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

• Conference: The Glory of Catholic Architecture (Tradition in Continuity)
  Report from the conference at Mundelein, also featuring Fr Lang.
• Christ Resurrection Church / Cino Zucchi Architetti (ArchDaily)
  Liturgical arrangement is far more compelling in plan than in space. But it is a nice treatment, simple but not banal, and I look forward to seeing the completed furnishings.
• The Church of St. Aloysius / Erdy McHenry Architecture (ArchDaily)
  Once again, architects give highly questionable descriptions of their church architecture. It seems to quote churchy phrases without fully understanding them, which leads to unnecessarily low-hanging fruit for nay-sayers. For example, tent imagery here is promising, but its complexity needs further explanation. Also, adjacencies is a good starting place for comprehension and approach to sacraments, but architects must go deeper and (if they already are) must learn to succinctly express it.
• Controversial Catholic Church in Salem Slated for Demolition (Huffington Post)
• Various Photographers (Van Der Laan Stichting)
  The Van Der Laan Foundation seems to have been adding content even in the past few weeks. They now have many “official” photos. I particularly love the photos of Hans and Nico.
• Vatican congregation sets up office for art, architecture, music (CNS)
  Good context, especially vis-a-vis Second Vatican Council, but need to dig up more information. The (reactionary) idea read elsewhere that this group would somehow become a review board for art and architecture is absurd. “The church has not adopted any particular style of art as her very own; she has admitted styles from every period according to the natural talents and circumstances of peoples, and the needs of the various rites.” SC
• Miami Chapel based on a flowing dress by FREE (Dezeen)
  Definitely exceedingly architecturally expressive, but there is much more to it in the religious/devotional aspects, and perhaps even in the liturgical as well. It must be pointed out that this is a parish church, not a chapel as the title claims. There is a commendable full integration of a compelling devotional series (the 27 iterations of Latin American titles for Mary) into the otherwise potentially pure-form gesture. But a pet peeve rant: the diagram of “traditional church plan” is utterly regrettable, inappropriate, and incorrect. It achieves nothing (was the point to convince people you were being innovative as an end in itself?) and does not even accurately describe the arrangement.
• James Wood: The Book of Common Prayer (The New Yorker)
• Knocktopher Friary / ODOS Architects (ArchDaily)

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

• Site Record for Cardross, St Peter’s College (Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland)
  This Gillespie, Kidd & Coia project passes the “beautiful ruin” test.
• More than just church images (Helsinki University)
  Church image database hosted by the Helsinki University Faculty of Theology. Mostly Scandinavian 20th century churches. Looks like an excellent resource.
• Abandoned Art Masterpieces (thaeger)
  Really beautiful visual project on many levels.
• Ballyroan Parish Centre / Box Architecture (ArchDaily)
• Further plans for St Peter’s site to be unveiled (SCO News)
• 瞑想の森, 岐阜県各務原市市営斎場, Crematorium, Gifu (Flickr)
  Photoset shared by a colleague who is currently investigating adapting fan vaults as surfaces.
• Salisbury, UK (Guardian Eyewitness)
  The artist Greg Tricker and his beechwood sculpture St Joan of Arc, reflected in the font at Salisbury Cathedral.

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

• Holy Rosary Church Complex Succumbs to Redesign (ArchDaily)
  Hate to see things like this. The destruction of what seemed a good church project (a least a celebrated design) is made worse by the implication that in use it was not good for the client community. Was it a clash of tastes, impracticality, poor upkeep? The images give some indication that the design was more suited for Southern California than the humid swamp of Baton Rouge. But it would be unwise to make a universal declaration based on this limited information.
• Prayer Chapel by Gensler (Dezeen)
• Santa Maria Parish Center Proposal / Gimeno Guitart Architects (ArchDaily)
• Renowned architects design $50M building for New Canaan’s Grace Farm Foundation (New Canaan News)
  Definitely a project worth watching.
• sanaa river building in grace farms (designboom)
  More images of the SANAA design for Grace Farms.
• Lake Chapel / Divece Arquitectos | ArchDaily

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

• Fr Dwight Longenecker on ‘What’s Wrong With the Church?’ (Catholic Online)
  A refreshing attitude, worth consideration; as it is based on GK Chesterton, this is not surprising.
• St. Josef Parish Centre / Frei + Saarinen Architekten (ArchDaily)
• Beauty Meets Grace in Detroit’s Historic Churches (Patheos Blogs)
  New book from Wane State University Press documents a wide range of historic churches in Detroit.
• Armenia: Churches Fast Collapsing in World’s First Christian Country (EurasiaNet.org)
• Retirement For Tailor Who Has Helped To Create Some Of The Clergy’s Finest Robes (Getty Images)
  Watts & Co shared these Getty images of some behind the scenes in their shop.
• Caroline’s Miscellany: St Katharine Cree
  Very interesting / unusual / ecclectic interior. Probably unusual because no other Jacobean London churches survive.
• Funeral Chapel in Ingelheim Frei-Weinheim by Bayer & Strobel (Dezeen)

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

• Bon Secours Hospital, Chapel (Behance Network)
  Very effective use of minimized framing on the glazing. Glad that the last images shows this is not just an interior effect.
• Shall We Dance? (Faith & Form)
  Many objections here. Post-religious culture is a contradiction in terms. Christianity does not come in two flavors. …
• Not Your Parent’s Church (Buidling God’s Way)
  Curious about this as a model for expanded services. But that is quite an assertive (hubristic?) name for an organization.
• Chapel of the Intercession / RdsBrothers (ArchDaily)
• Old Friends in New Places (Faith & Form)

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

• Woven from Light (America Magazine)
  A “glowing” review (get it? it’s all about light) by Judith Dupré of the Cathedral of Christ the Light in Oakland. A very individual / experiential / phenomenological take.
• Fletcher Crane unveils church hall plans (Architects Journal)
  Nice little glulam hall with an interesting attitude towards the church.
• Conference Notice: The Glory of Catholic Architecture (New Liturgical Movement)
  Another conference.
• Rebuilding Catholic Culture: Church architecture (Catholic News Agency)
  Moral dilema: should I be posting things like this? It is informative to know what people inside the church but outside architecture are thinking, but it is so destructive. By propagating a reductionist and monolithic narrative of modernism (based on extreme examples of faulty ideology which obscure and dismiss without consideration the good work of more than a century), you perpetuate an attitude of rupture which is exactly counter to what you intend.
• A Tale of Two Cathedrals: Why “Traditional versus Modernist” Tells Only Part of the Story | Crisis Magazine
  The title of this article made me hopeful (as much as the title of the publication made me wary), but iI was greatly disappointed. I too can only go on images, but there is nothing innovative in the design of the Houston church and it falls exceedingly short of the Vienna Secession (http://larryspeck.com/2012/04/18/church-of-st-leopold/).

  The arguments against the cathedral in Oakland are incredibly weak and based solely on taste. There are no games, and this of all needs no excuses invented by the architects. The geometry is exceedingly clear and commendably consistent, but it is volumetric and not planar (which is actually good).

  The cathedral in Houston is the one playing games, and in the end is diluted. It would try to strike a balance between our weak concepts of “Traditional versus Modern” and be Neither.

  Perhaps the Vienna Secession and other modernisms ignored behind the monolithic cultural narrative can model for us a more complex and lively middle ground.

• Chapel, Ripon College Cuddesdon (Architecture Today)
  Competition results (from three years ago).

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

• Our gaudy cathedral is a monument to vanity (The Observer)
  High-profile church architecture often gets this response. It is a very scattered opinion with valid concerns, but in this case the building project critique seems disproportionate. £4.5 million spent on stewardship of an old cathedral is relatively small (compare the $50 million the Diocese of Orange expects to spend on their cathedral renovation). Public funds and financial incentives spent on commercial developments rather than affordable housing are a much greater concern than maintaining a shared cultural resource.

  The new painting can be viewed here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/paullew/6820283246/

• Kladruby Abbey Church, Czech Republic (Enfilade)
  On a different Gothic Revival.
• Faith in Affordable Housing
  “Faith in Affordable Housing is a project inviting churches and other property-owning Christian organisations to offer their land/unused buildings for conversion to affordable housing.”
• Today’s archidose #609 (A Daily Dose of Architecture)
  The Blönduós Church in Blönduós, Iceland, by Dr. Maggi Jónsson (1993), photographed by Bryan Chang.

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

• Chapel of Silence (ICON)
  Another article on a chapel shared previously. But really like the exterior photo used here and the naval language and imagery highlighted in this one.
• Why We Should Prize Our ‘ugly’ Churches (Catholic Herald)
  Illuminating article by Ambrose Gillick as part of the Glasgow School of Art project on British churches 1955-1975.
• P1-B church of El Shaddai opens Thursday (INQUIRER.net)
  Old article, but holy crap that image.
• Eucharistic Architecture (First Thoughts | A First Things Blog)
  Modern architecture has too long been considered a monolithic entity with uniform agenda. Such a vast over-simplification dismisses offhand the earnest work of a century. Recovering these alternate modernisms is incredibly important, especially as they relate to religious architecture. What was lauded by the architecture and art culture of the 20th c may not have been aligned with what the church would value, but that does not mean nothing of value to the church was produced.

  Even those celebrated as modernist masters produced work which does not fit in the [International Style / purely functionalist / ahistorical / anti-religious] reductive modernist canon. Most of the work that does fit this model is in fact poor & incomplete imitations of black & white photographs or treatises taken out of context.

  Also left out are the ways in which tradition and symbolism shifted to be carried by new signifiers which may not be as immediately apparent through visuals alone. Just because the continuity is not evident in the expression does not mean it is wholly absent.

• Gobekli Tepe: The World’s First Temple? (Smithsonian Magazine)
  Fascinating archeology. But no evidence given in the article for a sacred function.

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

• Jan Zięba – panoramic photography
  Impressive panos of Polish churches. via UTSOA Visual Resources
• Mystery and Matter (Brill Academic Publishers)
  Recent interdisciplinary work on Dom Hans van der Laan, with emphasis on the relation of his liturgical thought on architecture. Must obtain and read immediately.
• Liturgy and Sacred Space Conference
  What looks to be an incredible event: “Liturgy and Sacred Space: Architecture for Divine Worship in the 21st Century.” 5-6 November 2012 in De Tiltenberg, NL
• Landmark church in Brooklyn is damaged in storm (Arch Record)
  First-hand account of damage to Upjohn-designed church in Brooklyn.
• All Saints Chapel by Gustavo Penna (Dezeen)
  Well that’s just silly. And another example of architects using terrible poetics(?) to describe the meaningfulness of their form-based chapels.
• Domusstudio Architecture Brings New Life to 1950s Burbank Church (domusstudio architecture)
• Convent de Sant Francesc by David Closes (Dezeen)
  File under “losing my religion.” But always love projects which celebrate ruins. Note the controlled strength and lines of the exterior new element.

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

• The Art of Faith: A Guide to Understanding Christian Images (amazon.com)
  A new glossary of signs by Judith Couchman. Haven’t seen it yet, but sounds promising.
• St. Joseph Seminary (world architecture news)
  An insertion of traditional components into a white sculptural interior and concrete & glass exterior.
• Stonyhurst celebrates re-opening of its church (CatholicHerald.co.uk)
  Restoration of a Jesuit Gothic Revival collegiate church.
• Kamppi Chapel / K2S Architects (ArchDaily)
  Small, precise scandinavian wood chapel. They never get old.
• ‘Dove of Peace’ Church / WEAVA Architects (ArchDaily)
  A new direction in literal figuralism?
• Alvar Aalto Riola Parish (arthitectural.com)
  More video and images of Aalto’s church in Riola. Video production is absurd, but I really appreciate that the images reveal some of the more mundane and hidden spaces of the church functions.
• Modernism and Christianity in the Collections (Ransom Center)
  Barely scratching the surface of an excellent and intriguing topic to research at the Ransom Center. Check out the KJV exhibit there currently if you have not yet.

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

• Masterpiece of German Romanesque architecture, the Maria Laach – (Travel & Leisure – Catholic Online)
• On the Aesthetic Potential of Sustainability (Places: Design Observer)
  “What is the radical aesthetic consequence of the cultural desire for sustainable performance?” Invisible triggers and Ugly Pets.
• Oak Park houses of worship say a lot about what people believe
  Sounds like a good walk, even with FLW.

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

• axis mundi: cathedral fold (designboom)
  A few compelling ideas rendered into superficiality barely approaching the condition of architecture. And that’s even before seeing the façade. Is it possible for the application of a sign to be so devoid of significance that it actually decreases the significance of the signified? Apparently so.
• Blue Cloud Abbey closing (The Argus Leader)
  Far too many of the articles that deal with church architecture are about church closings.
• Welcome to Blue Cloud Abbey
  More information on the closing abbey.
• Rockford architecture ‘icon,’ C. Edward Ware dies at 91 (Rockford Register Star)
• Sponge cake model of Wren church (London SE1)
  Just a bit of fun.

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

• Via Lucis Photography
  Romanesque Church Photography blog. Need to spend some time digging through this. Also available via artstor. Subscribing now.
• Bøler Church by Hansen/Bjørndal Architects (Dezeen)
  Absolutely exquisite. Materials, spaces, everything. Much more spatial and plastic complexity than other similar-looking contemporary scandinavian churches. And +1 for text!
• Today’s archidose #592 (A Daily Dose of Architecture)
  Visually striking, but much less complex in the ways that matter.

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

• New Cathedral Notre Dame de l’Assomption, Port-au-Prince, Haiti (Bustler)
  International design competition to reconstruct the earthquake-damaged Cathedral Notre Dame de l’Assomption, Port-au-Prince in Haiti.
• Iconic Boulder church to get landmark designation (Boulder Daily Camera)
• Church named for patron saint of students teaches bitter preservation lesson (WBEZ)
• Dapto Anglican Church Auditorium (Australian Design Review)
  There are many sound reasons to question the form and visual presence of “church.” I hope they do not seriously intend to trick people into entering, because that’s not one of them. Probably just the architects talking nonsense. Kudos for the strong black and white palette, successfully pulled off in the public spaces. But for all the attempts to create a non-monumental presence by conventional means, the degree of intentionality evident in the facade still marks it as a space outside the mundane.
• Semper Fidelis Memorial Chapel / Fentress Architects (ArchDaily)
  Militarism as religion? The iconographic program seems to say so. An architecturally “vaguely spiritual” chapel turned into a vaguely idolatrous one.
• Catholic Church renames Crystal Cathedral: Christ Cathedral (The Orange County Register)
  Probably for the best, but how many people will actually use the real name? Also, glad to know the founder is behind the Catholic Church taking over the space, for what it’s worth.
• Reel Faith: How the Drive-In Movie Theater Helped Create the Megachurch (The Atlantic)
  More from the deluge of coverage of the Crystal Cathedral, this is one of the more interesting dealing with the early ad hoc spaces used by the church.
• Church of the Nativity (Rogers Marvel Architects)
  Renderings of a competition entry for a church in Mexico. Contemporary structural geometry and material techniques applied to conventional arrangement. “Altar occulus window” may actually be a good solution to the focal problem combining figural and abstract symbolism with a few of the Schwarz plans.
• 50th Anniversary Celebration of Priory Chapel (architectural ruminations)
  The event has already passed, but the building is worth a look.

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 Dark Light of Thomas Kinkade (Patheos)
  “Kinkade and his devotees have long railed against the nihilism of modern art and the contemporary art world. But because it denies the very foundation of our relationship to God in Christ, Kinkade’s work is more nihilistic than anything Picasso and Pollock could paint, or Nietzsche and Sartre could write.”
• Nossa Senhora das Necessidades Church / Célia Faria + Inês Cortesão (ArchDaily)
  Silence and introspection have their place in religious experience, but European architects seem to equate them to the exclusion of all else.
• Dunmurry Presbyterian Church wins major architecture award (Ulster Star)
  Royal Society of Ulster Architects’ 2012 Design Awards jury: “Dunmurry Presbyterian Church was nominated for this top award by an independent judging panel who said that, “The new church and halls is a confident statement of the engagement and relevance of the church for all generations.”
• Should Churches Spend Money on Nice Buildings? (The Gospel Coalition Blog)
  Yes. Just maybe not extravagant and massive ones.

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.

• Upon This Foundation (America Magazine)
  Documenting an apparent increase in Catholic church buildings that are “traditional-looking” – an accurate description since they have only the superficial outward trappings. Includes yet another severely disappointing treatment of the Second Vatican Council and architecture: reductive, inaccurate in its causal attributions, and needlessly divisive. The derogatory term used in this one is “drywall church.” Unfortunately the first example is just “drywall churches” with a few gothicky pieces glued on.
• Should Churches Spend Money on Nice Buildings? (The Gospel Coalition Blog)
  More of the non-denominational/evangelical perspective on buildings. This is what I grew up with.
• Heavenly MCM: Union Memorial United Methodist Church – B.E.L.T. – St. Louis

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.

• St Joseph the Worker (Sparano Mooney Architecture and Design)
• Building of the Day: 24 Fourth Avenue (Brownstoner)
  A little Brooklyn Gothic Revival.
• Riola Church and Parish Centre in Italy, Alvar Aalto (OEN)
  Nice account and photos of the all-too-obscure Aalto- designed church in Italy.
• Buildings Matter Because Bodies Matter (The Gospel Coalition Blog)
  “Buildings and other forms of human making shape us, then, because our bodies affect our souls as much as our souls affect our bodies. While evangelicals have rightly focused on the interior life, the interior life has a particular shape based on whether and how we “present [our] bodies as a living sacrifice.” While architecture may not be the main thing for evangelicals, the main thing isn’t the only one that matters.”
• Modern Irish Churches – your response needed for study (Archiseek)
  Very important research we desperately need done! What a unique event, for good and for ill. We must not let the opportunity to learn from it pass.
• Sistine Chapel VR (Vatican Museum)
  Detailed high-res 360° view of the Sistine Chapel. Even works on iOS! Highlights how two-dimensional this space really is.
• Los Nogales School Chapel (Arch Daily)
  An oft-published chapel, somewhat in the dwell-modern vein. Should do a study of the operable wall trope in contemporary chapels. Do they function well for services?

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.