What Kind of Church Architecture Do You Prefer

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I’m wondering what kind of church architecture your parish has and what you prefer?

My parish is the modern style, almost as bad as Michael’s Rose’s book, “Ugly as Sin”. (Well, maybe not that bad.) 🙂 We have no Crucifix over the Altar and no statues at all, not even a statue of the Blessed Mother and St. Joseph. Our Tabernacle is off to the side of the church, in a glass wall that separates the main part of the church and the small side chapel. 😦

I’m from the East coast, and I really miss the old traditional churches. The church we were married in would be like a cathedral out here on the West coast!

Oh well. Our church is close knit, but is just ugly! And they built it that way, just two years ago!

God Bless,
Amy
 
I like the Spanish/Mission style myself, but I also like the Gothic style. I also like the conventional row style seating, not a parish in the round, and a tabernacle behind or even on the altar.

That said, having lived on the West Coast for a long time untill recently, many suburban parishes built before Vatican II, while they have row seating and in many cases an altar rail still, were cheaply built, were/are just as ugly as some of the more recent parishes.
 
Our parish has the old german gothic style. I really love it or anything very oldworld and traditional looking. I very much dislilke the Modern Churches, as they seem protestant.

JMO,
 
I wish we had a more traditional looking church, as well. We have a statue of Jesus above the altar, but it’s the resurrected Christ, and not an actual Crucifix. We have a painting of Our Lady of Guadalupe, and the Stations of the Cross on the walls, but if not for those two things, our church would look like any other Protestant church. The tabernacle is also pushed off to the side, but is still in the main sanctuary.
 
I tend to prefer Gothic as well, but Italian Baroque looks very nice as well.
 
When I go to church, I wanna FEEL like I am entering something HOLY…something that will manifest in people the dignity, awe and respect one should have when entering the HOUSE OF GOD… the ABODE of Jesus in the EUCHARIST… that means beautiful stained glass imagry depicting biblical events, big statues of saints, the Blessed Virgin, crucifixes everywhere! Anything neo modern is sacriligious in my opinion. If I wanted to worship God in what looked like the sterile lobby of a fancy lawfirm, I’d go to the U.N and worship their false sterile deities.
 
Faithful 2 Rome:
When I go to church, I wanna FEEL like I am entering something HOLY…something that will manifest in people the dignity, awe and respect one should have when entering the HOUSE OF GOD… the ABODE of Jesus in the EUCHARIST… that means beautiful stained glass imagry depicting biblical events, big statues of saints, the Blessed Virgin, crucifixes everywhere! Anything neo modern is sacriligious in my opinion. If I wanted to worship God in what looked like the sterile lobby of a fancy lawfirm, I’d go to the U.N and worship their false sterile deities.
:amen:

DaveBj
 
Wow! It seems like I’m not the only one who dislikes the modern, plain, “protestant” looking churches. What are our Bishops thinking? I’m sure they determine the church’s design, or at least have the final say. My only thought is that maybe it’s a money thing. Huge stone churches, like my old parish back East are way to expensive to build these days…

Ave Maria!
Amy
 
I like the idea of the doors being on the sides as well as the back of the church.

It enables more folks to be able to park closer, as well as easy egress after the masses with the people able to leave by many exits. In addition, the people near the front to be able to see are also able to be close to the doors, ideal for the myopic and hard of hearing faithful who are also a tad bit claustrophobic.
 
Faithful 2 Rome:
When I go to church, I wanna FEEL like I am entering something HOLY…
I agree completely. Isn’t it ironic that churches built hundreds of years ago were able to achieve this although they didn’t have the architectural materials or technology that we have today. Now, we’ve got the ability to build magnificent cathedrals, but they end up looking and feeling like auditoriums. But…it’s getting better. We’ve got an altar rail, tabernacle in the middle, and some statues, and even a few stained glass windows.
 
There seems to me to be much agreement here so far. I’m not sure which style of older, traditional churches I like best. I do know that you sense the presence of God in these places much more so than we do in our so-called “modern architecture” churches.

My parish is modern. We’ve go a big blue stained glass cross behind the sanctuary. A big “Resurrection Jesus” hangs over the altar. The visual effect from most places in the church is that Our Lord is more or less superimposed on the stained glass cross. The tabernacle was placed as far to the side as possible, and because of structural columns, you can’t see it from most places in the church.

I understand that this seems to be the new design trend. I also know that, for me, the sanctuary no longer seems to be a “holy of holies.” The idea of removing the tabernacle from front and center was supposed to focus us better on the altar. I don’t remember the tabernacle ever causing me to lose focus during mass. We also have a liturgical requirement to have a bona fide (good term!) crucifix in the sanctuary for mass. I believe the traditional custom of having a large, beautiful crucifix as a permanent part of the sanctuary is important. Maybe the idea was to not offend protestants. I think it better to keep the crucifix, and use it and other “images” as a point of apologetic evangelization.
 
Partly it is money controlling the way churches are built now, but, I think predominantly it is a philosophy (not beneficial) which deempasizes the sanctuary as the place of sacrifice, the importance of the saints (hence no statues…I guess its better to look at each other, preferably in the round,) etc. This is why older churches have to be “renovated.”

I recently retuned to the church I grew up in, not having visited there for many years. It was never very ornate, but you knew it was a holy place. The Blessed Mother and St. Joseph altars were gone, the saint’s statues were gone. The main altar was taken from its elevated place ( I find that particularly significant,) and the beautiful tabernacle placed left center. This placement meant that the readers and the priest stood at the ambo with their back directly to the tabernacle! To the right was something not easily described. I guess the best would be like some fountain display at Home Depot, and I guess they used this for baptism. It was hard to tell, since the contraption was not turned on. By the way, this was a church that originally had a baptismal area, grated, in the back of the church.

I served at the altar in that church, and I never want to go there again.
 
My wife and I prefer more traditional church architecture. Living in Los Angeles, we are extremely fortunate to belong to a parish that built a beautiful, “east coast-style” church in the 50s. The tabernacle is centrally located behind the marble altar that is faced by a carved relief of the Last Supper. The altar is covered by a wonderful marble and brass baldachino. There are marble statues of the Blessed Mother, the Sacred Heart, St. Joseph, St Anthony, the Pieta, and others. The stations of the cross and images of Our Lady of Perpetual Help and Our Lady of Guadalupe are made of Roman mosaic tiles. The church steeple is topped by a golden statue of Mary, Star of the Sea. There are 6 confessionals and confessions are heard at scheduled times on Wednesday through Saturday. What a contrast with our new, multi-million dollar cathedral, which has all the charm of a high school gymnasium. Worship space indeed!
 
I like gothic and neo-gothic but I think my favorite is Romanesque.
 
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