+++

While the Roman Catholic church is often assumed to be a linear authoritarian hierarchy, the truth is much more dynamic, with overlapping jurisdictions and a great diversity of organizations, departments, rites, dioceses, national and language councils, etc. There are also dynamic hierarchies of documents depending on the nomenclature, the author, the situation, etc.

I believe as a professional organization, we should be particularly careful with these particularities because there is so much disinformation. It has become shorthand to say “The Vatican says…” or “The Catholic Church says…” without specificity, and these abbreviations breed detrimental presumptions and over-generalizations. As architects, this dilutes our ability to serve.

The idea that building style and meeting the needs of a community are mutually exclusive is abhorrent. It may be somewhat ingrained in the popular church mind, but we (architects) should be a force for the amelioration of that ill. Where there is such a tension, it is precisely the problem architects should solve and a excellent design opportunity. We should be doing both and; is that not why we exist as a profession?

Would it were that every type of professional involved in any building project were unbiased. It is true that the “Liturgical Design Consultant” has tended to be a title used by a particular set of biases, and this is unfortunate. It is why I myself cannot use the title. The error comes from an imbalance in the relative values of agency and submission stemming from a misunderstanding of the role of creativity in and around the Latin Rite (which is drastically different than for Eastern Rites or Anglican, for example). As a culture (and architectural culture) we put too much faith in creativity and not enough in humility. You cannot approach the liturgy as something which can be designed, as the very title “Liturgical Design Consulant” somewhat implies. Liturgy grows organically, but it pre-exists its manifestation and any attempt to specify its nature is already a reduction, if not an abomination. But reverently approached, there are ample opportunities to beautifully participate in its manifestation.

Conforming one’s will to the Magisterium of the church does not negate the value she places in the human person and that person’s role as sub-/co-creator in participating in creation. Nor does she come remotely close to prescribing something so specific as a style. To quote the well-known Conciliar Constitution on the Liturgy (an Apostolic Constitution and therefore considered universal doctrine, to be precise):

“123. 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. Thus, in the course of the centuries, she has brought into being a treasury of art which must be very carefully preserved. The art of our own days, coming from every race and region, shall also be given free scope in the Church, provided that it adorns the sacred buildings and holy rites with due reverence and honor; thereby it is enabled to contribute its own voice to that wonderful chorus of praise in honor of the Catholic faith sung by great men in times gone by.”

We cannot forget that we are a part of a tradition, nor can we forget that that tradition is living.

There are still follow up posts from both the Pugin initiative and the Netherlands trip that will come out over the next months, but aside from possibly attending the ACS symposium in the summer, I am not planning any major projects for this year. So the posts on this site may be sparse until the fall.

On the Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica this year, I was very fortunate to be in retreat at Abdij Sint Benedictusberg, Vaals and was therefore able to pray the entire Divine Office for the day. Reflecting on these texts, prayers, and hymns was an excellent reminder of some of the fundamental Biblical concepts and attitudes towards buildings. As it happened, I was also already working on a (still-forthcoming) post on the importance of the concept of locus iste in Christianity, a phrase repeated throughout the day.

And so, as a sort of preemptive appendix to that post and as the first in a series of posts intended as references for all those working in this area, I thought it would be helpful to collect the prayers of the day. I have long intended to do a survey of scriptural references to architectural themes, but this is a daunting undertaking. Examining these prayers, however, I came to realize that this approach is a good start to this task. The chosen prayers and readings provide a subset of scriptures to consider, selected by centuries of the church at prayer.

So while these prayers are specifically Roman Catholic—and their direct source more specifically Benedictine—their basis in scripture should be of great interest to all Christians. Even the sermon excerpted in the early morning readings comes from the turn of the 6th century and is therefore relatively universal and outside many of our later schism-inducing disputes.

The first half of this post contains my explanatory notes (and on commentary aside). The second half contains the prayers and readings themselves and you can skip directly there or use the index below if you prefer.

Notes & Commentary

Notes on the Divine Office

The Divine Office is the general Christian practice of the regular recitation of prayers at regular intervals throughout the day. It orders time for worship in the same way sacred architecture orders space for worship, so the two are fundamentally linked.

The Divine Office forms the basis of Christian prayer: its archetype and various forms have developed into the full diversity of Christian prayer; its continued practice ensures that the church is always at the work of prayer; and its internal variations give context to the various holy days (holidays) throughout the year. One such feast day celebrated by the Roman Catholic Church is the Feast of the Dedication of the Basilica of St John Lateran, observed on 09 November. Though St Peter Basilica in the Vatican gets most of the attention, the Lateran Basilica is actually the Cathedral of Rome, the place where the Pope’s cathedra resides.

For the purpose of study and reference, I have stripped out the temporal component of these texts and presented them categorically. The intent here is not to reproduce the sequential experience of the cycle of prayers as there are other resources for that. If you are interested in the topics of these pages, praying through the office for this day in real time is highly recommended as a separate activity.

The Divine Office takes many forms in different denominations and in different historical moments. The majority of the texts in this post are taken from a transcription I made of the books used at the Abbey in Vaals, which appears to be based on the earlier rubrics (they seem to be most like the rubrics of 1960) as the monks retain the full ancient practice of a cycle of seven offices.

In the few cases where there have been modifications, I include the prayers from the current Divine Office of the Latin Rite, the Liturgia Horarum (Liturgy of the Hours), last revised in 1985. Universalis is an excellent resource for the current form of the Latin Rite Liturgy of the Hours, including a very useful mobile app.

I also recommend the three-volume Divine Hours by Philis Tickle as an ecumenical/inter-denominational iteration of this practice which can be very easily used by anyone. It is a perfect way to learn through the use of a simplified but not reductive prayer book. This practice is the heritage of the whole church. It suits and orders the shared human experience of time and should be recovered as widely as possible.

Scriptural Basis

The vast majority of the Liturgy of the Hours derives directly from scripture. Recitation of the psalms is its dominant feature, along with other readings from the Bible. Three scriptures contribute the bulk of the antiphons and readings for the Lateran Basilica feast day. They are three of the most important architectural passages in the Bible. When reading the Bible, “architectural” can mean anything from primitive place-making or -marking, to buildings and construction proper, to urbanism. A considerable portion of relevant readings use buildings or cities as images of other things. It is important to remember that any treatment of architecture in the Bible is not primarily about architecture, especially as conceived by contemporary practitioners.

Before continuing with the readings below, I recommend reviewing the following three passages in context to help place the excerpts and paraphrases from the liturgy.

Genesis 28.10-22 – While by no means the first mention of architectural activity in Genesis, the account of Jacob’s dream and the subsequent erection of a stone (altar) is the earliest fully developed human act of liturgical or sacred place-making.

II Chronicles 6 - Architects’ attempts at biblical exegesis tend to get bogged down in the descriptions of the metrics and materials of the tabernacle and the temple. In my mind this is another unfortunate example of confusing externalities for the more important ontological realities. That is not to say that the externalities of the temple are meaningless, only that the emphasis is misplaced and the applications among the more shallow forms of symbolism. The second text referenced by the prayers of this day comes from II Chronicles 6 and gives the account of the dedication (rather than the construction) of Solomon’s Temple. It contains an account of the liturgical and spiritual intent of the building, and thus it summarizes the attitude of Israel to the edifice.

Revelation 21 - The first two readings give a pre-liturgical and liturgical perspective on the importance of sacred places. The third gives a post-liturgical or eschatological perspective. I call it post-liturgical in the sense that when everything is always worship (“worship in spirit and truth,” John 4.21-24), the ordered worship bound by limited time and space ceases to have meaning. And the reference in this text to a lack of a temple (due to the lack of a need for a temple) is itself a confirmation of this.

Note that for some readings I have included additional context omitted from the office for reference purposes. These passages are enclosed in square brackets.

Notes on Translation

For the purpose of study, I have made my own translation of the prayers from Latin. So I want to be very clear about its intent and limitations. These translations are not intended for liturgical use, nor are they particularly poetic. The intent was to be literal and favor cognates, especially with regards to architectural and spatial terminology. I also retained word order more than would generally be acceptable to retain the antiphonal form of the responsorial components. For example, Bene fundáta est * domus Dómini supra firmam petram I rendered as “Well established is * the house of the Lord, on a firm faithful rock” rather than the more correct English “The house of the Lord is well established…” so that the incipit (the first phrase which functions as a title, a reference for chants, and is often sung separately by the cantor) remains the same. While this may be more awkward to read, retaining the general order of phrases is useful for study and not insignificant to the experience of a sequential form such as chant.

The other major reason for doing a unique translation for this study is for the specificity of architectural vocabulary. The difficulties with architectural terms is that they can be defined by form or by use; even these can have a range of different forms and uses by time or culture that can be in conflict, especially when dealing with ancient terms whose meanings have changed over time. “Basilica” is a good example of a term that has a specific formal meaning (as an aisled linear spatial model with apse(s)), an implied liturgical use (based on that form), a technical ecclesial use (as an honorific), and a historical/archeological use (as the roman civic building) and its attendent form. Additionally, in many cases these terms are not used consistently, as in the case of “cathedral” which in addition to the ecclesial meaning (the location of a bishop’s cathedra) is also used to mean the principal church of a diocese or more generally a large or significant church, especially one in the form of a basilica. To address some of these issues, I have included a brief lexicon of the latin terms used in the prayers with a range of definitions.

One specific example of the need for a translation with greater attention to the architectural vocabulary merits particular attention because it also pertains to the editorial perspective of this site and significant faults within the profession. It is also the one choice that could be potentially controversial. The phrase in question comes from the fourth line of the hymn for matins:

4 Tunsiónibus, pressúris
expolíti lápides
suis coaptántur locis
per manum artíficis;
disponúntur permansúri
sacris ædifíciis.

There are a number of English translations available, but this one (via Universalis) is representative. All of the English translations I found rendered the fourth line in the same way:

4. Shaped with blow and biting sculpture
Polished well those stones elect,
In their places now compacted
By the heavenly Architect,
Who therewith hath willed for ever
That his palace should be decked.

Obviously meter and rhyme are the guiding considerations here. But for the consideration of the spiritual significance of architecture, the translation is unacceptable. First, there is nothing in the source text to suggest “heavenly.” Second, manum (hand) is missing from the translation and this is a very important distinction when considering the nature of human creation. Although arguably architects should work with their hands, the use of “architect” instead of other creators/makers in fact signifies greater distance from the activity and the artifact. Third, although “architect” is a passable rendering of artifex because it combines multiple aspects of its definition, it is inappropriate to the context of manum and tunsiónibus, pressúris, coaptántur. Moreover, the word is artifex not architectus.

Further complications arise from the changing nature (reduction) of architecture as a profession and very specific additional meanings of the phrase “Heavenly Architect” or “Great Architect of the Universe.”

The role and the place of the architect in society has changed over time and has become increasingly problematic, particularly as it has grown in specialization away from the manual crafts of building toward an idealized genius. As seen above, the concept of the “heavenly Architect” pre-dates the enlightenment. However, this image is of an architect in a medieval or earlier sense, one more accurately called master-builder or master craftsman in current terminology. Further, this image could as easily represent the idea of God “measuring the heavens” (cf. Isaiah 40.12) as drawing them into existence.

I use the term master-craftsman despite its historicism to recall this more holistic model of building practice:

4 By tension and oppression
polished, stones
are fit together in their places
by the master-craftsman’s hand,
arranged permanently
into a sacred building.

The name of “Great Architect of the Universe” came to its greatest prominence during the enlightenment and thus conforms to the model of specialized architecture. Thomas Jefferson epitomizes this concept of the practice which is rationalized to the point of absurdity where Monticello could be called agrarian. “Architect” became a term and concept for the divine preferred within Deism, which at best is overly reductive through its exclusive dependency on human reason. Its parallel with the “watchmaker” image further emphasizes the detached nature of the architect, which is neither true of God nor of the healthy practice of building. For the same reasons it also finds pride of place in Freemasonry as well. Deism in turn shaped the development of Unitarianism and constitutes the formative subtext of Frank Llyod Wright’s spirituality.

The artifex here is not a detached worker following instructions with out ownership, nor is it an idealized detached genius designer. Modeling God’s creative work on our own may be a step to comprehending the incomprehensible, but any name we give to God based on our human professions will, of course, be an insufficient approximation. Architectus is a demotion from Creator Spiritus.

Thus naming God the Architect takes on a particularly humanist cast. It calls to mind certain self-serving practitioners with self-determined spiritualities (Wright, of course, and Kahn…) who would recognize the Divine only in their own terms and think architects generally and themselves particularly as the best bringers of truth. By its nature, architecture seeks to order the world and therefore has a perilously short way to fall into hubris.

A Lexicon of Architectural Terms

Like the bulk of the content on this site, this is a preliminary effort intended to assist further study and not a completed scholarly work. Another long term project of mine is a lexicon of church architecture terms specifically structured to address definitions from form and use as and their development, use, and misuse.

All of these terms are the various types of sacred spaces.For this initial survey I have omitted words for the various building parts, furnishings, materials, etc. The one exception is titulus (in Hebrew matstsebah) because of its close association to Jacob’s dream and proclamation which is the source of the phrase locus iste. Arguably monoliths define (without enclosing) sacred space which does not itself have a name and therefore merits inclusion.

The content of this lexicon is based on use in different translations of scripture and comparing word choice in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin Vulgate. I have included specific uses of these terms from the prayers, definitions of the Latin terms, and references to their use in scripture including concordance references.

Adytum

Portæ nitent margarítis / ádytis paténtibus, / et virtúte meritórum / illuc introdúcitur / omnis qui ob Christi nomen / hic in mundo prémitur.
Her gates shine with pearls / her inner sanctums are open / and by merit of their virtue / in that place are introduced / all who in Christ’s name / in this world are oppressed.

1. Holy of Holies, innermost part of a shrine.
(Numbered definitions taken from wiktionary.)

Adytum is also an English word and comes from Greek, literally ”place not to be entered.”

See sanctuarium below.

Aula

Adoráte Dóminum * in aula sancta euis.
Adore the Lord * in his sacred forecourt.

1. court, forecourt of a house.
2. royal court.
3. (poetic) power of a prince.

The Hebrew word bayith (Strongs #1004) has many different translations depending on context and usually translated simply has domus (house). But when specifically in reference to royalty, the Vulgate uses aula (courts).

Aula has the form-meaning of a formal exterior courtyard and the use-meaning of royal public ceremony. When translated as court in English, the further association with a royal retinue

Atria

Concupíscit et défecit ánima mea * in átria Dómini.
My soul longs and fails * for the atria of the Lord. [cf. Psalm 84.2]

“He said to me, ‘Your son Solomon is the one who shall build My house (domum) and My courts (atria); for I have chosen him to be a son to Me, and I will be a father to him.’” [1 Chronicles 28.6 | NAS]

1. a welcoming room in a Roman villa; reception hall.
2. a hall, court in a temple

The Vulgate uses atria for the Hebrew chatser (Strongs #2691). Compared to aula, atria seems to have a more literal spatial meaning without the governing/judicial sense.

Domus

O quam metuéndus est * locus iste. Vere non est hic áliud nisi domus Dei, et porta cæli.
How to be feared is + this place: * In truth this is none other, if not the house of God and the portal of heaven. [cf. Genesis 28.7]

Domus mea + domus oratiónis vocábitur, dicit Dóminus.
My house + shall be called a house of prayer, says the Lord [cf. Isaiah 56.7]

1. a house, a home syn.
2. (poetic) any building or abode.
3. one’s native place, one’s country or home (confer patria)
4. a household, a family, a race

The Vulgate uses domus for the general meaning of the Hebrew bayith (Strongs #1004). This is the root for domestic and thereby has its own contentions in the discourse around church architecture theory. But the word seems to have a more formal/hereditary/clan connotations that our current constricted concept of immediate family.

Ecclesia

Mérito tamen sollemnitátem matris Ecclésiæ christiáni pópuli fidéliter colunt, per quam se spiritáliter renátos esse cognóscunt.
Christians rightly commemorate this feast of the church, their mother, for they know that through her they were reborn in the spirit. [A Sermon of St Caesarius of Arles, Bishop | Sermo 229]

Quóties ad ecclésiam venímus, qualem illam inveníre vólumus, tales et ánimas nostras præparáre debémus.
Whenever we come to church, we must prepare our hearts to be as beautiful as we expect this church to be. [A Sermon of St Caesarius of Arles, Bishop | Sermo 229]

Ecclesia comes from the Greek for “gathering” which was used by the early church for both the church as a body and the church as a building. As in modern English use of the word “church,” in some cases both are meant in intentional ambiguity. The majority of New Testament uses refer to the church as assembly. In the reading for this day, St Ceasarius, a Bishop from the turn of the 6th, clearly uses ecclesia for both meanings.

Templum

Introíbo * in domum tuam Dómine, et adorábo ad templum sanctum tuum.
I will enter * into your house, O Lord, and address adoration toward your sacred temple. [Psalm 5.7]

“I saw no temple in it; its temple is the Lord God Almighty, its temple is the Lamb.” [Revelation 21.22 | Knox]

1. a temple, shrine, sacred place.
2. an open area, especially for augury

In the Vulgate, templum replaces the Hebrew heykal (Strongs #1964) and the Greek naos (Strongs #3485). Both are generally terms for sacred places, and both are used for the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. Additionally, both are used when referring to the metaphorical heavenly temple. Note that for Ezekiel 47, the Vulgate mixes domus and templi: domus when describing the building and templi when referring to the space of the altar (sanctuary).

In the sermon used for the nightwatch readings, St Ceasarius of Arles uses templum in addition to ecclesia and basilicam to refer to the church whose anniversary is the subject of his sermon. In the New Testament, templum is used most consistently in the sense of St Paul’s “The temple of God is holy, and you are that temple.”

Tabernaculum

Ecce tabernáculum Dei cum homínibus, et habitábit cum eis.
Behold the tent of God with humanity, and he dwells with them. [cf. Revelatiom n 2.3]

Confitére Dómino in bono ópere / et bénedic regem sæculórum, * ut íterum tabernáculum tuum ædificétur in te cum gáudio.
Give thanks to the Lord with good work / and bless the ruler forever, * so that they may build your tent with joy in you. [Tobit 13.10]

1. A tent.
2. A tabernacle.

The Latin word derives from taberna (“hut, cabin”) which in turn gives us the English tavern. The Vulgate has tabernaculum for the Hebrew mishkan (Strongs #4908) which has the meaning of a tent as a form and a dwelling as a use. Given the meaning of a nomadic textile dwelling, the connotation is more domestic and informal than domus even though this is opposite to contemporary usage and connection of tabernacle to The Tabernacle. The Vulgate also uses this word for the Greek skene (Strongs #4633) which is used in Hebrews to reference the tabernacle in Exodus. Skene has the additional meaning of theatrical scene or stage.

Sanctuarium

Dómine si convérsus fúerit pópulus tuus / et oráverit ad sanctuárium tuum * Exáudi preces in excélso sólio glóriæ tuæ.
O Lord, if your people turn to repent / and pray toward your sanctuary * Hear their prayer from the elevated throne of your glory.

1. a shrine, sanctuary

Sanctuarium is the Latin equivalent in the Vulgate for the Hebrew noun qodesh (Strongs #6944) and the Greek hagios (Strongs #40) as in Hebrews 9.3.

In the Exodus Tabernacle [cf. Esodus 26], the outer sanctuary or “Holy Place” is called the sanctuarium (Hebrew qodesh) and the inner sanctuary or “Holy of Holies” or “Most Holy Place” which houses the ark is called sancta sanctorum (Hebrew qodesh haqqodasim, Greek agia agion).

Titulus

Eréxit Iacob * lápidem in títulum, fundens óleum désuper.
Jacob erected * a stone as a standing-stone, and poured oil over it. [cf. Genesis 28.18]

1. title.
2. placard, tablet.
3. inscription.
4. epitaph

For Genesis 28, the Vulgate gives titulus for the Hebrew matstsebah (Strongs #4676) despite the fact that nothing in the text explicitly suggests an inscription. Jacob is said to give the place a name (“Bethel”). Matstsebah has be variously translated into English as pillar, obelisk, stump, boundary marker, standing-stone, title, marker, monument, or sign. The nature of its construction—that Jacob turned a horizontal stone on its end—is clear from the scripture. This is a very common ancient monument variously called a menhir, standing stone, orthostat, megalith, monolith, etc depending on context and period. The practice in early Hebrew and surrounding cultures merits further study. It is also important to note that these words place it closer to a boundary/location marker than an altar, though the pouring out of oil has some similarities to sacrificial rites.

While on the subject of stones, on further distinction of note arose during the translation activity, that between petra and lapis. The clear contextual difference is that petra refers to a rock as found while lapis refers to a stone as worked, whether a carved stone or precious gem. In the commentary to these readings which will form a subsequent article, we will explore the very significant notion of sacred places which are found versus those which are created. (Hint: the scriptural examples are predominantly the former.) From this we can project the these three terms for stones roughly to van der Laan’s three form-worlds: petra is the stone in its form in nature, lapis is the natural stone given meaning through cultural form, and titulus (at least as used here) is the stone elevated to the liturgical form-world.

Prayers, Antiphons, and Readings

Collect

O God, who from living and chosen stones an eternal dwelling prepares for your majesty + multiply in you Church the spirit of grace you have bestowed * so that your faithful people may perpetually increase & cultivate the celestial edifice Jerusalem.

Preface

For in your benevolence you are pleased
to dwell in this house of prayer
in order to perfect us as the temple of the Holy Spirit,
supported by the perpetual help of your grace
and resplendent with the glory of a life acceptable to you.

Year by year you sanctify the Church, the Bride of Christ,
foreshadowed in visible buildings,
so that, rejoicing as the mother of countless children,
she may be given her place in your heavenly glory.

Antiphons

Abolish * your heads, city gates, and be lifted up, eternal portals.

Adore the Lord * in his sacred forecourt.

Be built up like living stones * into a spiritual house, a holy priesthood. [Cf. 1 Peter 2.5]

Blessed are those who dwell * in your house, O Lord, and praise you for ever and ever.

Blessed be * the glory of the Lord from his holy place, alleluia.

Erected and built * Moses an altar to the Lord God.

He will be to me * the Lord God: and this stone (lapis) there will be called the house of God.

How to be feared is + this place: * In truth this is none other, if not the house of God and the portal of heaven.

I will enter * into your house, O Lord, and address adoration toward your sacred temple. [Psalm 5.7]

Jacob erected * a stone as a standing-stone, and poured oil over it.

Jacob saw in his sleep a ladder, its highest part reaching to the heavens / and angles of God descending, and he affirmed: * In truth, this place is holy, alleluia.

Made sacred * by the Lord is his tent (tabernaculum). This is the house of God since this is where his name is invoked, as it is written: “and there my name shall be, says the Lord.”

My house * shall be called a house of prayer.

Of stones precious + all your walls * and towers, O Jerusalem, shall be built bejeweled.

The Lord * is in his sacred temple: the Lord’s throne is in heaven.

The temple of the Lord * is sacred, as is the structural craft of God, as is the built edifice of God.

This is none other * if not the house of God and the portal of heaven.

This is the house of the Lord * firmly built: well established on a firm faithful rock

Well established is * the house of the Lord, on a firm faithful rock

Who dwells * in the assistance of the Most High, in the protection of the God of heaven shall remain.

Your house, O Lord * is rightly adorned with sanctity, for the length of days.

Zacchaeus, he said, make haste and come down; I am to lodge to-day at your house. And he came down with all haste, and gladly made him welcome. [Luke 19.5-6 | Knox Translation]

Responsories

℣ Your house O Lord is rightly adorned with sanctity.
℟ For the length of days.

℣ My house
℟ shall be called a house of prayer.

℣ This is the house of the Lord, firmly built, alleluia.
℟ It is well established on a firm faithful rock, alleluia.

℟ Your house O Lord * is rightly adorned with sanctity. (twice)
℣ For the length of days * is rightly adorned with sanctity.
℣ Glory to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. * Your house O Lord is rightly adorned with sanctity.

℣ This is the house of the Lord, firmly built,
℟ ell established on a firm faithful rock.

℣ Your house, O Lord * is rightly adorned with sanctity.
℟ For the length of days.

℣ This place is holy, in which the priest prays, alleluia.
℟ For the failings and sins of the people, alleluia.

℣ This is the house of the Lord, firmly built,
℟ well established on a firm faithful rock

℟ This place is holy, * in which the priest prays. (twice)
℣ For the failings and sins of the people. * In which the priest prays.
℣ Glory to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. * This place is holy, in which the priest prays.

℣ Your house, O Lord, is rightly adorned with sanctity.
℟ for the length of days.

Readings at Mass

Readings not translated from Latin are taken from the Knox translations revised to “you” (full text available here). Visit the USCCB site to read the NAB translations used in the Lectionary. And of course compare to your own preferred translation(s).

First Reading

And last, he took me to the door of the temple (domus) itself, and shewed me where a stream of water flowed eastwards from beneath the threshold of it. Eastward the temple (domus) looked, and eastward these waters flowed, somewhat to the temple’s (templi) right, so as to pass by the southern side of the altar… Mark it well, son of man, said he; and with that he brought me out on to the bank again; when I reached it, I found that there were trees growing thick on either hand. This stream, he told me, must flow eastward to the sand-dunes, and so fall into the desert; pass into the Dead Sea and beyond it, cleansing those waters by its passage. Wherever it flows, there shall be teeming life once again; in the Dead Sea itself there will be shoals of fish, once this stream has reached it, this stream that heals all things and makes all things live. … And on either bank of the stream fruit-trees shall grow of every kind; never leaf lost, never fruit cast; month after month they shall yield a fresh crop, watered by that sanctuary stream; fruit for man’s eating, and medicinal leaves. [Ezekiel 47.1-2,8-9,12 | Knox Translation]

Psalm

GOD is our refuge and stronghold; sovereign aid he has brought us in the hour of peril. Not for us to be afraid, though earth should tumble about us, and the hills be carried away into the depths of the sea. See how its waters rage and roar, how the hills tremble before its might! The Lord of hosts is with us, the God of Jacob is our refuge. But the city of God, enriched with flowing waters, is the chosen sanctuary of the most High, God dwells within her, and she stands unmoved; with break of dawn he will grant her deliverance. Nations may be in turmoil, and thrones totter, earth shrink away before his voice; but the Lord of hosts is with us, the God of Jacob is our refuge. Come near, and see God’s acts, his marvellous acts done on earth; how he puts an end to wars all over the so world, the bow shivered, the lances shattered, the shields burnt to ashes! Wait quietly, and you shall have proof that I am God, claiming empire among the nations, claiming empire over the world. The Lord of hosts is with us, the God of Jacob is our refuge. [Psalm 45(46) | Knox Translation]

Second Reading

You are a field of God’s tilling, a structure of God’s design; and we are only his assistants. With what grace God has bestowed on me, I have laid a foundation as a careful architect should; it is left for someone else to build upon it. Only, whoever builds on it must be careful how he builds. The foundation which has been laid is the only one which anybody can lay; I mean Jesus Christ. … Do you not understand that you are God’s temple, and that God’s Spirit has his dwelling in you? If anybody desecrates the temple of God, God will bring him to ruin. It is a holy thing, this temple of God which is nothing other than yourselves. [1 Corinthians 3.9-11,16-17 | Knox Translation]

Gospel Acclamation

“Alleluia, alleluia!
I have chosen and consecrated this house, says the Lord,
for my name to be there forever.
Alleluia!” [Cf. 2 Ch 7.16]

Gospel

And now the paschal feast which the Jews keep was drawing near, so Jesus went up to Jerusalem. And in the temple there he found the merchants selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the moneychangers sitting at their trade. So he made a kind of whip out of cords, and drove them all, with their sheep and oxen, out of the temple, spilling the bankers’ coins and overthrowing their tables, and he said to the pigeon-sellers, Take these away, do not turn my Father’s house into a place of barter. And his disciples remembered how it is written, I am consumed with jealousy for the honour of your house. Then the Jews answered him, What sign can you show us as your warrant for doing this? Jesus answered them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up again. At which the Jews said, This temple took forty-six years to build, will you raise it up in three days? But the temple he was speaking of was his own body; and when he had risen from the dead his disciples remembered his saying this, and learned to believe in the scriptures, and in the words Jesus had spoken. [John 2.13-22 | Knox Translation]

Short Readings

Lauds

(Per Universalis) [And so it shall be with the alien born, will they but throw in their lot with the Lord's worshippers, that cherish the love of his name; the Lord's servants that keep the sabbath inviolate, and are true to his covenant.] Free of the mountain that is my sanctuary, welcome guests in the house where men pray to me, not vainly to my altar they shall bring burnt-offering and sacrifice. Claimed my house shall be, for a house of prayer, by all the nations. [Isaiah 56.7 | Knox Translation]

Terce

(Per Vaals service book) I saw the sacred city, the new Jerusalem + descending out of heaven from God * prepared as a spouse adorned for her husband. [Revelation 21.2]

(Per Universalis) Do you not understand that you are God’s temple, and that God’s Spirit has his dwelling in you? If anybody desecrates the temple of God, God will bring him to ruin. It is a holy thing, this temple of God which is nothing other than yourselves. [1 Corinthians 3.16-17 | Knox Translation]

Sext

(Per Vaals service book) I heard, too, a voice which cried aloud from the throne, Here is God’s tabernacle pitched among men; he will dwell with them, and they will be his own people, and he will be among them, their own God. [Revelation 21.3 | Knox Translation]

(Per Universalis) How can the temple of God have any commerce with idols? And you are the temple of the living God; God has told us so; I will live and move among them, and be their God, and they shall be my people. [2 Corinthians 6.16 | Knox Translation]

None

(Per Vaals service book) He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death, or mourning, or cries of distress, no more sorrow; those old things have passed away. And he who sat on the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. [Revelation 21.4-5 | Knox Translation]

(Per Universalis) A little while now, the Lord of hosts says, and I mean to set heaven and earth, sea and dry land rocking; stirred all the nations shall be, hither shall come the prize the whole world treasures, and I will fill this temple with the brightness of my presence, says the Lord of hosts. Silver or gold, what matters it? the Lord of hosts says. Both are mine! Bright this new temple shall be, he tells you, as never the first was; here, he tells you, his blessing shall rest. [Haggai 2.6-7,9 | Knox Translation]

Vespers

I saw the sacred city, the new Jerusalem + descending out of heaven from God * prepared as a spouse adorned for her husband. [Revelation 21.2 | Knox Translation]

Matins (Nightwatch) Readings and Responses

Lectio I

Then I saw a new heaven, and a new earth. The old heaven, the old earth had vanished, and there was no more sea. And I, John, saw in my vision that holy city which is the new Jerusalem, being sent down by God from heaven, all clothed in readiness, like a bride who has adorned herself to meet her husband. I heard, too, a voice which cried aloud from the throne, Here is God’s tabernacle pitched among men; he will dwell with them, and they will be his own people, and he will be among them, their own God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death, or mourning, or cries of distress, no more sorrow; those old things have passed away. [Revelation 21.1-4 | Knox Translation]

℟ At the dedication of the temple + the people sang praise * and out of their mouths resounded sweet sounds.

℣ Founded is + the house of the Lord above the peaks of the mountains / and all tribes and peoples shall approach it. * and out of their mouths resounded sweet sounds.

Lectio II

And now an angel came and spoke to me, one of those seven who bear the seven cups charged with the seven last plagues. Come with me, he said, and I will show you that bride, whose bridegroom is the Lamb. And he carried me off in a trance to a great mountain, high up, and there showed me the holy city Jerusalem, as it came down, sent by God, from heaven, clothed in God’s glory. The light that shone over it was bright as any precious stone, as the jasper when it is most like crystal; and a great wall was raised high all round it, with twelve gates, and twelve angels at the gates, and the names of the twelve tribes of Israel carved on the lintels; three gates on the east, three on the north, three on the south, three on the west. The city wall, too, had twelve foundation stones; and these, too, bore names, those of the Lamb’s twelve apostles. [Revelation 21.9-14 | Knox Translation]

℟ Founded is + the house of the Lord above the peaks of the mountains / and exalted above all hills * And all tribes and peoples shall approach it and say: / Glory be to you O Lord.

℣ They will come, moreover they will come with exultation / carrying their handfuls. * And all tribes and peoples shall approach it and say: / Glory be to you O Lord.

Lectio III

The angel who was speaking to me had a rod of gold for a rule, to measure the city, and its gates, and its wall. The city lies foursquare, the same in its length as in its breadth, and when he measured it with his rod, he counted twelve thousand furlongs. Length and breadth and height are everywhere equal. And when he measured its wall, he counted a hundred and forty-four cubits, reckoned by the measure of a man, that is, of an angel. The fashioning of its wall was of jasper, but the city itself was pure gold, that seemed to have the purity of glass. And the foundations of the city wall were worked in every kind of precious stone. The first foundation was a jasper, the second a sapphire, the third a chalcedony, the fourth an emerald; the fifth a sardonyx, the sixth a sardius, the seventh a chrysolite, the eighth a beryl; the ninth a topaz, the tenth a chrysoprase, the eleventh a jacynth, the twelfth an amethyst. [Revelation 21.15-19 | Knox Translation]

℟ Bless and praise + O Lord, this your house which I have erected in your name: / whoever approaches unto this place * Hear their prayer from the elevated throne of your glory.

℣ O Lord, if your people repent / and pray toward your sanctuary * Hear their prayer from the elevated throne of your glory.

Lectio IV

[And the twelve gates were twelve single pearls, one pearl for each gate; and the street of the city was of pure gold, that seemed like transparent glass. I saw no temple in it; its temple is the Lord God Almighty, its temple is the Lamb.] Nor had the city any need of sun or moon to show in it; the glory of God shone there, and the Lamb gave it light. The nations will live and move in its radiance; the kings of the earth will bring it their tribute of praise and honour. All day the gates will never be shut (there will be no night there), as the nations flock into it with their honour and their praise. Nothing that is unclean, no source of corruption or deceit can ever hope to find its way in; there is no entrance but for those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life. [Revelation 21.22-27 | Knox Translation]

℟ Terrible is + this place: / this is none other, if not the house of God and the portal of heaven * In truth, the Lord is in this place and I did not comprehend it.

℟ Jacob saw in his sleep a ladder, its highest part reaching to the heavens / and angles of God descending and ascending, and he affirmed: * In truth, the Lord is in this place and I did not comprehend it.

℣ Glory to the Gather and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit * In truth, the Lord is in this place and I did not comprehend it.

Lectio V

My fellow Christians, today is the birthday of this church (templi), an occasion for celebration and rejoicing. We, however, ought to be the true and living temple (templum) of God. Nevertheless, Christians rightly commemorate this feast of the church (Ecclesiæ), their mother, for they know that through her they were reborn in the spirit. At our first birth, we were vessels of God’s wrath; reborn, we became vessels of his mercy. Our first birth brought death to us, but our second restored us to life. [A Sermon of St Caesarius of Arles, Bishop | Sermo 229]

℟ If they pray + toward this place * dismiss the sins of your people, O God, and show then the good way, wherein they should walk / and your glory in this place.

℣ You who rule Israel, attend / who leads Joseph like a sheep, who sits over the cherubim: * dismiss the sins of your people, O God, and show then the good way, wherein they should walk / and your glory in this place.

Lectio VI

Indeed, before our baptism we were sanctuaries of the devil (fana diáboli); but after our baptism we merited the privilege of being temples of Christ (templa Christi). And if we think more carefully about the meaning of our salvation, we shall realise that we are indeed living and true temples of God. God does not dwell only in things made by human hands, nor in homes of wood and stone, but rather he dwells principally in the soul made according to his own image and fashioned by his own hand. Therefore, the apostle Paul says: The temple of God is holy, and you are that temple. [A Sermon of St Caesarius of Arles, Bishop | Sermo 229]

℟ How to be feared is + this place: * In truth this is none other, if not the house of God and the portal of heaven.

℣ This is the house of the Lord, firmly built / well established on a firm faithful rock * In truth this is none other, if not the house of God and the portal of heaven.

Lectio VII

When Christ came, he banished the devil from our hearts, in order to build in them a temple for himself. Let us therefore do what we can with his help, so that our evil deeds will not deface that temple. For whoever does evil, does injury to Christ. As I said earlier, before Christ redeemed us, we were the house of the devil, but afterward, we merited the privilege of being the house of God. God himself in his loving mercy saw fit to make of us his own home. [A Sermon of St Caesarius of Arles, Bishop | Sermo 229]

℟ In the morning Jacob arose + and erected a stone as a standing-stone, and poured oil over it / dedicated a vow to the Lord: * In truth this place is sacred, and I did not comprehend it.

℣ When Jacob had awoken from sleep, he said: * In truth this place is sacred, and I did not comprehend it.

Lectio VIII

My fellow Christians, do we wish to celebrate joyfully the birth of this temple? Then let us not destroy the living temples of God in ourselves by works of evil. I shall speak clearly, so that all can understand. Whenever we come to church (ad ecclesiam), we must prepare our hearts to be as beautiful as we expect this church to be. Do you wish to find this basilica immaculately clean? Then do not soil your soul with the filth of sins. Do you wish this basilica to be full of light? God too wishes that your soul be not in darkness, but that the light of good works shine in us, so that he who dwells in the heavens will be glorified. Just as you enter this church building (ecclesiam), so God wishes to enter into your soul, for he promised: I shall live in them, I shall walk through their hearts. [A Sermon of St Caesarius of Arles, Bishop | Sermo 229]

℟ How lovely are + your tents (tabernacula), virile God: / my soul longs and fails * for the atria of the Lord. [cf. Psalm 84.2]

℟ Those who dwell in your house, O Lord / for ever and ever praise you * in the atria of the Lord.

℣ Glory to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit * in the atria of the Lord.

Lectio IX

You must put aside, then, every trace of ill will and deceitfulness, your affectations, the grudges you bore, and all the slanderous talk; you are children new-born, and all your craving must be for the soul’s pure milk, that will nurture you into salvation, once you have tasted, as you have surely tasted, the goodness of the Lord. Draw near to him; he is the living antitype of that stone which men rejected, which God has chosen and prized; you too must be built up on him, stones that live and breathe, into a spiritual fabric; you must be a holy priesthood, to offer up that spiritual sacrifice which God accepts through Jesus Christ. [1 Peter 2.1-5 | Knox Translation]

℟ My house + shall be called a house of prayer, says the Lord: / in it all who desires and asks, receives, and who seeks, discovers * and who knocks will have it opened.

℣ Desire and ask, and you shall receive * and who knocks will have it opened.

Lectio X

So you will find in scripture the words, Behold, I am setting down in Sion a corner-stone, chosen out and precious; those who believe in him will not be disappointed. Prized, then, by you, the believers, he is something other to those who refuse belief; the stone which the builders rejected has become the chief stone at the corner, a stone to trip men’s feet, a boulder they stumble against. They stumble over God’s word, and refuse it belief; it is their destiny. Not so you; you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a consecrated nation, a people God means to have for himself; it is yours to proclaim the exploits of the God who has called you out of darkness into his marvellous light. Time was when you were not a people at all, now you are God’s people; once you were unpitied, and now his pity is yours. [1 Peter 2.6-10 | Knox Translation]

℟ Of stones + precious all your walls * and towers, O Jerusalem, shall be built bejeweled.

℣ The gates of Jerusalem of sapphire and emerald shall be built / and of precious stones all your encircling walls * and towers, O Jerusalem, will be built bejeweled.

Lectio XI

Beloved, I call upon you to be like strangers and exiles, to resist those natural appetites which besiege the soul. Your life amidst the Gentiles must be beyond reproach; decried as malefactors, you must let them see, from your honourable behaviour, what you are; they will praise God for you, when his time comes to have mercy on them. For love of the Lord, then, bow to every kind of human authority; to the king, who enjoys the chief power, and to the magistrates who hold his commission to punish criminals and encourage honest men. To silence, by honest living, the ignorant chatter of fools; that is what God expects of you. Free men, but the liberty you enjoy is not to be made a pretext for wrong-doing; it is to be used in God’s service. [1 Peter 2.11-16 | Knox Translation]

℟ Blessed are you + in the sacred temple of your glory, which is built (of/by) your name, O Lord.

℣ Bless this house which I have built * To the praise and glory of your name, O Lord.

Lectio XII

Give all men their due; to the brethren, your love; to God, your reverence; to the king, due honour. You who are slaves must be submissive to your masters, and show all respect, not only to those who are kind and considerate, but to those who are hard to please. It does a man credit when he bears undeserved ill treatment with the thought of God in his heart. If you do wrong and are punished for it, your patience is nothing to boast of; it is the patience of the innocent sufferer that wins credit in God’s sight. Indeed, you are engaged to this by the call of Christ; he suffered for our sakes, and left you his own example; you were to follow in his footsteps. [1 Peter 2.17-21 | Knox Translation]

℟ I saw + the holy city, the new Jerusalem / descending from heaven having been prepared by God * And I head a great voice from the throne saying: / behold the tent (tabernaculum) of God with humanity, and he dwells with them.

℟ And his people they shall be / and God himself with them will be their God. * And I head a great voice from the throne saying:

℣ Glory to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. * Behold the tent (tabernaculum) of God with humanity, and he dwells with them.

Matins Canticles

Canticle I [Tobit 13.8-22]

Bless the Lord, all his elect, / and all praise his majesty. * establish days of celebration and give him praise.
Jerusalem, sacred city, * flogged for the works of your hands.
Give thanks to the Lord with good work / and bless the ruler forever, * so that they may build your tent (tabernaculum) with joy in you.
And make happy in you all those captive * and beloved in you all those miserable, for ever and ever.
Light splendid will flash in all ends of the earth; * many nations will come to you from a great distance,
And from the newest part of the earth to the sacred place of your name * with offerings in their hands, holding them for ruler of heaven.
From generation to generation they will offer to you in joy, * and the names of the elect will exist for ever and ever.
A curse on all those who will speak a harsh word of you. * A curse will be on all those who depose you and demolish your walls,
And all those who subvert your towers * and who set fire to your dwellings.
And blessed will be all those, * who fear you in eternity.
As it was in the beginning, is now, will be forever, to the end of days.

Canticle II [Tobit 13-16a]

Then take pleasure in and rejoice in the children of the just, * for they will be gathered and bless the Lord of eternity.
Fortunate are those who love you, * and fortunate those who rejoice in your peace.
And blessed are all people * who will grieve with you in all your scourges,
For the will rejoice in you * and will see all your joy for eternity.
My soul, bless the Lord, the great ruler, / for in the city of Jerusalem will be established * that house for all ages.
I will be happy, if my offspring will have survived * to have seen your clarity and acknowledged the ruler of heaven.
Glory to the Father and Son * and Holy Spirit.
As it was in the beginning, is now, will be forever * to the end of days.

Canticle III [Tobit 16b-18]

The doors of Jerusalem shall be built of gold, * and its bulwarks of pure gold.
The plazas of Jerusalem will be paved with carbuncles * and stones from Ophir.
And to the doors of Jerusalem they will declare canticles of great joy * and speak to all her quarters the Alleluia.
Blessed by the God of Israel, / and bless those who bless the sacred name * for ever and ever.
Glory to the Father and Son * and Holy Spirit.
As it was in the beginning, is now, will be forever * to the end of days.
Amen.

Hymn for Matins

City of Jerusalem, blessed
called Peaceful Vision,
who was constructed in heaven
of living stones,
is with angels crowned
like a bride companion.

Coming fresh from heaven
to the wedding chamber
prepared, so that undefiled
she should be bound to the Lord.
Her plazas and walls
are of pure gold.

Her gates shine with pearls
her inner sanctums (adytis) are open
and by merit of their virtue
in that place are introduced
all who in Christ’s name
in this world are oppressed.

By tension and oppression
polished, stones
are fit together in their places
by the master-craftsman’s hand,
arranged permanently
into a sacred building.

Glory and honor to God
continuously in the highest,
to one Father, to the Son
and to the Holy Breathing,
whose praise and power
through eternal ages.

Hymn at Lauds and Vespers

A right foundation
stone is Christ who has been sent;
who walls from parts
together he has fastened and united;
who sacred Zion has recieved
and in whose belief she persists.

All that God-dedicated
and beloved city,
a full measure of praise
and melodious singing with joy
to the Triune God alone
with fervor proclaims.

To this temple, the most high God,
is persuaded to arrive
and in gentle goodness
receive prayerful vows;
abundant blessing
pour into them continually.

Let these deserve
to aquire the sought
and to possess the obtained
with the saints forever:
to enter Paradise,
transferred into rest.

Glory and honor to God
continuously in the highest,
to one Father, to the Son
and to the Holy Breathing,
whose praise and power
through eternal ages.

The take seems to be post-religious, humanistic, and artistic. Or at least I expect it to be because I’m a pessimist.

More information available here.

Oh, and repeat after me:
Sagrada Familia is not a cathedral.
Sagrada Familia is not a cathedral.
Sagrada Familia is not a cathedral.

But it is a minor basilica.

• 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)

Earlier this year I wrote about the massive found-wood crucifix by Charles Lutyens entitled Outraged Christ currently installed at St Paul, Bow Common in London. The conclusion was that this was an encouraging direction for liturgical arts, an appropriate and timely expression of the content, and an exemplar of art and architecture working in concert in the service of liturgy.

Fortuitous scheduling for travel to the Netherlands gave me 18 in hours in London on a Sunday morning. This meant allowed me to both participate in worship at St Paul, Bow Common (which I was not possible during my previous research trip) and to see the Outraged Christ sculpture in person.

Worship at St Paul, Bow Common

First, some thoughts on St Paul, Bow Common in use. On a personal note, having spent so much time studying, thinking and writing about this building (it was the subject of my (unofficial) Master thesis), immediately upon ducking under the corner of the portico to escape the rain, I thought to say, “hello, old friend.” As a general rule, I do not talk to or anthropomorphize buildings, but in this case it is very hard not to. She has so much personality and vitality.

The vicar, Prebendary Duncan Ross, greeted me with a vigorous hug (he greeted everyone that way this morning) and the salutation, “welcome back to your church.” And I thought at the time that it was odd to actually feel more welcome at a church I have only visited once before (and of a different denomination) than my own. And that is not just a reflection of academic and architectural familiarity.

Once again, my readings of the church based on the documentation proved themselves valid in experience. And then some. Specifically, the formal superimposition of spaces which facilitate the simultaneous expression of domus Dei and domus ecclesiæ (which are generally have contradictory material expressions) was further enhanced in the celebration of the liturgy. And the influence runs both ways: the material implications of the objects and space shape the postures, arrangement, and signification of the assembled Body of Christ and the particular local worship enlivens, completes, and gives more complex meaning to the building and its parts.

Speaking to a few parishioners afterwards about that particular local worship and its informal formality. They settled on the description “chaotic high church.” This is wonderfully accurate and in many ways the best of all possible worlds. The celebration is full high church “bells and smells”: generous incense, worthy vestments, intoned prayers, combined with hymns from the richness of English hymnody. At the same time, there was a casual coming and going, reminiscent of a family gathering more than anything else. But the centrality of the altar, together with its concentric spatial attending features (outer wall, peristyle atrium, lantern, paving changes, coronoa, steps, ædicula/ciborium), meant that the liturgy was always the principal aim and focus.

The balance thus achieved makes it difficult to fall into either the trap of self-important, hypocritically pious, fetishized religiosity on the one hand or the trap of self-satisfying, watered-down, humanist spirituality on the other.

The important ideas of “active participation” and a greater openness towards the liturgy have far too often found expression in adaptations of the liturgical celebration. But rather than bringing the liturgy down to the level of the people, as it were, our goal should be to bring people up to the level of the liturgy. (Case in point, although not the only method for its fulfillment, the phrase actuosa participatio originates in the interest greater availability, accessibility, and wide-spread use fo Gregorian chant.) This is significantly harder, as it requires that we not re-form the liturgy itself but rather re-form ourselves, our in.

At St Paul, Bow Common the community realizes this worthy goal through the balanced combination of a non-linear hierarchy of spaces distinct but not separate (architecture), a commitment to the continuity and tradition of worship not as an end in itself (liturgy), and above all in the context of an honestly joyous and welcoming attitude from the clergy and the assembly (community). And you could go on and list the further good work of the church outside the communal celebration as well.

In short, the celebration achieves in parallel the same confluence of domus Dei and domus ecclesiæ achieved by the architecture. The result is an elusive and remarkable balance to which we (regardless of style worship) would do well to aspire.

Outraged Christ, (Re)visited

Seeing Lutyen’s crucifix in person likewise confirmed my initial impressions of the work, but the added concrete experience greatly increased my appreciation.

I did not anticipate its impressive weight and muscular presence. The scale of the work and the attitude of its posture, especially the unusual extended knee which hangs just over the viewer’s head, makes it overwhelming and awesome. The propriety of the scale and proportion of the crucifix to those of the building further accentuates this impression. The vertical component mirrors and then develops the columns, while the horizontal echoes the horizontal wood of the benches. The horizontal also occurs within the realm of the triangular spandrels and angel mosaics (also by Charles Lutyens, 50 years earlier) so that Christ’s head is at the level of the angels’ heads.

There were many details revealed in the closer inspection. In particular, concavity of the chest seems to speak to the pain and depravity of the Passion. So too the withered right arm, which was uncovered from the remnant of another sculpture destroyed by the artist. The contrast between the two arms reminds of the dual expressions of the well-known Pantokrator ikon. Such a formal dichotomy is a great technique for increasing the signifying content of liturgical art and for expressing the important reality of paradoxes inherent in our attempts to communicate divine revelation.

The pained contortion of the left foot comes from the source material where the tree grew around a piece of steel. This element highlights the found-wood nature of the piece as a whole, a significant aspect of the rough and weak aesthetic that I feel reflects a critical expression of contemporary culture.

A the time of my visit, the crucifix was placed amongst the congregation’s benches, in the corner left by the radial arrangement of the benches set in the rectangular atrium/nave. It would be possible, if difficult, to install this work as the principal crucifix in a church associated with the altar (often reductively compacted to the back wall). But it would be an impressive result.

Here it is a temporary addition which, as mentioned before, is extremely resonant. And the placement in the nave highlights the multiplicity of symbols of the Body of Christ present in the celebration of the liturgy.

It is truly a serious and exemplary work of religious and, moreover, liturgical art for our time.

In addition to celebrating the Feast of the Dedication of the St John Lateran Basilica and participating in praying the monastic offices, I had time to carefully consider a significant portion of the architecture. I also spent time in lectio, completing Hans Urs von Balthasar’s Love Alone is Credible and re-reading parts of van der Laan’s The Play of Forms. This post is intended to be more personal reactions to that experience than critical architectural response, though for me the two are probably not too far apart.

This was a foundational formative experience, and it will take a long time to fully internalize it. But here are a number of rough reactions, part thematic and part chronological.

You can also see the complete set of photos from the Abbey on flickr.

+++ Architectural Doubts

One of the aspects which helped draw me into the Catholic Church was a nascent impression of a profound perfection in the link between the liturgy and creative work. I was near the end of an artistic youth, where faith in creativity was ready to come crashing down. My initial responses to the liturgy were purely artistic impulses, which was fitting, but I soon learned the importance of “seeing” in relation to “making” and my appreciation of the liturgy continued to grow.

When I discovered Dom Hans van der Laan’s book Het vormenspel der liturgie (published in English as The Play of Forms: Nature, Culture and Liturgy), it was as though my process of engaging and conforming to the liturgy (and especially its formal elements) suddenly had a full and complete textual expression. That I would find resonance with the liturgical reflections a monk-architect is probably not surprising.

During my Master of Architecture work, I turned to Dom Hans van der Laan’s remarkably complete treatise on architecture, De architectonische ruimte (Architectonic Space), and began an ongoing attempt to comprehend through application his architectural theory. This is backwards from the publication order of these two books and how most architects become acquainted with van der Laan, but it is more consistent with the schema of his own thought as a whole. My interest in his thoughts on architecture was dependent upon the place he gives architecture in the entire order of human and divine activity. A constant complaint within my architectural experience is its exaggerated self-importance.

So although I have read van der Laan’s texts and have come to accept them and submit myself to them as a student indirectly, this says nothing of his own architectural output. He does not use his buildings in his texts; the only examples are archetypal theoretical spaces and unquestionably canonical works: Stonehenge and Hagia Sophia in particular. And he was clear that his particular architecture was not the only expression of his theories, only an attempt for their most pure expression and dependent upon current building methods. His theories are more like discoveries than assertions; they are descriptive not prescriptive. The plastic number itself can be derived from no fewer than a dozen approaches and recognized, if obscured, in a wide range of buildings.

So I approached the particular architecture expression with appreciation from photos but also with some doubts. It could be so purely architectural that the liturgy might be obscured. It could also be so purely intellectual as to lose its chance at a wider relevance.

I find very troubling the idea that a particular architecture would require a certain degree of intellectual comprehension or be appreciated only by an intellectual elite. Especially when it is an architecture for liturgy. The prominence of intellect in van der Laan’s texts and the apparent visual similarities with other rational/abstract modernisms prompt this doubt. The discussion at the conference at the start of this trip reinforced this second doubt. There seemed to be a fairly even split in the attendees between appreciation and distaste. And the split seemed to exist within individuals as well.

Romano Guardini’s description of the qualities of the liturgy—which in his work The Spirit of the Liturgy provides the conclusion and verification of Catholic liturgy—comes to mind again as a criteria for liturgical architecture. It references this exact problem.

“[It] must be simple, wholesome, and powerful. It must be closely related to actuality and not afraid to call things by their real names. In [it] we must find our entire life over again. On the other hand, it must be rich in idea and powerful images, and speak a developed but restrained language; its constructions must be clear and obvious to the simple man, stimulating to the man of culture. It must be intimately blended with an erudition which is nowise obtrusive, but which is rooted in breadth of spiritual outlook and in inward restraint of thought, volition, and emotion. And that is precisely the way in which the prayer of the liturgy has been formed.” Romano Guardini, Vom Geist der Liturgie (1918)

It is an all but hopelessly impossible criteria, which is part of why it is good as a measure.

[For what it's worth, van der Laan explicitly rejected Guardini's text in its treatment of play and the liturgy. To me it seems the dispute was one of relative importance and semantics, with van der Laan not wanting his own use of "play" to be conflated with Guardini's. Though different in character, the essences of both men's approach to the heart of liturgy are quite compatible. In particular this criteria by Guardini does not address the disputed play concept (which is more a means to understanding, not a definition of liturgy) and therefore is not invalidated in discussing van der Laan.]

+++ The Sublime

In brief, having lived for a short time in the life of the Abbey St Benedictusberg, my doubts have been quieted. There were moments where every aspect of my being was simultaneously engaged; it was emotionally and intellectually overwhelming. I have not experienced anything like it in any built environment and can think of no better attribute than “sublime.”

Without going into a thorough discussion of a word we have essentially abandoned (to our own impoverishment), I will simply explain why I use the word in response to this experience. Kant wrote, “we call that sublime which is absolutely great,” and related it to the quality of “boundlessness.” With regard to form embodying the Sublime, it might be better to think of it as a quality which exceeds the bounds of form. It is related to that “other-than-ness” sought by proponents of spirituality in architecture. The Romantics used images of the more awesome phenomena of nature to demonstrate the Sublime, and in that vein I am very reluctant to ascribe the attribute to a work of human hands. I suspect it is impossible for a human work which does not ascend to the liturgical form-world (see below) to embody the Sublime, though perhaps cultural works may suggest it or depict it.

Alternatively, using the terms of Guardini’s criteria for the liturgy, the Sublime is “simple, wholesome, and powerful”: simple in that it does not speak encrypted and wholesome in that contains more of reality (Truth) than we easily grasp and therefore nourishing/purifying in rumination. And above all, the Sublime is powerful, with sense of grandeur that leads beyond whatever is recognized as Sublime. It may be the only thing that can answer the paradox of being “clear and obvious to the simple man, stimulating to the man of culture.” The impact of awesomeness and grandeur inspires a visceral reaction

There is also a question as to whether or not the Sublime and the Beautiful are mutually exclusive. In some arguments, the Beautiful is what inspires pleasure and the Sublime inspires pain. I can appreciate that some would not consider this building “beautiful,” if we define the beautiful as that which gives pleasure (in the more subjective sense). But that is an insufficient conception of beauty, and more so if it is bound to particular cultural conventions.

If Beauty is rather the perceptible manifestation of Truth, and Goodness its narrative unfolding, we have no greater model of Beauty than the Incarnation. The Incarnation begins with an absolute humbling and climaxes with hideous humiliation, both of which are required for the beauty of the entirety.

“In the first place, the text of Isaiah supplies the question that interested the Fathers of the Church, whether or not Christ was beautiful. Implicit here is the more radical question of whether beauty is true or whether it is not ugliness that leads us to the deepest truth of reality. Whoever believes in God, in the God who manifested himself, precisely in the altered appearance of Christ crucified as love “to the end” (John 13:1), knows that beauty is truth and truth beauty; but in the suffering Christ he also learns that the beauty of truth also embraces offence, pain, and even the dark mystery of death, and that this can only be found in accepting suffering, not in ignoring it.” Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) in a 2002 message on Beauty

+++ The Intellect

The word “intellect” is pivotal in Dom Hans van der Laan’s The Play of Forms. He uses the term to describe the essence of culture. It would be helpful to give a summary of his cosmology:

“We are created as one of the material beings that compose nature. Through our intellect, however, by which we rise above the conditions of matter and thus transcend time and space, we form a separate entity, within nature, that must maintain itself by means of a culture that it itself brings into existence. Furthermore, through our faith we belong to a still higher world, which transcends both matter and intellect.” Dom Hans van der Laan, The Play of Forms 4

And on the forms of that still higher world:

“But as soon as human beings turn collectively to God specific external forms become necessary, just as when people exchange ideas among themselves. … In our collective communication with God, the great real image of the creation represented by the cultural form-world acquires an independent existence as a supreme sign, which we call liturgy.” Dom Hans van der Laan, The Play of Forms 29

There is much more concerning the types of forms within the form-worlds and the nature of signs for communication, but the outline of the three form-worlds and the particular reason for liturgical forms will suffice for this discussion.

Reading the chapter on cultural forms in the Abbey, what stands out is the breadth of human actions and attributes he collects under the term “intellect.” Or, to put it simply, he is talking about intellect not intellectualism. It does not have the limited rational scope of a modern/humanist/academic concept of intellect; it is the more holistic humanity properly placed as seen from a monastic perspective.

It strikes me that the intellectual emphasis on number, proportion, and eurythmy has far more to do with the creation of the space than its use or appreciation. If it works, the plastic number works precisely because it gives access to what is inherently part of nature and encoded by culture. It is not like a prescriptive alchemical gnostic proportional system; its effect is preconscious.

Thus it is like the paradoxical Alban Berg quote, wherein he recognizes the same ability for intellect to surpass itself:

“The best music always results from ecstasies of logic.”

I say all of this with the caveat that this is monastic architecture and not parochial architecture. This is a monastic church, and what that means relative to the rest of the church will be considered throughout this reflection. The intellectual comprehension required for van der Laan’s theories is not required for his buildings; but if approached with that comprehension, the architecture in its purity and austerity, just as the monastic liturgy in its purity and austerity, is an essential component of the church catholic.

So we cannot approach this architecture as a universal formal model any more than we can expect everyone to be called to a monastic vocation.

This is the most pure expression of the van der Laan’s theories on liturgy and architecture, but that does not mean it is the most complete. That is a challenge which may never be achieved.

Dom Hans van der Laan did not design a completed parochial church. Whether this was by choice or a result of a lack of commissions I do not know. Either way it seems fitting with this point of view. But he did have a hand in countless churches through his collaboration with his brother Nico, his work as a consultant (for example, he coached van Eyck in his design for Pastoor-van-Ars, Den Hague), and via his students at the diocesan course in church architecture he directed and taught.

These churches exhibit more of the literal “richness in idea and powerful images” (back to Guardini) we expect, if not require, in parish churches. Though it is worth noting that the Abbey Upper Church does have exquisite and well-suited images as well, which get lost in documentation of the architecture. Three images by Theodore Stravinsky can be found in the aisles of the Upper Church, including this Transfiguration.

And these are not afterthoughts or concessions. Stravinsky worked closely with van der Laan and on many of the Bossche School churches. And their placement is obviously carefully considered in relation to the whole.

+++ Arrival

I arrived at the abbey before Sext on a cold fall day, entering suddenly into low mountains and tall forests gold and red with a damp fall.

Despite some language difficulties, the Guestfather welcomed me, showed me to my room. The reception fall with the porter’s office and “Spreekkamers” opens directly into the atrium with access to the crypt below and the church above. A side door leads into the cloister itself. My host monk also explained the half-dozen prayer books–in Latin and Dutch and most printed for the abbey specifically–that would be used during the stay.

I was given a key to the cloister as well. After so many locked churches on the drive between Haarlem and Vaals, this was a welcome image:

The Gastenkammers (guest rooms) are on the ground floor of the older Böhm building–or at least the ground floor of that wing, for the group slopes dramatically from the church at the top to the far end of the Böhm building. Each of the cloisters is at a different level: the upper cloister at the level of the But this gives the guests immediate access to the gardens and woods.

The rooms are furnished to the design of Dom Hans van der Laan: a bed, a cabinet, a writing desk, and two chairs in a muted olive-green. The furnishing throughout the abbey conforms to this one system, varying in color and measure as required by function. The chairs are an excellent example; there are three (non-liturgical) chair forms. In keeping with the plastic number, the three versions are only just past the point of intellectual distinction by sight (so that they must be based on adjacent forms), but in use they are clearly distinguishable. At the desk in the rooms is the working version and next to the bed sits on of the “reclining” type. The third “standard” type can be found in the Gastenzaal. They are also clearly distinguished by the space in the side: long for the “reclining” type, tall for the “working” type, and square for the “standard” type.

Evidently the furniture was very exciting for me. Analyzing it constituted a significant portion of labora time, as the opportunity to occupy it was rare and there many variations to compare. The usefulness and comfort of furniture based on the plastic number could be a critical test of the theory of the plastic number, or at least its application in this case and at this scale.

I found the furniture in the guest room to be extremely comfortable and perfectly suited to its respective function.

+++ Devotion

Then to the crypt. This is the principal public devotional space of the abbey with the tabernacle, side altars for individual masses for the monks (and occasional masses in Dutch), and two confessionals. The focal wall bears the names of the founders and supporters of the monastery buried therein, carved in the ubiquitous face.

The tabernacle occupies the prominent altar (directly below the altar of the church above) and is the principal focus of the crypt.

I found this space less immediately effective than most of the monastery, though with use it opened up. Like devotions should be, the space is patterned after the liturgy, but has further pockets in which to become engaged with particular aspects. Therefore the strongly ordered linear space becomes rich with the overlapping complexity of specific uses.

I expected this to be the most architecturally inspiring/significant space based on what many people had told me, but the Upper Church with its liturgy was by far more impressive.

+++ Principal Work

As the bells rang for Sext, the “principal work” of praying the hours began, and thus the principal role of the upper church. Here is the Benedictine liturgy in its archetypal form.

As a house of the congregation of Solemnes, Gregorian chant is treasured. There is definitely a resonance between the chant, one that goes beyond the experienced simplicity.

The offices had a special significance to me in that the first full day of my stay coincided with the Feast of the Dedication of the St John Lateran Basilica. This meant that all of the antiphons and readings referenced sacred space in some way. These will receive further attention in subsequent posts.

I cannot fully describe the impact and importance of time ordered by the offices.

+++ Refectory

Following Sext, the sacristan opens the cloister doors at the side of the church and the monks file out (bowing to each other and the altar).

The guests followed the monks to the refter (refectory) for the midday meal through the upper cloister to the second floor of the old cloister its star-sculpted vault, down the smooth bluestone steps inserted by van der Laan to yet another dramatic environment built from the same elements, configured for yet another distinct use.

In the refectory many subtle details work in concert to reveal the heart of the balance between the three form-worlds as they are interrelated within the monastic life. And this is truly my honest reaction and experience and not an analytical statement attempting to reconcile.

The foot of the table was the turning point in the experience. The monks and guests sit on benches (slightly taller than those in the gastenzaal) before single-sided tables circling the room. The tables have an angled return at the bottom, mirroring the table top, on which the feet rest. The effect on one’s posture is a revelation. Sitting just removed from the ground (the tables themselves are an additional step up from the ground) heightens perception, one more physical and gestural act of “setting apart.” The comfortable attention thus created in gesture suits perfectly the meal without speaking, listening to the words of the reader intone passages from the rule, lives of the saints, etc.

This is but one moment among many in the refectory: the procession from the church passing from cloister to cloister, down the stairs, and passing the particular sequence of carvings; the unique double height cloister antechamber; the massive and welcoming doors; the small rite of hand-washing by the abbot to welcome guests; the standing before the tables for prayers before and after meals; the details of the pointed rafters; the acts of serving and being served; the comforting warmth and earthy herbal flavors of the (unexpectedly, in my case) delicious midday meal; the intoning of the cantor, reminding of the continuous life of prayer; the hum of the kitchen barely audible, reminding of the continuous life of work; the view of the woods and hills to the south (downhill) from large vision glazing not found anywhere else in the abbey.

The refter is also a place where the older Böhm building most directly interacts with the van der Laan insertion. Elsewhere the two interact by addition, the seams intentionally and skillfully hidden. Or there is simply the furnishings in the existing rooms. But the south wall of the refectory has new windows, made clear on the exterior by the concrete sill and header detail. Dom Hans van der Laan was not fond of the “expressionism” of the earlier abbey, and yet this insertion is perfectly harmonious. There is, in fact, a family of material finishes throughout the abbey which compliment each other so that it is not the conformity ideal of, for example, Pawson’s Novy Dvur. Perhaps van der Laan would have preferred the uniformity, but I think rather this harmony is a far more impressive feat and allows the life in the abbey to dominate the architecture.

It is, as it were, that necessary imperfection… wabi-sabi.

+++ Humility & Sentimentality

How quickly I was able to enter the rhythm of the abbey surprised me, though it probably was made easier by the fact we had been saying some of the offices at the conference and had done nothing but drive between churches between the two.

So now having worked, prayed, eaten, and slept according to the ordering of life, I began to reflect on some of the general aesthetic and cultural appeals of the romanticized spirituality of monasticism. Thomas Merton, or at least the attention paid him, is emblematic of this individualist (or even selfish) spirituality based on experience. We hear always about the importance of silence. But this is not quite right.

There can be no more authoritative voice on silence in the Benedictine life than The Rule: “The ninth degree of humility is that the monk restrain his tongue and keep silence, not speaking until spoken to.” This is a matter humility, restraint, and obedience, and one amongst many aspects of a life of humility at that.

At one point I noticed a few people glaring indignantly, rolling their eyes so as to communicate (which should, I think, be counted as an infraction of the essence of St Benedict’s humility of silence) and even shushing people talking quietly in the church between offices. Clearly their whispered (presumably) sharing of being in this space ruined someone else’s ideal experience of silent perfection. Were the discussion inappropriate or unduly loud, it would be a different matter.

But I was reminded of the sound of spoons scraping bowls in the refectory. This was natural noise, the proper sounds of eating, and as such did not destroy the order of life in the monastery. My awareness of my footsteps, once I was settled into the routine, was only heightened when I was out of place–late for the morning office. But what is proper (natural) is refined and reshaped into the ordered life (cultural) and further transformed into signs which communicate not only for each other but for God (liturgical).

The forced sentimentality is so out of character with the actual continuity of monastic life. But I wonder if sentimentality is merely what we call sentiments we do not share? Or is there an objective criteria?

+++ The Mass

With Terce on the second day, we come finally to the completion of the upper church: the celebration of holy mass. With the tabernacle, side altars, confessionals, etc in the crypt, this upper church itself has only the functions of the mass and the offices (and their directly derived devotions). The control of the program is part of the abstraction and purity of the architecture. The church and the crypt two must be considered a whole, and really a whole with the entire abbey, and cannot be judged according to a parish church arrangement.

The mass truly completed the church. The placement of people, which seems perfectly natural and obvious in the space and not requiring any overt choreography, reveals further the proportions of the building and in turn accentuates the hierarchy of the assembled body.

In particular, the use of aisle/ambulatory behind the altar is perfect in a way that only a sacristan could achieve. The play of the aisle and the hall is in itself exquisite and perhaps the best proof of the more complex ideas in Architectonic Space which go beyond proportion as a systems of measures to encompass eurythmy and multiple scales.

The presbytery occupies the central portal. Unoccupied (as in the photos) it is oddly oversized version of the basic chairform used throughout the Abbey. But occupied, it gives the presider an appropriately profound presence without elevating him or excessively separating him from the two servers on either side or the monks in their stalls.

A credence table occupies the rear wall in each of the two side portals. The two servers are constantly coming and going with the objects and texts required for the mass. The brilliance here is that these actions reveal the work of the mass, perfectly framing these activities of service, without explicitly drawing attention to them in a way that would distract from the essential actions of the mass. In fact, I do not not know if someone not as biased towards concern with this aspect of the mass would even notice the coming and going. This is why I say that only a sacristan, who understands the work of the mass, as opposed to the mass as show, could design a space so perfectly fitting. Well-meaning designers, and I include myself here, want to engage the liturgy, but that generally means doing something conscious, something artistic. Composers fall into this trap as well.

Speaking of completing the space, the incense is the ultimate piece. Filling the space around the altar between the stalls, presbytery and congregation’s benches, it becomes an ephemeral object encircling the altar. Thus the altar, and the entire building together with its inhabitation, finds its fullness, prepared for the celebration of the Eucharist.

I regret that was I unable to photograph the mass or any of the hours. A sign in the entrance made this request and I had no desire to try and sneak one in spite of my hosts. But it is incredibly unfortunate that I cannot share this with you, because the architecture, even more than I had expected, is woefully incomplete without the human body completed by the vestments, and to a lesser extent, the artifacts and incense. Of course a photograph would not contain the entire realm of ordered time: the chants, words, gestures. But it is less a desire to contain the whole expression of worship than to combat the reductive nature of photographs of warmly textured and softly crafted modern forms which is too easily misread.

At least the after-effects of the dispersed incense capturing the sun’s rays and thickening the perception of the space helps a little.

+++ Asperity & Craft

The sun came midday on the second day of my stay. Multiple lighting conditions, indeed ideally multiple seasons, are necessary to fully experience any finely tuned building. And the breaking of the clouds allowed one of the most glorious moments of the trip. Following the monks out of the church after sext on the second day, we entered the upper cloister, suddenly awash in light, the plaster-coated brick walls transformed from muted somber weight to a bright white brought to life by its texture. The walls basked in a piercing blue sky and reflecting a lushly verdant garth, still damp, and the shimmering golden and amber autumn leaves of the woods beyond. I forgot even to regret not having a camera.

There are two stories told about the construction of the church and this texture which so beautifully animates the architecture. Probably both are apocryphal, but like all good persistent myths they still speak about the truth of their subject. Dom Hans van der Laan desired a particular degree of imperfection in the brickwork of the church. The more likely story about this was that he found one particular mason had the right sense of this imperfection and only he was the only one allowed to finish laying the columns. The more enjoyable story is that van der Laan encouraged the masons to drink a little more during their meals to generate the desired unevenness.

No matter the truth behind the asperity, it is one case among many wherein the building clearly reveals its making. This is an aspect to which only those versed in construction and detailing have full access, but its effects are universal. Other instances include the board formed concrete headers and beams and the clear fabrication of the furniture and its expressed ribbed structure. These are all expressions of craft, not of the abstraction and precision of Ando’s concrete. Unfortunately these are subtle and difficult to read when not seen in person.

And of course we cannot discuss the craft of the place without referencing the stonework. Brother Leo invited us to visit his workshop the evening meal on my last day. What a treat!

(For more on the stone carvings and typeface, see this article.)

+++ Gesamtkunstwerk

The entire precinct of the abbey, together with the Rule it sustains, is like the ideal complete works of art. The architecture, vestments and habits, and liturgical artifacts were all designed together as a whole by a single author. But that is not all, for they were designed within a larger whole of a “designed” liturgical life. So it is a more complete “total work of art” than any design project could be, and more importantly it is not the work of a single author.

Therefore it is a gesamtkunstwerk not in service of the art, the work itself, or its artist. These were the faults with earlier 20th century attempts at gesamtkunstwerk, and in fact the entire modernist idealist projects. Insomuch as they were attempts to start over from nothing, they were each built on a single ideal and ego. They were built on an insufficient basis and built with insufficient complexity to withstand even a single generation.

St Benedict built his Rule of the experience of the desert Fathers and the life of the church. It was a different type of ideal order. And it has stood. And I believe it will continue to stand even as it becomes increasingly at odds with the culture it stands amongst and against.

+++ Ordering

To conclude, every aspect of the stay in the Abbey returned to the concept of ordering.

In van der Laan’s terms, the cultural activities are principally acts of ordering, as we do not create from nothing but reshape and complete what we find revealed. Architecture is the delineation of ordered space out of boundless natural space. Music is the delineation of ordered time out of boundless natural time. In each of these cases, number, logic, and proportion are the root means for that delineation.

The Rule of St Benedict is a supremely complete delineation not only of time but of the whole of life. And the delineations made by van der Laan using the Plastic Number, are no more than a parallel order. Order this complete must be accompanied with submission and humility. And these traits are apparent to me in van der Laan’s architecture, quite in opposition to the rational abstraction of architectures contemporary to him and similar in appearance. For all the numeric intellect, there is little rational about this architecture. But I do not think this can be seen outside of submission to the entire order of Benedictine life.

A little unexpectedly, this retreat did not leave me longing for this life, regretting my vocation, unwilling to leave the cloister. Rather, it left me able to understand better my own seemingly unordered life and vocation from observing and listening to this ordered life. Even in the muddled Sunday mass back at home it was easier to recognize the essential forms.

Perhaps that is the role of van der Laan’s monastic architecture for those of us who do not share his monastic vocation. His order allows us to better understand space and the human action of giving order and measure to infinite space.

And so, as I continue to study Dom Hans van der Laan, I am particularly curious about van der Laan the teacher. How did he teach? How were his lessons received and employed? And what does he still have to teach us about the order of things into which architecture fits?

Today is the feast of St Francis Xavier Cabrini (Mother Cabrini), the first US citizen to be canonized in the Roman Catholic Church. She founded numerous orphanages and hospitals throughout the country. Many of these institutions still function and now bear her name.

Her partially incorrupt body rests at a shrine in Washington Heights, Manhattan. The photos here come from a visit to the shrine last month. The shrine building dates from 1959.

And here is an additional photo of Mother Cabrini from the doors to St Patrick Cathedral, New York, which features saints with ties to the diocese.

Because of her work in service of immigrants, and because she was herself an immigrant, she is counted a patron of immigrants.

Collect for today:

God our Father, who called Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini from Italy to serve the immigrants of America, by her example, teach us to have concern for the stranger, the sick, and all those in need, and by her prayers help us to see Christ in all the men and women we meet. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

I am currently in the O’Hare airport in Chicago, about the begin the last leg of travel to return home. It has been a beautiful trip and very fruitful in ways I had hoped for and in ways unexpected.

Over the next few weeks I will have a number of posts containing descriptions of trip and the buildings visited and reflections on the topics raised at the Liturgy and Sacred Space conference attended.

Here are a few of the planned posts to give you an idea of what to expect. Some of them I have already sketched out, some are just ideas of topics to address in the future.

1. What is the importance of the concept “locus iste” in Christianity? This question asked of google led someone to this site, and I was reflecting on it before the trip. During the conference and especially during the prayers for the Feast of the Dedication of Basilica of St John Lateran (which I was able to celebrate at the Abbey), my thoughts on this question were refined, so I will have a post on this very soon.
2. The Antiphons, Readings, and Hymns for the Feast of the Dedication of a Church. This will be a companion to the above, an appendix really. These are beautiful and informative texts and better than anything I could write on the subject.
3. Reflections in the Ordering of Life and Space in the Abbey at Vaals. I have begun the very difficult task of collecting my thoughts and responding to the experience of the abbey and will share them at length, along with my photos.
4. On the New Baptismal Font at the Sistine Chapel. The artist behind this significant new work presented it in depth during the conference. It generated quite a bit of discussion, and more opposition that I would have expected, and is worth looking at in depth here.
5. Is It Acceptable for a Church to be “Not For Everyone.” This question was prompted by the discussion t the conference, especially as it relates to van der Laan specifically and particular cultural / intellectual expressions of architecture in general. This theme will be included in my reflections on the abbey, but deserves dedicated consideration as well.
6. On the Proper Place of Invention in the Liturgy.
7. On Sentimentality and Rationalism.
8. On Obedience and Creative Genius.

And then there are the buildings. I have not yet decided how best to present those, but expect some Flickr sets soon at the very least.

Checking in from the Liturgy and Architecture conference in de Tiltenberg, the Netherlands. Plenty of good discussion and a great opportunity to expand/refine my own thoughts in a church setting. This really is a rare opportunity, and I am so grateful I was able to take advantage of it. Full reports on the blog will follow after some time to process.

The chapel is the first of the van der Laan family of buildings for the trip (this by his brother Nico but as always, in dialog with Hans). This is a clear setp in the early applications of the Plastic Number between the guesthouse at Oosterhout or the St Joseph Chapel, Helmond and the later monasteries.

Chapel of de Tiltenberg, Vogelenzang (Netherlands)
Seminary of the Diocese of Haarlem-Amsterdam
Nico van der Laan, architect with Dom Hans van der Laan
1953

Seminary building:
Jan Stuyt, architect
1931

Pugin’s writing has been unduly dismissed as a polemical argument for a style, not unlike many current arguments for the exclusivity of a style. But reading the texts, they are instead based on more fundamental principles which Pugin recognized (for his time and place) as most fully realized in the models of English Gothic parish churches.

In the prospectus to the book True Principles of Pointed or Christian Architecture, Pugin proposed to outline six guiding principles to counter the architectural criticism that he saw as “little more than mere capricious opinion.” Consistent with his gregarious style of discourse, he only clearly enumerated two. The following represents one enumeration of the six principles based on the themes repeated throughout the text.

Pugin gives the first great rule of design, “there should be no features about a building which are not necessary for convenience, construction, or propriety.”

The statement is remarkable for its unremarkableness. There is not earth-shattering here, as it sounds very much like the basis of my own education late twentieth century architectural education. Nor was it in Pugin’s time. As a tripartite criteria for architecture, Its archetype comes from the earliest treatise in Western architecture. The Vitruvian triad “firmitas, utilitas, venustas” is rendered as “construction, convenience, propriety.”

Propriety may sound to us a strange choice for beauty, but in the context of the elevated status of taste in the 19th century it makes sense. Propriety has come to be more associated with manners and conformity, but in this context it must be understood as an objective ideal and not a subjective preference.

Beauty must retain its transcendental status, but absolute Beauty does not require absolute conformity to visual expression. Nor does the objectivity of Beauty negate conditional beautiful expressions. In Pugin’s principles, propriety functions exactly to retain the objectivity of Beauty while seeking the form responding to all other concerns of architecture: function, climate, geography, culture, materiality, tectonics, etc.

Adornment, or ornament, figures heavily in Pugin’s True Principles, but it is by no means dominant. He addresses both its derivation and its execution.

On derivation, he emphasizes that ”all really beautiful forms in architecture are based on the soundest principles of utility,” giving the examples of hinges, locks, bolts, nails, &c., which are always concealed in modern designs, were rendered in pointed architecture rich and beautiful decorations.” Elsewhere he recommends following “principles that may be observed in vegetation” or otherwise natural.

Artistic inventiveness is secondary, as on its own it leads to “fictitious effects.” His attitude towards craft closely resembles that of Eric Gill, William Morris, Chesterbelloc, and other roughly contemporary British admirers of medieval society and economics, wherein the preference of integral crafts opposes the modern specialization and isolation of “artistic” endeavors as separate and privileged activites by special and privileged individuals.

Pugin’s interests in the medieval craft guilds and trades primarily addresses concerns more than the artistic quality of ornament. It extends to and entire culture and economy of production. He laments that the church no longer “cultivates the talents of her children to the advancement of religion and the welfare of their own souls;–for without such results talents are vain, and the greatest efforts of art sink to the level of an abomination.” He dictates that ornaments should be made of materials acted upon in the character of the material.

Which leads to the principle Pugin used to structure the book:

Pugin emphasizes that materials must not be “fictitious” or used “construction for effect.”
One of the greatest faults levied against contemporary architects throughout True Principles is the use of one material to imitate or replace another. The great dome of St Paul Cathedral, with its separate interior and exterior domes, receives this criticism, which Pugin bases on moral arguments: “Now the severity of Christian architecture is opposed to all deception. We should never make a building erected to God appear better than it really is by artificial means.”

He gives specific examples of offending materials as well. “Cast-iron is a deception; it is seldom or never left as iron. It is disguised by paint.” Likewise “plaster, when used for any other purpose than coating walls, it is a mere modern deception, and the trade is not worthy of a distinction.”

Note that from this model, no particular material is excluded. Cast-iron is not itself an abomination by its nature, and plaster has a proper use for coating walls. The propriety of a material is based upon the honesty of its use. This allows us to extrapolate for newer construction methods and materials.

To consider one example, reinforced concrete often receives popular outcry as being “brutal” or otherwise unsuited for churches. Such a view does not fit into the propriety of Pugin thus read. (I make no claim as to Pugin’s hypothetical anachronistic taste for [list concrete churches here]). The principle applied to beton brut would first exclude using concrete to cast what should be carved (a column capital whose form derived from the activity of carving) or imprint a cast wall with the faux joint lines of a stone wall. These are against the nature of concrete. What that nature is, and what forms are appropriate to it, is harder to define, but that is because its nature is liquid and therefore its form indeterminate. But it is poured, not carved or stacked. Perhaps the propriety of concrete construction must be considered against the nature of the construction of its formwork.

And no more larger, better, or more elaborate. Again, Pugin attacks extravagant falsehoods for show. He gives a criticism we might not expect from a proponent of the Gothic when he complains that “there is no repose, no solidity, no space left for hangings or simple panels: the whole is covered with trifling details, enormously expensive, and at the same time subversive of the good effect.”

One significant objection given to traditional church buildings is the relative increase in cost; or on the other hand, proponents of modern buildings cite cheaper construction as a benefit. Both of these assertions come from an atomistic view of architecture in which, for example, ornament is a cost-estimating line item which can be separated as a luxury.

This argument is by no means new. Sir George Gilbert Scott lamented the “cheap church mania” around him. Pugin argued that “were the real principles of Gothic architecture restored, the present objection of its extreme costliness would cease to exist.”

Herein are two implications for our current church-builders. For those communities with considerable means, the challenge is to forgo “fictitious effect” and spending money on more elaborate individual features to have your names on them. For those communities with more limited means, the opportunity is to build honestly without the need to fake the idealized effect of a different kind of church.

This is the most resonant with practice today, when sustainability and response to climate is arguably the principle discourse in architecture. Of course it is not something new, though it is often coupled with technology and progressive ideals.

While the principle of propriety to climate and geography is not fully developed in the text, Pugin stated it was very important. Moreover, he repeatedly invokes it as a basis of everything from building form to materials to ornament.

In the quote on the slide, he refers more to the implications of place on culture, similar to an conception of sustainability beyond design which includes things like food production and vernacular heritage. But Pugin also argued from a more pragmatic basis, claiming that classicism was inappropriate for England because the northern climate requires steep pitched roofs, which destroy the proportions of a portico.

The first rule addresses convenience of the whole building. His emphasis on function is why many scholars characterize Pugin as proto-modern. He also had far-reaching influence on Victorian architecture and the English Arts & Crafts in particular, and therefore by directly to the Deutsche Werkbund (via Muthesius) and by extension the Bauhaus.

For Pugin, function has a larger scope than the reductive modernist functionalism after the 1920s. His concept of function includes what he calls “symbolic functions,” which makes what might otherwise be distinct ornament not only integral to the building’s structure, but also integral to its use.

Pugin’s notion of function also extended to objects: “How many objects of ordinary use are rendered monstrous and ridiculous because the artist, instead of seeking the most convenient form, and then decorating it, has embodied some extravagance to conceal the real purpose for which the article has been made!”

Furthermore, like the Ecclesiologists, Pugin sought to combine Gothic architecture with Gothic liturgical practice. The architecture was secondary, though as a project it might aid in restoring the culture and liturgy it once supported. The existence and arrangement of particular liturgical furnishings and artifacts, more than their adornment, is a primary source of propriety. By giving primacy to these objects necessary for worship, we too can cultivate substantive worship spaces without falling into the traps of artistic sentimentality unrelated to the building or of the vaguely meaningful chapels where space is equated to emotional spirituality, which dominate our more fashionable architectural publications.

These six principles have no less validity than when they were written; each suggests significant faults I have recognized in our church buildings. Pugin’s argument for the Gothic church was that it fulfilled all of these principles more than any other manner of building churches in England. It was styles, forms, and processes adapted to the climate, suited to the purpose and in continuity with the church.

The question remains in how to apply these principles now. I purposely did not illustrate this section with images of buildings because that would repeat the error of reading this only as an argument for Gothic churches in England. So with the caveat in mind that the following examples do not limit the potential expression which might, with sufficient quality, satisfy Pugin’s principles, here are three buildings chosen for contrast which I propose illustrate the principles.

George Edmund Street was one of the leading architects in the generation following Pugin. His brick churches, such as St James the Less in Westminster (also discussed in Part 2), are particularly inventive. Brick in this application allows ornament (pattern integral to the material fabric) to unify the whole building, interior and exterior.

Pugin included brick in his discussion of masonry, and while it may have been a concession to cost, it is one well made as we can see here how it can be turned into an asset. In particular, consider the details of a unique ornamentation based on the nature of brick construction: modularity, material composition, inset stones.

As an illustration of “Propriety of Materials” note that in the apse, the ribs are stone and the infill is brick, using each material for its preferred structural use.

St James the Less also provides an example of balancing “Propriety to Expense” and “Propriety to Function.” It was built to house an Anglo-catholic model of liturgy, so the chancel would be given preference of place. And all of the material and craft expenses has been concentrated there to accentuate the altar.

St Bartholomew, Valley Center, designed by Kevin deFreitas Architects, is a parish church reconstructed after a devastating wild fires destroyed the old mission church on the Rincon Reservation in Southern California. Previously featured on Locus Iste (Mission Modern and Wooden Altars), it is one of the most read and appreciated buildings on the site.

In reading True Principles from my generational perspective, the most unexpected resonance was found in the idea of propriety to geography and climate. In this church, a recognizable regional expression of climatic response coordinates to fulfillment of the remaining principles.

“Ornament” obviously has a different meaning in this context; as the materials themselves and detailing become the ornament, they are necessarily derived from the essential construction of the building. Additionally, every object inserted into the essential construction are specific artifacts for liturgical function.

Further evidence of “Propriety to Geography and Climate” exists in the exterior courtyard, including the materials used. The bell tower out front represents a direct figural reference to previous mission architecture. The rammed earth and thick masonry walls give a more subtle continuity with the native and mission tectonic traditions, as they all originate in the same response to climate.

A final example adds the additional interest of having to respond to a Gothic-inspired Arts & Crafts college campus. This is the winning design for a campus chapel competition in 2009, which is soon to begin construction.

It is worth noting that this is not how the architects talk about this project, describing principally its relationship with the landscape. And yet because these principles are not tied to a style or particular design process, they can still be observed.

The design has an abstract relationship to Gothic architecture. When adapting or abstracting, we need to find aspects of admired traditional buildings closer to the “essential construction” of the building than the individual features or objects. This project project takes the essence of formerly stone groin vaults and does not replicate, but translates into a form and scale appropriate to timber, using the planar forms of timber planks.

The repetition of modular bays mediates the scale of a structure, an aspect which is a particularly valuable asset of the Gothic that tends to get lost in translation.

The structure also incorporates a relatively recent liturgical arrangement, the communio raüm or an antiphonal ellipse. But even this new development is rooted in continuity with Gothic traditions as the monastic and collegiate churches were arranged antiphonally, with people facing the center axis on either side of the quire.

What has changed since Pugin wrote True Principles is greater indeterminacy in form and everywhere a far more complex context against which to judge propriety. Pugin dealt with a national ecclesial tradition within the larger church with directly associated structures which had been vernacularly adapted to climate. But we now must build in Canada, for example, mosques whose forms developed in deserts. Cultural amalgamation reduces the ability for specificity to traditions. To what must a building be proper when the contexts themselves do not obviously correspond?

These principles do not fully answer all of the problems of formal indeterminacy; however, in a guiding role in a design process, they will guarantee a degree of quality and honesty whatever the formal expression to which they are applied. And honesty and quality within any style is in far greater need now than arguing about which style is faked and poorly executed.

The intercessions for morning prayers (via Universalis) is fitting for the start of an architectural pilgrimage:

We pray for all who plan and build in our cities:
give them respect for every human value.
- Lord, help us as we work.

Pour it your Spirit on artists, craftsmen, and musicians:
may their work bring variety, joy, and inspiration to our lives.
- Lord, help us as we work.

Be with us as the cornerstone of all that we build:
for we can do nothing without your aid.
- Lord, help us as we work.

You have created us anew in the resurrection of your son:
give us the strength to create a new life, and a new world
- Lord, help us as we work.

The trip will begin with a Sunday morning stop in London (with mass/services at All Saints, Margaret Street; St Paul, Bow Common; and the Metropolitan Cathedral, Westminster). St Paul, Bow Common still has the Lutyens Outraged Christ, and my last visit did not permit participating in worship there, so this will be a real treat in and of itself.

As for the Netherlands, and my first trip, I had to narrow down a potential list of 150 buildings. These were churches only, and ignored everything north of Utrecht. In the end, I decided to focus on the early modern through reconstruction churches and the work of Dom Hans van der Laan, his family, teacher, and students. Another highlight will be three days at van der Laan’s Abbey, especially praying the Offices with the monks there.

There will also be a side trip from the Abbey to a trio of Rudolph Schwarz churches and the Zumthor Bruder Klaus chapel.

So here is the list of 19 primary churches in the itinerary. There are a number of other nearby churches I may peek into, and I may not make it to all of them. We’ll see how the driving goes, and the weather, and the daylight.

Sint Bavokerk Cathedral of Saint Bavo, Haarlem
Joseph Cuypers and Jan Stuyt (1895-1930)

Sint Jozef / St Joseph, Leiden
Leo and Jan van der Laan (1924-1925)

Sint Jozef / St Joseph, Wassenaar
Jos van der Laan (1962)

Parochie De Goede Herder / Good Shepherd, Wassenaar
L? van der Laan (1923)

O.L.Vrouw van Goede Raad / Our Lady of Good Counsel, Den Haag
Jan van der Laan (1954)

Pastoor-van-Ars-Kerk / Curée of Ars, Den Haag
Aldo van Eyck (1970)

Our Lady of Perpetual Help / O.L.Vrouw van Altijddurende Bijstand, Breda
Grandpré Molière (1951-1953)

Betlehemkerk / Bethlehem Church, Breda
??? (1980)

St Paulusabdij / St Paul Abbey, Oosterhout
Dom Bellot, Hans van der Laan (1907-)

Johannes Geboorte / Nativity of St John the Baptist, Nieuwkuijk
Nico van der Laan (1955)

St Martinus / St Martin, Gennep
Nico van der Laan (1954)

Zoete Naam Jezus / Sweet Name of Jesus, Oeffelt
Nico van der Laan (1954)

Sint Josephkapel / St Joseph Chapel, Helmond
Dom Hans van der Laan (1948; rebuilt 1995)

H. Kruisvinding / Holy Cross, Odiliapeel
Jan de Jong (1959)

Abdij Sint Benedictusberg / St Benedictusberg Abbey
Dominikus Böhm, Dom Hans van der Laan

Fronleichnamskirche / Corpus Christi Church, Aachen
Schwarz (1930)

St Bonifatius / St Boniface, Aachen
Schwarz (1961)

Annakirche / St Anna, Düren
Schwarz (1956)

Bruder Klaus Feldkepelle
Zumthor (2005-2007)

Depending on wireless availability, I may post some updates in transit. And stay tuned for a plethora of photos and analysis in the weeks after the trip. Many of these are not well documented (or at least documentation not easily accessible), so I will be making available as much material as possible.

I have posted my complete flickr collection, but this post will feature a few favorite images from the trip with some reflections on the buildings visited. This is actually a fairly unusual post for this blog to have this much personal reactions to visiting churches. But perhaps this will be good, since I usually dodge questions for which the following would be an answer.

Trinity Church, Wall Street

Trinity Church, Wall Street
Manhattan, New York, US
Episcopal (ECUSA)
Richard Upjohn, Architect
completed 1846

One of the first Gothic Revival churches in America with a direct lineage from the English Victorian Gothic Revival, and one of the best. The flat (liturgical) east end is particularly effective and distinctive. This church went a long way toward establishing the Gothic as a fashion across all denominations.

The All Saints Chapel, just to the north (stage left) of the chancel was one of my favorite spaces of the trip. It reinforced that Gothic wants to be tall and dark. (And handsome?) The richness of the material compared to the painted ribs and plaster of the nave makes all the difference. While the familiar vast splendor of the high Gothic cathedrals is impressive, there is a very different richness in this chapel.

This foundation cornerstone, for an attached building not the main church, will be the first example of some really wonderful inscriptions.

Old St Patrick Cathedral Basilica, New York

Old St Patrick Catedral Basilica, New York
Manhattan, New York, US
Roman Catholic
Joseph-François Mangin, Architect
1809-1815; 1866

From the exterior, this basilica is a very strange building; the wide single gable does not correspond to the overtly Gothic elements. The blank front (the photo above is the rear) painted in the pinkish color of the trim above has no formal connection to the rest of the building or to known modes of Gothic fronts.

Turns out the 1809-1815 building was Neoclassical and it was redone after a fire partially destroyed the church in 1866. Given this was twenty years after Trinty church (above) and coincident with the new St Patrick Cathedral, the Gothic retrofit must have been a matter of keeping up with prevailing building trends and changes in relevant bearers of meaning.

Despite being counter to the essential construction and proportions, the interior is relatively effective. Though a quick comparison of the interior wall surface and the exterior stone makes the artifice woefully apparent.

Transfiguration of Our Lord Cathedral, Brooklyn

Transfiguration of Our Lord Cathedral, Brooklyn
Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York, US
Russian Orthodox
Louis Allmendiger, Architect
1916-1921

Unfortunately, the church was locked when I visited.

St John the Baptist, Manhattan

St John the Baptist, Manhattan
Manhattan, New York, US
Roman Catholic (Capuchin)
Napoleon Le Brun, Architect
1871-1872

One of the many Gothic Revival parish churches throughout the city. This is the central tower front version.

St Patrick Cathedral, New York

St Patrick Cathedral, New York
Manhattan, New York, US
Roman Catholic
James Renwick, Architect
1858-1878

A restoration project is well under way, with the recently completed scaffolding on the exterior. The scaffolding blocked most of the light to the nave windows, unfortunately.

Hey look! A beautiful font on a beautiful font!

St Bartholomew, New York

St Bartholomew, New York
Manhattan, New York, US
Episcopal
Bertram Goodhue, Architect
Stanford White, Architect (portal & narthex)
1916-1930

This was the surprise of the trip. I was only vaguely familiar with the aerial exterior views of this church before, which did not do justice to the intricacy of the compositions inside and out. This type of combination of stone and brick rarely works well, but here it is exquisite. The stone edges are more unified and the transitions strike an ideal balance of irregularity. The texture of the brick, with some moments of irregular placement as well, better harmonize with the stone. And the lovely patina of weathering adds considerably to the effect.

The intentionality and ubiquity of the carvings allow relatively small figural elements to harmonize with the whole of the building. This is an excellent lesson for when tastes and/or budgets limit sculptural programs.

The front portico comes from an older iteration of the church, designed by Stanford White (of McKim Mead and White).

I found another example of an exquisite inscription on the massive (and oddly conversational) cornerstone. Inscriptions abound all over the church. See the entablature (frieze?) above and the capitals below.

With increasing frequency, I find the churches which evoke the greatest response tend to have been described in some way as “Byzantine.” This is not only a matter of ornament or revivalist style differences as this description has been given for the self-consciously abstract churches.

Part of the Byzantine character (using the term in a very empirical/phenomenological sense, not a strictly art history sense) is the roughness or rawness of the materials, even in fine mosaics, which pairs perfectly with the figural abstraction. Mosaics are only part of a larger emphasis on texture, whether that be patterns of simply material texture. Byzantine art has a degree of abstraction ideal for Christian sacred art, one which we have returned to throughout history. (For example, consider Eric Gill’s stations at Westminster Cathedral, which I love. Or the illustrations in the Liturgical Press’ editions of the Roman Catholic Missal, which are indicative of sacred illustration for the past 50+ years.) Darkness accompanies the roughness and abstraction. Light only has meaning in the context and contrast of darkness.

But ultimately I think it is something more primal, and I’m going to side with Dom Han van der Laan and say that it comes from the thickness of the wall and its relationship to the space. Gothic architecture, like St Patrick, is surface architecture; Byzantine, like St Bartholomew, is wall architecture. Contemporary design tends to prefer phenomenal transparency and modern technology allows for cheap thin assemblies. Perhaps that is why I find so many contemporary churches bland, thin and sterile.

Give me heavy, rough, dark, unfinished, textured, and weathered.

St Francis Xavier Cabrini Shrine, New York

St Francis Xavier Cabrini Shrine, Mother Cabrini High School
Washington Heights, Manhattan, New York, US
Roman Catholic (Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus)
De Sina & Pellegrino, Architect
1959

Right outside the subway stop for the cloisters sits Mother Cabrini High School, whose chapel is a shine housing the saint’s remains.

The parti of the chapel is what Rudolph Schwarz (the first to draw such a plan) called a “dark chalice,” a parabolic plan with the sanctuary in the apex. Schwarz initially said this was not a plan he intended to be built, though he himself built one later. It was a response to the problem of material focal objects in Christian churches. The continuous surface which extends, theoretically, ad infinitum, is an abstraction of the ancient symbol of the apse taken to its formal extreme.

The relatively narrow angle of the arms of the parabola diminish the effect of the dark chalice somewhat. And while the gold(-ish) field of the mosaic furthers the continuity with early Christian apse symbolism, the composition and design of the mosaic figures is disappointing and the inscriptions weak. Furthermore, the color palate (including the stone) is poorly coordinated. In all, it is very much of a kind with the kitsch sold in the gift shop which unfortunately constitues the main street entrance.

The Cloisters

View complete flickr set…
(not exactly a church)

Turns out the day we chose to visit the Cloisters, The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Medieval collection, was renfair day at Fort Tyron. So while it was insanely crowded and not the slow contemplative experience described to me, the (sort of) period clothing was an unexpected bonus.

I did not realize going in the degree to which the building is the exhibition. Major pieces of a handful of European monasteries were imported and reassembled into the fabric of the building. Many more smaller elements, especially jambs, give an even more examples of period architecture. Some of these are clear insertions, and some are more subtle. In one chapel the reconstruction matches the original just enough to allow to experience the completed form without obscuring the artifacts or overly faking the reconstruction. A better result could not have been desired (except maybe for the original chapel to still be intact and in use).

• 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.

The light that I see is not spatial, but much more luminous than a cloud that sustains the sun, and I can not tell its height, nor its width, nor its depth. And as the sun, the moon and the stars are reflected in water, so shine the writings, the words, the virtues and many works of men – in them reflected – in me. (from: In the fire of the dove)

Man is in fact the absolute divine work, because through him one recognizes God, and for him God created all creatures. (from the Liber Divinorum)

For creation itself received a kiss from the Creator, when God gave it all of which it has need. (from the Liber Divinorum)

The senses lead man to the knowledge of God and transform him in the image of God. (from: Exegesis of the Creed)

And as work for the TSA/AIA presentation wraps up, here is a great summary remark from AWN Pugin on what it means to build a church:

“The greatest privilege possessed by man is to be allowed, while on earth, to contribute to the glory of God: a man who builds a church draws down a blessing on himself both for this life and that of the world to come, and likewise imparts under God the means of every blessing to his fellow creatures; hence we cannot feel surprised at the vast number of religious buildings erected by our Catholic forefathers in the days of faith, or at their endeavours to render those structures, by their arrangement and decoration, as suitable as their means could accomplish for their holy and important destination.”

All Saints Chapel
Trinity Church, Wall Street
Manhattan, New York, US
Episcopal (ECUSA)
Richard Upjohn, Architect
completed 1846

First photos from my September New York City trip are up on flickr. More to follow.
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