Why do Catholics use elaborate architecture to build churches?

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adawgj

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Why are Catholic churches so big and elaborate with beautiful architecture and art?
Compared to other churches Ive seen (at least where I live) Catholic churches have a better taste for art. Why is that?
 
We as Catholics believe to have Christ, the King of Kings, living in the tabernacle. Would you want a king in glorious castle with fine designs or a normal boring house?

Also it speaks about in Kings (hopefully, im not positive) that the new Temple of the Lord in the Old Testament was built out of Gold and other riches
 
Alas, ugly, banal, and bizarre Catholic architecture not only exists, but in many places today is the status quo. I think this started in the 1950s.

Historically, though, yeah, you can’t beat Catholic architecture; and I agree with Bballer32, it’s because of our belief in the Real Presence.
 
It varies. Some buildings are ugly modern, others are ugly old fashioned, and some - both old & modern - are lovely. Our present parish is very plain - the same sort of small, white church with a steeple for the bell that are ubiquitous in westerns. I think it was the dumping ground of other churches that modernized and wanted to get rid of their statues. We have a lot of statues, most of which are cracked and/or missing parts. But from a distance, or when wearing my reading glasses, they look fine. 🙂
 
Actually, you bring up a comparison: Catholic, being relatively ornate, as opposed to non-Catholic, being less so.

From what I gather, the Protestants stripped away a lot of Catholic tradition and rite in their theology and practice, and their churches reflect this in comparison to Catholic Churches, generally speaking anyway.
 
Like I said this is in my area. Where i live my parish is the biggest church in the area. (art wise too)
 
adawgj said:
Why are Catholic churches so big and elaborate with beautiful architecture and art?
Compared to other churches Ive seen (at least where I live) Catholic churches have a better taste for art. Why is that?
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I think it is prudent to understand that from about the 6th century to the 19th century europe was Catholic and most art was commisioned by the Catholic church. Michaelangelo, rembrant, Da Vincci etc. were all Catholic artists who at times worked for the catholic church
 
When we enter a Catholic Church, we are entering the Heavenly Liturgy. Read in the book of Revelations the description of the Heavenly Liturgy. Also, in early years many people did not read or write. Even if they could, there was no printing press so books were hand copied and expensive. The church building itself, through art and architecture was a vehicle of evangelization for the people.
 
You should see some of Our Churches-afraid no statues however-if you get a chance go the National Cathederal in D.C. or St. john the Divine in NYC or St. Pat’s in Dublin or St. Paul’s in London:cool:
 
adawgj said:
Why are Catholic churches so big and elaborate with beautiful architecture and art?
Compared to other churches Ive seen (at least where I live) Catholic churches have a better taste for art. Why is that?
Click to expand...
Architecture and art give us rich symbols in the Catholic tradition of who we are as the Church of God. The height, for example is meant to symbolize the lowly nature of humanity and our desire to “reach upward” towards God. The art is also a form of catechism, especially during the Middle Ages when most people were illiterate.
 
janeway529 said:
Architecture and art give us rich symbols in the Catholic tradition of who we are as the Church of God. The height, for example is meant to symbolize the lowly nature of humanity and our desire to “reach upward” towards God. The art is also a form of catechism, especially during the Middle Ages when most people were illiterate.
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Unfortunately, I think one of the modern world’s major pedagogical problems is thinking that all learning can come through books and other forms of text. More sensual methods of teaching are needed as well.
 
YoungTradCath said:
Unfortunately, I think one of the modern world’s major pedagogical problems is thinking that all learning can come through books and other forms of text. More sensual methods of teaching are needed as well.
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In post-modern pedagogy, learning is accepted through various forms. Personally, I’m more of a visual and auditory learner than simply from reading text.
 
cmodrmac said:
You should see some of Our Churches-afraid no statues however-if you get a chance go the National Cathederal in D.C. or St. john the Divine in NYC or St. Pat’s in Dublin or St. Paul’s in London:cool:
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The Washington cathedral does have statues, as does Grace cathedral in San Francisco. I own a copy of a St Francis statue, the original stands in the National Cathedral.
 
YoungTradCath said:
Unfortunately, I think one of the modern world’s major pedagogical problems is thinking that all learning can come through books and other forms of text. More sensual methods of teaching are needed as well.
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Note: this should not be construed as an extremist statement.
 
Many Protestant groups are iconoclastic. They reject the use of imagery, saying it is idolatrous. They reject liturgy, so they have no use for liturgical space. They reject the sacraments, especially the Eucharist, so their space focuses on hearing the Word and on Christian fellowship, the only things they’re able to offer. They reject the communion of saints, thinking it is only the physical people present who are engaging in the prayer and community.

When they reject these things, the art and architecture changes to meet their values. As we embrace them, Christ’s incarnation and transfiguration compel our art and architecture to tell these truths and create a space in which we can encounter and engage them.

This short video series has great content about art, architecture, and sacred imagery.
Dr. Denis McNamara, faculty member at the Liturgical Institute in Mundelein, Illinois, speaks on church architecture and its relation to beauty, theologically understood.
Catholic Church Architecture Part 1 of 10: Architectural Theology
Catholic Church Architecture Part 2 of 10: True Beauty
Catholic Church Architecture Part 3 of 10: Jewish Roots
Catholic Church Architecture Part 4 of 10: The Classical Tradition
Catholic Church Architecture Part 5 of 10: Decoration and Ornamentation
Catholic Church Architecture Part 6 of 10: Columns
Catholic Church Architecture Part 7 of 10: Sacred Images
Catholic Church Architecture Part 8 of 10: Rediscovering Liturgical Images
Catholic Church Architecture Part 9 of 10: Heaven and Architecture
Catholic Church Architecture Part 10 of 10: Vatican II

Or here’s the same general content in one long video.
Full Talk
Dr. Denis McNamara; Assistant Director, The Liturgical Institute, University of St. Mary of the Lake
Supper of the Lamb: Mass as Heaven on Earth Conference, Franciscan University of Steubenville
New Heaven & New Earth: Church Architecture as Sacramental Participation in the Heavenly Banquet
 
Here’s the same content explained through a Byzantine perspective, which is an integral part of the Catholic understanding of art and architecture as Prof. McNamara states in the above linked videos.

The Architecture and Iconography of St. Elias Church
Recorded March 2011. Protodeacon David Kennedy leads The group from St. Philip’s Seminary, Toronto on a tour of St. Elias Church.

Icons of Sound at Stanford
This research focuses on the interior of Hagia Sophia built by emperor Justinian in 532-537 and employs visual, textual, and musicological research, video, balloon pops, the building of architectural and acoustic models, auralizations, and the recording of Byzantine chant.

Icons of Sound - Total Sacred Immersion: Cappella Romana and CCRMA Time Travel to Hagia Sophia
Natural light moving across the surfaces of marble and gold causes glitter that in turn simulates the perceptual memory of the quivering sea. The iterative marmar offers the linguistic basis of this experience: in Greek marmaron is marble; Marmara is the name of the sea washing at the southern harbors of Constantinople and surrounding the marble quarries on the island of Proconnesus; marmairo and marmarysso is “to flash,” “to sparkle;” and marmarygma is shimmer.

Marmarygma arises in Hagia Sophia at sunrise and sunset at the time when originally the morning and evening liturgies unfolded. Most visitors to the museum today are denied this experience because they see the interior in the harsh light of the midday sun or electricity. Similarly, the relatively short duration of their stay in the space prevents them from observing most of the subtle changes of light playing across the marble and gold.

For this reason, we made a short video that explores Hagia Sophia’s aesthetic of transience. We tied this optical dimension to the acoustic, recording the sounds of doves and wind in the early morning and crowds at noon, and we enriched the aural experience with a Byzantine chant recorded at Stanford’s CCRMA but digitally imprinted with the reverberant acoustics of Hagia Sophia.

The film traces in the course of a day how natural light animates inert matter endowing it with movement…

Icons of Sound: Cappella Romana in a virtual Hagia Sophia - Cherubic Hymn in Mode 1 - Manuel Chrysaphes, MS Mt. Athos, Iviron 1120 (1458)
Icons of Sound: Cappella Romana in a virtual Hagia Sophia - Sunday Prokeimenon in Mode 1 - MS Patmos 221 (ca. 1162-1179)
Program note:
Dry versus Wet Sound and the Experiment with Live Auralization in Bing Hall

Cappella Romana, Stanford’s Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics and the Art & Art History Department
From a performance at Stanford University’s Bing Concert Hall. February 1, 2013.

Tonight we will experiment with digital technology in the second half of Cappella
Romana’s concert in order to transform the Bing Hall into the reverberant soundscape
of Hagia Sophia (532-537), which defined the medieval spiritual experience and man’s embeddedness in the world.
 
One thing I appreciate about the East is their general constancy in insisting that architecture, iconography, music, liturgy, etc., are part of an integrated whole in a real and practical sense, not just hidden away in documents somewhere.

Whereas in the West we severely suffer from a certain choppiness, an un-integrated-ness, an inorganic-ness, not only in practice, but in the minds of people as well: “No, the way a liturgy is celebrated couldn’t possibly have anything whatsoever to do with what and how people believe, how absurd!” seems to be a favorite idea among many–strictly-speaking–orthodox Latins. I really do run into this.

Of course, I don’t think the East is some utopia, but at least in this topic, the East has preserved much of that pristine liturgical ethos, if only in their approach to it, as Pope Francis alluded to.

In the West we do get some of this, but it seems to be because of the sort of pastor you have, or the bishop you have who takes a fancy for liturgy; Latin culture, at least in the geographical West itself, does not inculcate that integrated-ness that I observe in the East between liturgy and the faith itself. It is there, but a different kind, and to a lesser degree, imo. It is more, “Yes, of course we believe that about the liturgy, see, it’s right here in this document!” never mind that “it” is rarely if ever seen in practice. Yet if we applied this principle–“lookey there it’s in that document so ;p”–to any other aspect of our religion it would be repudiated immediately.
 
The Church has 1500 years more of architecture and art than the oldest Protestant ones do! The cathedral that absolutely took by breath away was the Cologne Cathedral - when I walked out of the train station and looked up, I wanted to fall on my knees in the rain. How that beautiful monument was built 700 years ago is beyond me!🙂
 
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