the life of me figure out what you’re all up in arms about. Is it to scale? No. Is it going to be published in next months architectural review? No. Is my design poised to win awards and accolades for its amazing contributions to the art of architecture? Certainly not. But you seem to be the only one who cares.
I posted that little sketch as part of the process of bouncing around ideas, a process which was pretty profitable and enjoyable until your post. If you have different architectural preferences that is fine; there is more than one way to build a nice church. The design I roughly sketched out is similar to the design of Westminster Cathedral in London and the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., two churches for which I had previously expressed my admiration.
Yes, I have attended mass at St. Patricks. And countless other places all over the United States and Europe. I’ve seen every Church design imaginable. The concerns you’ve expressed may be valid, but not everyone would rank them as highly as you would. And Furthermore, they’re not really germane to the discussion at hand.
We wont have to meet any codes at all. Because its a hypothetical church designed with a freeware modelling software from Google! And again, you’e coming after a MS Paint sketch with guns blazing. I seriously doubt you don’t have something better to do. We’re just bouncing around ideas for a hypothetical church and you’ve done nothing but play the contrarian. It may be entertaining for you but its just annoying for the rest of us.
Who cares?
See, this is the kind of statement which might mislead us simpletons into thinking you’re being rude. Our preferences are objectively inferior simply because they aren’t yours? Give me a break.
G
GEddie
Guest
Come on, cool it, everybodyl!!!
CAF is supposed to be FUN!!! And we just came off a holiday season to boot!
If we can’t engage coolheadedly, the thread will likely be shut down, and would serve us all right.
God Bless, ICXC NIKA
CAF is supposed to be FUN!!! And we just came off a holiday season to boot!
If we can’t engage coolheadedly, the thread will likely be shut down, and would serve us all right.
God Bless, ICXC NIKA
T
TheMc
Guest
:clapping::clapping::clapping:
Colt, you need to lighten up. If you don’t like the entire design, why don’t you leave, or start your own thread on designing a confessional-less church in the round that uses all space with 100% efficiently?
P
PrayForMeStJude
Guest
Well it appears the major source of trouble has been banned. Hopefully s/he hasn’t de-railed the thread so far that we can’t return to our main objective.
M
mburn16
Guest
no, the thread didn’t get derailed - but I’ve been trying to figure out how I want to design the high altar, and I’ve been slightly distracted (tonight is the Iowa Caucuses, and I also happen to be a political junkie).
I’ll get back to work designing it shortly…the altar rail is half complete.
I’ll get back to work designing it shortly…the altar rail is half complete.
F
Filii_Dei
Guest
A 100% efficient church would be square or rectangular. I don’t know any plots of land on the property market that are circular. 
- Status