Do you think that this Cathedral is ugly?

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jbuck919:
On the matter of stained glass, it is not appropriate to every type of church. For example, as venerable and beautiful a church as the Co-Cathedral of the Assumption in Baltimore is in a neoclassical style and would be ruined by stained glass.
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Do you have a picture of this church?
 
The Basilica is being restored to how it looked when it was first consecrated. Our Nation was new back then and there were anti-Catholic sentiments due primarily to could Catholics be considered Americans becuase they follow the Pope. A traditional gothic style cathedral was planned first but it was scratched due to the reason I stated above, such a design might fuel those sentiments. So a new design was thought up, one that would fit in more. The Basilica looks to me like it could be a building in Washington DC, that was the aim. Also, the interior was simple, like the various high-church Protestant churches. There were no stained glass windows in the original church, they were all clear-panes. These are the windows that will be put in the restored church.

Despite the simplicity of the Old Baltimore Cathedral, it is still much more appealing to the eye then this current trend in the USA.
 
Despite the simplicity of the Old Baltimore Cathedral, it is still much more appealing to the eye then this current trend in the USA.
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Once folks could just point to the most ornate and beautiful church in town and be pretty confident that it was the Catholic one.

Now we seem to have gotten a competitive streak with some of our protestant buddies. They had us beat for years by having the most plain, uninspiring and ugliest “worship spaces”-now we are coming in swinging with a vengeance. If the trend had really continued like it was going in the '60s and '70s, we would have had them beat by a long shot… 😛
 
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ComradeAndrei:
Now we seem to have gotten a competitive streak with some of our protestant buddies.
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Worse than that: many designers and builders of Catholic “churches” have been actively following the ideas of Edward Sövik, a Lutheran architect!

His “philosophy” of what a church should be is pretty heretical, even for Lutherans, let alone for Catholics.

:banghead:
I have a question for anyone who knows anything about building costs, which I don’t:

Does it cost much more to build the beautiful sort of churches that we love so much? Like, the Cathedral of the Plains, for example.

If it does, then that would explain the reason for these ugly non-churches… poeple are just too cheap to cough up the money, but they don’t admit to it. They just use foolish neologisms (“worship space” etc) to disguise the real reason.
 
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JoeMike:
I have a question for anyone who knows anything about building costs, which I don’t:

Does it cost much more to build the beautiful sort of churches that we love so much? Like, the Cathedral of the Plains, for example.

If it does, then that would explain the reason for these ugly non-churches… poeple are just too cheap to cough up the money, but they don’t admit to it. They just use foolish neologisms (“worship space” etc) to disguise the real reason.
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It probably does cost more. But I honestly think the harder part is finding architects willing to design such buildings.

I think part of the problem is that today we expect a church building to be be complete (including windows, statues, crucifixes, etc.) within 3 years of the initial groundbreaking. I think that limits the building style. If we didn’t expect our buildings to look beautiful until a century or so had passed we might do better.

Another issue is modern building codes and available materials. You almost have to build newer buildings out of those huge pre-fab slabs of concrete. If you want to use stone it either has to be a facade or has to be somehow re-inforced to meet flood/earthquake/tornado/hurricane/volcano…standards.
 
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SMHW:
It probably does cost more. But I honestly think the harder part is finding architects willing to design such buildings.
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The Notre Dame University School of Architecture. The proposal they came up with for the LA Cathedral was beautiful. Traditional Spanish Mission.

Here is the website of one of their professors

thomasgordonsmitharchitects.com/Main_frameset.html

Another issue is modern building codes and available materials. You almost have to build newer buildings out of those huge pre-fab slabs of concrete. If you want to use stone it either has to be a facade or has to be somehow re-inforced to meet flood/earthquake/tornado/hurricane/volcano…standards.

Concrete can easily be dyed and cast to look like cut stone. Not much more expensive than straight poured concrete.
 
If it does, then that would explain the reason for these ugly non-churches… poeple are just too cheap to cough up the money, but they don’t admit to it. They just use foolish neologisms (“worship space” etc) to disguise the real reason.
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That is probably much of it-especially in cities where new parishes are made when more folks move in or there are new lines drawn, etc. They want a church in a couple years and want it done completely.

The great cathedrals of Europe took centuries to build and were often a labor of love. The folks around the area chipped in their time and talent for little or no personal gain and look how they turned out.

Aside from such grand structures, much can be done with a little.I came from an area that had quite a few beautiful country churches built by mostly Polish and Czech immigrants, they built beautiful churches with the means at hand and still built them in less than 5 yrs, at least to the point of being usable with ongoing finishing touches. Also, the people of the parish (and relatives, folks from around the area, etc.) got togther and did most of the grunt work themselves. It can be done, and it doesn’t necessarily take a century to finish either.

But, unfortunately, Folks now a day want everything NOW but they also don’t want to spend much money on something like a beautiful old style church. I think they’d rather put thousands of dollars into heating/air conditioning systems, microphone/sound systems, big screens, etc. Pretty sad.
It probably does cost more. But I honestly think the harder part is finding architects willing to design such buildings.
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That is probably a problem too. An architect (depending on the individual) probably doesn’t want to do what has been done thousands of times before. They want to be “innovative” and “fresh” which means they’d rather trample over each other in trying to design the most outlandish structure with the most “warm and fuzzy” symbolism like “togetherness”, “community”, etc. ad naseaum.
 
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ComradeAndrei:
The great cathedrals of Europe took centuries to build
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I’m wondering how long they would take if they started right now.

I’m no expert on construction, but I would think that today’s machinery and equipment would cut down on a lot of time otherwise spent doing things “the hard way.”

But how much time? I can’t even begin to take a guess.

Anybody?

(EtA: Thanks, SMHW, Brendan, Comrade, for your answers!)
 
Sorry to say but it is ugly but the Cathedral of the Plains in Kansas is absolutely gorgeous. I would love to visit that church.
 
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JoeMike:
I’m wondering how long they would take if they started right now.

I’m no expert on construction, but I would think that today’s machinery and equipment would cut down on a lot of time otherwise spent doing things “the hard way.”

But how much time? I can’t even begin to take a guess.

Anybody?

(EtA: Thanks, SMHW, Brendan, Comrade, for your answers!)
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Actually it would still take a considerable amount of time.

The idea of building a stone Gothic cathedral is what the Episcopalian diocese of New York has in mind with Cathedral of St. John the Divine, and that building is far from being finished, and they started construction about 1898.
 
I’m wondering how long they would take if they started right now.
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St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York was completed in about 20 yrs., minus about 4 yrs. for the Civil War. Granted, St. Patrick’s wasn’t built just like a medieval Cathedral, but there is no point in directly copying the medieval style and technique when you can use modern technology and have some of your side altars designed by Tiffany & Co.
The idea of building a stone Gothic cathedral is what the Episcopalian diocese of New York has in mind with Cathedral of St. John the Divine, and that building is far from being finished, and they started construction about 1898.
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That is what the Episcopalians get for trying to play Keeping Up with the Jones’. They wanted to out do us Catholics, and they ended up with a non-starter. 😉 It will be a beautiful building when it gets done (if ever) and even what is standing is quite nice.
 
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Tinkerbell:
Sorry to say but it is ugly but the Cathedral of the Plains in Kansas is absolutely gorgeous. I would love to visit that church.
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Yes, you should visit the church. And while you’re in Kansas, you could also visit the worlds largest ball of twine, or see the hot and cold water towers in Pratt.
 
Here’s my church:

My Church

Not bad, considering it isn’t the Cathedral, eh? 🙂

Regarding the Cathedral that is the subject of this thread – it’s not really my taste in architecture, but I’ve seen worse. The copper door and door handles are beautiful. I still prefer “old-fashioned” church buildings.

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St. John the Divine in New York is a bit of a monstrosity in that it had its design changed twice (Byzantine to Romanesque to Gothic). Also, it had the ambition of being the largest “gothic” church in the world and the second-largest church overall. It is not in a nice part of town and will probably never be finished. (Ironically, the much smaller Anglican cathedral in the capital city of New York, Albany, is also chronically unfinished.)

A better example might be the Anglican Cathedral Church of St. Peter and St. Paul in Washington, better known as the National Cathedral. It was built according to true gothic principles as opposed to the neo-gothic of St. Patrick’s (it is in fact the only true gothic cathedral in the western hemisphere). Because of various delays (mainly financial) and the nature of the work, it took close to a century to complete.

Perhaps it should be remembered that many of the ancient gothic cathedrals in fact never were completed. In some cases only the choir or transept was completed and serves as the entire cathedral. In others, towers were planned that were never built. Many true gothic cathedrals do not have unbroken expanses of stained glass, but some panels of plain glass that were intended to be replaced by stained but never were. The famous cathedral at Koeln (Cologne) was a fragment of itself until the 19th century, when it was completed according to the original plans, which survive.
 
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Kielbasi:
You may not like round churches, but they do have points of positivity.

They are easier to evacuate in the case of emergency, easier parking is possible with that configuration as well. But most importantly, more of the people will be able to actually see the mass. Folks’ eyesight starts going at the older ages, so if a church has an older congregation, getting the people closer to the altar by putting them on all sides is a plus.
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I’m probably the oddball, but I thought it looked pretty decent, as churches go nowadays. With the church in the round, everybody can see the altar, and it makes it harder for the people in the back to go to sleep during Mass. They are also easier to enter for the people that are wheel chair bound, as opposed to the older churches with the towering flights of steps.
 
While I’m definitely a Neo-Gothic when it comes to my church architecture, and thus not too sympathetic to the ‘modern style’ in general, I think the biggest problem I had with the Dodge City cathedral is that it looked more like a convention center than a church. That sort of architecture does not say “sacred” to me.
 
Sorry, I can’t open with powerpoint cuz I don’t resigter with powerpoint and I don’t have it, I only use Micosoft so sorry, I can’t open it.
 
I happen to agree that a lot of modern churches are ugly. However, the Catholic Church has always been at the forefront of innovation, and there are good and bad ways to approach any architectual style. So, can anyone provide some links to some “good” modern churches?

How about this:

Sagrada Familia in Barcelona (still under construction)
turismoa2ruote.com/gallery/08-Barcellona/images/11%20Sagrada%20Familia%2001.JPG
63.247.90.186/~vatoloc/barcelona/images/sagrada-familia-3.jpg
viviane-voyages.blogs-de-voyage.fr/album/barcelone/sagrada_familia_3.3.jpg

or this?

New Basilica of Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe in Mexico
daily-word-of-life.com/DailyWord/Basilica_OL_Guadalupe_Mass.jpg
sacredsites.com/americas/mexico/images/Guadalupe_02_V.jpg
planetware.com/i/photo/new-basilica-of-nuestra-senora-de-guadalupe-mexico-city-mxmc19.jpg
metafisicany.com/viajes/mexico_2005/images/50%20-%20Basilica%20de%20Guadalupe.jpg
metafisicany.com/viajes/mexico_2005/images/51%20-%20Basilica%20de%20Guadalupe.jpg
vatican.va/news_services/liturgy/2002/img/20020731_mexico2.jpg
 
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