Least favorite church buildings?

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Esperanto99

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We’ve discussed some of the best looking churches, I believe we can agree that through the centuries Catholics have had pretty good taste in architecture.

Anyone want to comment on edifices at the other end of the spectrum?

My own home parish, St. Francis of Assisi in Bolingbrook is a converted activity center with folding chairs and is situated beneath the picturesque high-tension wires. Fortunately, ground will be broken on a new buiding in September.
 
does it really matter? the Church is the people. now the actual building…:confused:

but anywho…to each his own…
 
Anyone been to the Great Agitator/The Maytag Building/The Cathedral in San Francisco? Its an amazing building that looks like it came out of a final fantasy game that gives glory to God by its very design… But for gosh sake its a terrible place to hold mass. Very distracting.

Josh
 
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latisha1903:
does it really matter? the Church is the people. now the actual building…:confused:

but anywho…to each his own…
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You have a point latisha1903, but I think it does matter. Just as people should dress well and act reverently at Mass to show love and respect for our Lord, we should pray for Church architecture that lifts the mind, heart and soul to that Lord.

A painting of the Laughing Jesus on felt may be interesting, but it ain’t Michelangelo.

As for my least favorite, please choose from any recently built Catholic building…
 
Calvin said:
inflatablechurch.com/

Does that count?

-C
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:rotfl:

On the website it says:

The Inflatable Church is Registered in the Guinness World Records for being the world’s largest Inflatable church on the world.

I wonder how many inflatable churches were in competition for the title “world’s largest”?!:rotfl:
 
About the Cathedral in LIverpool. Believe it or not, it was designed before Vatican II, and there are a few post WWII yet pre Vatican II parishes that look like this. While the liturgy was still the TRidentine mass by 1960, design of the parish structures in many quarters had become quite modernistic by then.
 
On the website it says:

The Inflatable Church is Registered in the Guinness World Records for being the world’s largest Inflatable church on the world.

I wonder how many inflatable churches were in competition for the title “world’s largest”?!:rotfl:

[/quote]

… actually there is (was) an inflatable cathedral in the Czech Republic. It was done up Orthodox style with onion domes. I would have posted a link but the company who owns (owned?) it removed all the pictured from their website.

Although I have not seen either in person, from memory of the photos, I would guess the inflatable cathedral is bigger than the inflatable church but maybe they are judged in different categories!

-C
 
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Calvin:
… actually there is (was) an inflatable cathedral in the Czech Republic. It was done up Orthodox style with onion domes. I would have posted a link but the company who owns (owned?) it removed all the pictured from their website.

Although I have not seen either in person, from memory of the photos, I would guess the inflatable cathedral is bigger than the inflatable church but maybe they are judged in different categories!

-C
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I can’t believe more than one person has come up with this idea…and acted on it! :confused: :whacky: :rotfl:
 
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Trad_Catholic:
The new “Cathedral” in LA.
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Yes. My vote would definitely be “Our Lady of the Overpass” as it’s come be be known.
–Ann
 
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Sparky:
Yes. My vote would definitely be “Our Lady of the Overpass” as it’s come be be known.
–Ann
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I’ve heard it referred to as the “Taj Mahoney.”

-C
 
St. Martha, Akron, Ohio and all the thousands like it.

A large basement room, eventually supposed to be a small gymasium, or maybe a little auditorium, with an altar, crucifix, two cheap plaster statues with garish paint, and some pews, and frosted white glass in 6-over-6 double-hung windows, under a huge parochial school building, supposed to be temporary until the church got built, and it’s been temporary for the last sixty or seventy years. Because it’s only temporary, no one’s willing to spend the money to make it worthy; after all, someday there’s going to be a church.

Actually, St. Martha’s is better than most of its genre, because in the early 1980’s the parish finally admitted that the church wasn’t ever going to be built, and they did a thorough rehabilitation to make the space they had as worthy as possible. got a substantial permanent altar, an immersion baptistry, statues and crucifix of some artistic worth, a chior area outside the sanctuary, and put real colored glass in the window sashes, so now it is only plain and homely, instead of ugly-as-sin, Still, though, girls approaching marriage age go join other parishes, so their wedding pictures are more respectable, then return to St. Martha’s when the children reach school age ---- the church may be an ugly duckling, but it’s got a good school!

karen marie
 
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threej_lc:
Anyone been to the Great Agitator/The Maytag Building/The Cathedral in San Francisco? Its an amazing building that looks like it came out of a final fantasy game that gives glory to God by its very design… But for gosh sake its a terrible place to hold mass. Very distracting.

Josh
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I especially like the plain glass plate windows at the corners of the church. Thanks for the washing machine agitator image. I hadn’t thought of that before. Believe me, as bad as St Mary’s Cathedral in San Francisco is, the new LA Cathedral of Our Lady of Angels is worse, unless you enjoy the atmosphere of a high school gymnasium. You should also see the pigeon-poop windows!
 
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latisha1903:
does it really matter? the Church is the people. now the actual building…:confused:

but anywho…to each his own…
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It may not so much be, what the building looks like as to the reason it was built.:hmmm:

was the church built to worship & adore God, :bowdown2:,
or to satisfy their ego’s? :tsktsk:

:blessyou:
 
My vote goes to the Taj Mahony. I have visited this incredible structure. While I must admit that I liked the murals of the saints on the wall in the auditorium, whoops, I mean worship space, the rest of the cathedral left me with cold chills. My daughter, who is young and far more hip than I had the same reaction.
 
I have been to the new** LA Cathedral**, and I have to admit that it is not beautiful. I don’t know what look Cardnal Mahony was going for, but it sure wasn’t beautiful. The only thing beautiful about the new Cathedral that I remember seeing was the** tapestries** on the wall and a bueatiful statue of Our Lady of Angels. Other then that the architecture, including the other art was to modern and cold, especially the tabernacle and the **crucifix behind the alter. ****:confused: **
 
I don’t know, in the place that I just moved to, their is a whole bunch of Pentacostal churches (no one said they had to be catholic churches) and they are awful!!! They are these huge buildings that look like different sized boxes piled on top of eachother to form some abstract art. It’s so bad. Most are bigger than the highschool i attended!!
 
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