A papal palace in Jerusalem

The idea of such a project is enough to get each and every hair on each and every conspiracy theorist's head to stand on end. But, apparently, someone in the early 20th Century did not think the project entirely too far-fetched. Glancing through my copy of The Master Drawings of Otto Wagner the other day, on an entirely different errand, I discovered these beguiling watercolors. The proposal was authored in 1912 by Josef Heinisch, an Austrian architect who was very much a devotee of the Jugendstil, as was Wagner. Further commentary and background information are not provided.

I suspect that this was simply a student project, rather than any sort of official proposal sanctioned by the Holy See. However, at that time Pope Pius X was on the Chair of Peter and the papacy was still essentially a "prisoner of the Vatican". Relations with the Kingdom of Italy were chilly at best, and there was some talk throughout the years previous of the papacy moving. The Ottomans, who controlled the Middle East at the time, were not favorably disposed toward Italy, a stance which could have theoretically engendered an alliance with the popes. In any event, there was enough back story to make this pass muster as a decent theoretical project for a student to undertake.

An aerial view of the complex

The plan, as a whole, resembles that of one of the great French Gothic cathedrals

The elevation. Note the inscription. Rather interesting considering our current Jesuit Pontiff.

Section through the church.

Koloman Moser in Dusseldorf

Koloman Moser was an important artistic figure of the Vienna Secession - the Austrian variant of Art Nouveau. His most famous work is perhaps the group of stained glass windows he designed for the Church Am Steinhof, the magnum opus of the architect Otto Wagner. Of interest is this unexecuted scheme for the interior decoration of the Church of the Holy Spirit in Dusseldorf. The iconography is quite beautiful and calls to mind the restraint of the Beuronese school.

View toward the sanctuary

Section through the sanctuary and nave

View of the entrance wall and the choir loft

Of parabolic vaults

Here's a little design that I came up with. It is a cross-sectional view through a church, looking toward the altar. Stylistically, it is a bit of a curiosity. It started from a square plan based on some Byzantine precedents. Then, it got a rather Baroque looking altar. Add in some Art Nouveau lines and a parabolic arch reminiscent of the Engelbrekts church in Stockholm, and you have something quite intriguing indeed.

If a may engage in a bit of self-congratulation: this is the type of design that is appropriate for a modern church. Yes, the form, plan, and decor is arranged in a traditional manner. But, the stylistic cues come from very diverse sources. The arch over the apse has a certain Louis Sullivan feel to it. The altar, with its domed canopy, evokes Otto Wagner's work on the Church Am Steinhof in Vienna. Even the slim proportion of the Roman brick hearkens to Frank Lloyd Wright.

Short story long: it is traditional, but not historicist. It cannot be pegged to one time period, but it attempts to synthesize some of the highlights of the past 150 years into a cohesive whole.  

Otto Wagner + Sundry Liturgical Rants

Here's a little parish church design based on some built and unbuilt precedents from Otto Wagner. Wagner was a key figure in the artistic movement known as the Viennese Secession, a group of Art Nouveau artists who rebelled against the classicist artistic establishment. However, though they rebelled against the Beaux-Arts classicism of Vienna, they maintained much in terms of ornament, decoration, and composition that would be discarded around the middle of the 20th Century.

This particular design is based a bit on Wagner's design for a Franciscan church in Vienna. It is a small church, with room for perhaps 300 persons. It is my humble opinion that many parish churches built in the past thirty-ish years are over-sized (as well as over-lit and over-microphoned, but that is for another post). People get lost in large parishes.

Anyways, the composition is essentially a circle within a square in plan, and a cube topped with a dome in three-dimensions. The circle and square are primal geometric shapes that have a lot of symbolic richness to them: the circle represents the eternity of God, while the square represents the earth and its four corners (decided by whomever decided the earth has corners). Consequently, the unity of the circle and square can be interpreted as God and earth uniting - which of course occurs in the mass as the sacrifice of Jesus is re-presented.

Though the nave is round, the altar is located in the liturgical east. In this scheme, I have actually pushed the altar against the wall, which would allow for ad orientem worship only. Translation: the priest and the people face the same direction during the Liturgy of the Eucharist. Already I hear the howling of a certain generation saying that Vatican II did away with that unpastoral practice. But, ladies and gentlemen, having read Sacrosanctum Concilium (Vatican II's constitution on the liturgy), I can find no mandate that orders the priest face the people. But, I digress: ad orientem worship has its own benefits which I will no doubt enumerate someplace else sometime in the future.

On both sides of the nave reside confessionals. Yes, those archaic boxes have returned as well! They're in continuation with tradition, and seem to me to convey the sacramental nature of confessing a bit better than some whitewashed "Reconciliation Room" that turns the sacrament into some sort of postmodern self-help session. Wow, I am ranting a lot tonight!

The choir is placed in a choir loft, along with an organ. Ah, the organ, another vintage element, which, according to Vatican II, was to "maintain pride of place" in liturgical music. Well, we certainly have ignored that haven't we? We've tossed out the organ and Gregorian chant in favor of folk-guitar renditions of "Gather Us In"...because they're more prayerful?

Back to the architecture, please! The detailing is the flowing, organic lines typical of the Art Nouveau movement. Because of this movement's short lifespan, very few churches were built in this style. This, I think, is unfortunate. Let us overlook the architectural mediocrity of 1950-present and attempt to grow from the tradition where we left off.

Here endeth the rant. In short: Wagner, Vatican II, organ, church.

Bibliotheque Nationale de France

Libraries, like churches, are unique among structures in that they contain our collective culture. Churches, of course, are houses for our sacred culture, passed on through the centuries. Libraries, on the other hand, are houses for our secular culture, the accumulated knowledge of a civilization on display for all to see. The chief difference, of course, is that the sacred culture relies on a living thing - the liturgy, to occur within the church. The library is a mute observer to individual edification. That said, I wish to draw your attention to the splendid main reading room of the Bibliotheque Nationale de France (National Library of France) located in Paris. The building was designed by two different architects, Henri Labrouste and Jean-Louis Pascal. I am, however, unsure as to which was responsible for this portion of the building. The architecture is still rooted in classical ideas about proportion and form, but the thin steel columns and arches demonstrate the innovation made possible by the Industrial Revolution.