Exquisite rendered reconstruction of the Alvar Aalto designed church in Riola di Vergato, Italy. The video highlights the interplay of the space, light, and material by removing everything else.

Read a very nice description of the building here, or check input on the Locus Iste Building Database.

Today is the Feast of St Matthias in the Roman Catholic Calendar (post 1969), the Church of England’s Common Worship, and some Lutheran churches.

The traditional feast day is 24 February, but in many modern calendars it has been moved to associate it with the Ascension. And because readings from the Acts of the Apostles occur during Easter in many traditions, the story of Matthias’ inclusion in the apostles makes sense in this season.

Here is the relevant passage from Acts 1.15-26 (NASB this time):

At this time Peter stood up in the midst of the brethren (a gathering of about one hundred and twenty persons was there together), and said, “Brethren, the Scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit foretold by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who became a guide to those who arrested Jesus. For he was counted among us and received his share in this ministry. … Therefore it is necessary that of the men who have accompanied us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us—beginning with the baptism of John until the day that He was taken up from us—one of these must become a witness with us of His resurrection.” So they put forward two men, Joseph called Barsabbas (who was also called Justus), and Matthias. And they prayed and said, “You, Lord, who know the hearts of all men, show which one of these two You have chosen to occupy this ministry and apostleship from which Judas turned aside to go to his own place.” And they drew lots for them, and the lot fell to Matthias; and he was added to the eleven apostles.

Here are photos of St Matthias Abbey, Trier: a minor basilica with the tomb of the Apostle (relocated 12th c).

Saint Matthias church in Trier, Germany via Wikimedia Commons

st. matthias abbey, trier by Art History Images on Flickr

Your curated bi-weekly collection of links to news, articles, blog posts, images, and events related to liturgical architecture and church-building from around the internet.

• The Church and Development – What’s Missing Here? (Heimsath Architects)
  Does the church have a place in urban planning / development any more? Should it? How can it again?
• Sowing the Seed (Metropolis Magazine)
  Concrete chapel in China.
• AD Classics: Holy Cross Church in Chur, Switzerland / Walter Förderer (ArchDaily)
  Much more going on here than the AD description addresses. It has a remarkable warmth and softness for brutalist architecture. The detailing is impeccable, especially the one where the building kneels on the wooden kneeler and the uniformly canted corners throughout. Also notable is the degree of integration of the campus functions into the form of the main church while maintaining the hierarchy and creating a courtyard in the center.
• Pugin’s Church to be a Shrine (Friends of St Augustine)
  “Archbishop Peter Smith of Southwark has formally established Pugin’s church of St Augustine in Ramsgate as a shrine of the ‘the Apostle of the English’. In an official decree the Archbishop grants the shrine canonical privileges and designates it as a place of pilgrimage.”
• Downtown churches bloom where they’re planted (The Baptist Standard)
  Texas Baptist take on churches choosing to not move to the suburbs. Includes their assessment of the urban & architectural aspects (“facilities as God’s gifts) as well as the ministerial and communal ones.
• The Catastrophe of Catholic Copyrights (The Chant Café)
• Making It New: The Bible and Modernist Book Arts (Harry Ransom Center)
  The current exhibit on the King James Bible at The University of Texas’ Harry Ransom Center includes an incredibly diverse collection of Bibles, including the modern ones featured in this article.
• As Dutch churches shut, their sacred art finds new uses abroad (FaithWorld)
  More on the life of sacred and devotional artifacts following the closure of churches. It’s becoming an epidemic.

Your curated bi-weekly collection of links to news, articles, blog posts, images, and events related to liturgical architecture and church-building from around the internet.

• New building designed for St. Edward Catholic Church (Daily Journal of Commerce)
  Plus one for glulam and glazing in this Keizer, Oregon Catholic church design. Superimposition of rectangular volume and pointed arches has potential, and note the demi-arches turned to create an apse.
• United Religions Initiative (welovecompany // nicole flores)
  Captivating illustrations for an inter-religious organization, and an interesting experiment in formal representation of universal (or generic?) religious concepts. It is quite a challenge to be formally specific but conceptually vague.
• Antoni Gaudi’s Tribute to His Faith (Highbrow Magazine)
  Another take on Sagrada Familia one year after the dedication. Did not know Orwell hated the building so much.
• An Icon of Divine Beauty, A Burning Flame of Love (Whispers in the Loggia)
  Time for one-year anniversary posts on the dedication of Sagrada Familia, Barcelona. Rocco Palmo focuses on the homily here.
• Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (Larry Speck)
  More from Larry’s exhaustive collection of classic lecture slides as they are digitized. This set shows Josef Plecnik’s Sacred Heart of Jesus, Prague (1921-1932).
• New York Presbyterian Church – Rendering and Reality (A Daily Dose of Architecture)
  Adresses an important issue for representation and process.

Your curated bi-weekly collection of links to news, articles, blog posts, images, and events related to liturgical architecture and church-building from around the internet.

• Chapelle française de Soest (Wikipédia)
• The Badger Catholic: St. Mary’s Oratory, Wausau, WI
  looks like an nice place for some extraordinary form
• Book Review – How to Read a Church (Tradition in Continuity)
  Curious to see how and how much the author deals with non-figural symbols – the description of the book promises to address layout and “unexpected details such as how to ‘read’ the priest and the congregation.”
• Gothic and Glorious: Pugin at 200 (Crisis Magazine)
  George Weigel’s take on the Pugin anniversary. Notable for the (possible coining of the) term “Pizza Hut church,” yet another example of how reactionary and ill-considered statements on architecture by even established, well-educated Christian writers are.
• TBN Fight Offers Glimpse Inside Lavish TV Ministry (NYTimes)
  The horrific kitsch and pseudo-extravagant “architecture” of the prosperity gospel.

To celebrate Easter, the website ArchDaily (“the world’s most visited architecture website”) published three regional round-ups of churches.

Ten of the fifteen featured buildings are chapels, a fact that reflects a prevalent bias in architecture for chapels over churches. As I have previously discussed, the reasons for this are many, starting with the fact that chapels tend to be much more expressive, moving, photogenic, and ripe for architectural inspiration. This in turn results from the oft-underestimated difference in programs. The church has far more constraints placed upon by its liturgical, ecclesial, and communal requirements, whereas a chapel is closer to the condition of “pure architecture” or architecture approaching art, driven exclusively by formal experiments in inspiring spiritual/emotional/sentimental reactions. Private chapels also have fewer constituents; they are generally funded by individuals or smaller groups As such they are much more a direct reflection of individualism from the patron(s) and the designer(s). (The exception to this is the campus chapel, which may have far more challenges than a typical parish church.)

Are parish churches disappointing failures if they do not, by formal/artistic architectural standards alone, measure up to the purity and expressivity of these chapels? There are, of course, parish churches apparently more driven by form; one such appears in one of these AD round-ups: Meier’s Dio Padre Misericordioso, Tor Tre Teste. And these are far more interesting problem. Does a church like Meier’s design achieve its artistic and spiritual aspects in addition to or in spite of the practical and religious? Does a church need to have merit within a design culture that so greatly values individual achievement and innovation for its own sake?

A chapel is much more about its psychological or phenomenological impact, whereas I propose that a parish church should be fundamentally ontological. (Though what exactly that means, what it looks like, and how it is achieved need to be established.) Consider the analogous distinction between private devotion and public service; both are necessary, each in their place. There is a place in a church for devotional images or shrines, but that place is not in the primary focus, just as the various flavors of spirituality supplement and inform the centrality of the liturgy.

Thus the celebrated qualities of the chapels profiled on the following pages should be considered desirable but insufficient to make a fully worthy church. And our greatest task is to have both.

The Cathedral of Christ the Light by SOM - image via ArchDaily

Your curated bi-weekly collection of links to news, articles, blog posts, images, and events related to liturgical architecture and church-building from around the internet.

• Schism Over Future of Chelsea’s French Church – Holy Wars (Curbed NY)
  Another diocesean-led effort to close a parish runs into a (potentially) historic and unique church building. The debate over the architectural merit in addition to the uniqueness of the francophone parish makes this a problematic issue.
• Ask the Religion Experts: How important is the … structure? (Ottowa Citizen)
  This is an unusually well-done article surveying the personal takes of religious leaders & experts from a wide range of faiths on the place of buildings in religion
• Guillaume Gillet – a centenary in concrete (Invisible Paris)
  The Gillet-designed church in Royan (pictured within) is one of the most extreme experiments in large-scale beton brut and Gillet’s final resting place.
• Safety Concerns Prompt Closing at Buffalo Church (WKBW)
  More church closings in the news, in this case highlighting the need for long-term sustainability and stewardship of our historic churches.
• Spiritual.d 2012 – Spiritual space design in a contemporary world
  A very interesting prospectus for a design competition. May be weighted towards design innovation for its own sake, but I look forward to the results.
• To House a Hermit: Students Design for a D.C. Monastery – Architecture – residentialarchitect Magazine
  Catholic University of America’s School of Architecture and Planning is building a modern-day hermitage on its campus. But not an overly enlightening article.

Your curated bi-weekly collection of links to news, articles, blog posts, images, and events related to liturgical architecture and church-building from around the internet.

• Trail-blazing bid to promote Wolds churches (Yorkshire Post)
• Die Harder (Daily Returns)
  Another early 21st century crucifix. Not as successful as Outraged Christ for liturgical use IMHO, but perhaps more in line with contemporary British figural sculpture overall.
• Churches of Aksum and Lalibela (NYTimes.com)
  A first-hand account of a visit to the monolithic churches sound Lalibela, Ethiopia which are one of the most singular buildings in all of Christendom.
• All Saints Church master (Pasadena Star-News)
  Initial approval for the master plan of a potentially controversial Richard Meier & Part­ners project across from Pasadena’s City Hall.
• Church of St. Leopold (Larry Speck)
  Larry Speck’s photos of Otto Wagner’s fascinating Art Nouveau church in Vienna. See especially the interior.