A Smattering of Giles Gilbert Scott

Giles Gilbert Scott was a British architect of the first half of the 20th Century who was well known throughout the country for many of his designs. His most famous architectural commission was the Liverpool Anglican Cathedral, but he is probably best known as the designer of the iconic red London telephone booths. Apart from these well-known and well-loved designs, he was a prolific designer of smaller churches throughout the United Kingdom. Here are a few photos that describe his Mid-Century Gothic mastery. He successfully blended modern and traditional in a pleasing way, making him a good model as we go forward in uncertain economic times.

Ampleforth Abbey, Yorkshire, England

Ampleforth Abbey, Yorkshire, England

Ampleforth Abbey, Yorkshire, England

St Columba's Cathedral, Oban, Scotland

Carmelite Church, Kensington, London

Carmelite Church, Kensington, London

Pugin in Tasmania

Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin was the premier Gothic Revivalist. Active throughout the latter half of the Nineteenth Century, primarily in Britain, Pugin breathed new life into ancient Gothic forms with great zeal. Though recognized first and foremost for his works throughout the British Isles, Pugin deserves some recognition for his small churches Down Under. St. Patrick's in Colebrook and St. John's in Richmond are two Tasmanian Catholic churches designed by A.W.N. Pugin, and they are quite refined in my estimation, despite their intimate scale.

St Patrick's, Colebrook, TAS

St. John's, Richmond, TAS

Gothic Doodles

Remember two posts ago when I was going on and on about how creative I've been feeling lately and how much my vision of architecture has solidified in that past few months? No? Well, shame on you for not hanging on my every word. Anyways, below is a little sketch project that I penned in those in-between times of day during school. It's a church of a certain Gothic persuasion with the capacity of about three-hundred persons (just a guess). My specific precedent was Cram and Ferguson's rather reserved South Dutch Reformed Church in New York City.

The nave is one unified space, without columns, bounded by corridor-like aisles. The nave flows directly into the apse, which houses a fairly elaborate English Gothic altar and reredos. Large stained glass windows illuminate the space, evoking the magnificent jewelry box feeling of the Sainte Chapelle in Paris. The exterior is fairly muscular and reserved. It has very little in the way of traditional Gothic detailing, though it has a Gothic body.

As always, click to view larger. Opinions are welcome and appreciated.

Some Gothic Revival Thoughts

Last night I was struck with what I call an "art attack" - ideas that have been germinating for a while simply needed to be let onto the paper. The result was a facade of a Gothic Revival church. This facade design takes in a number of influences, chiefly the civil and ecclesiastical architecture of Bertram Goodhue, the Craftsman aesthetic of early 20th Century America, and King's College Chapel at Cambridge University. Oh, and perhaps a bit of Art Deco snuck in on the sidelines.

In composition, this facade hearkens back to Goodhue's noble and austere design of the Rockefeller Chapel at the University of Chicago. There are two small towers that flank a large, gabled, central mass pierced by an immense window. Twin portals finish out the bottom of the picture. In detail, however, the more - how shall I say - American aesthetic comes into play. Preference for straight lines, right angles, and clarity is established in the overall decorative scheme. This preference was perhaps best elucidated by the well-known works of Frank Lloyd Wright.

The overarching decorative scheme centers on the person of Christ in various ways. The twin portals are divided by a stylized stone depiction of the crucifixion. Below the crucifixion scene are the symbols of the Four Evangelists over the door frames - symbolic of the Church's mission to take Christ out into the world and evangelize. Above the portals is the large western window. This window would likely depict scenes from the life of the Virgin Mary - a lens through which we can view the way to Christ more clearly. The small towers are crowned with twin angels, each holding a shield depicting a Christological symbol (the cross, the Chi-Rho, the Alpha and Omega, and the Lamb). Crowning the entire facade is the Resurrected Christ in glory (similar, perhaps, to the great statue of the Cristo Redentor that crowns Rio de Janeiro). The angels on either side bow down, bearing the instruments of the Passion.

Driving this particular mental exercise was a desire to attempt to develop an American style for church building. I am indeed enthused with the contemporary drive toward a more traditional ecclesiastical design ethos, but sometimes these projects can seem slightly imported, or foreign, in a way. I think this is because some traditional designers tend to interpret tradition to simply mean "anything from the Italian Renaissance" or "anything Gothic" instead of perhaps its more authentic definition of "building on our shared past." This is why I attempted to draw so many architectural allusions to American movements - we need to build on our shared architectural heritage as a nation, while not disregarding the architectural traditions of our mother, the Church, and our teacher, Western civilization.

Please click the image to view larger, so that the detail can be better viewed.

They Don't Make 'Em Like That Anymore

"They don't make 'em like that anymore" is one of those phrases that one hears quite a bit in our topsy-turvey maelstrom of Postmodern America. Sometimes it refers to a sturdily crafted toaster or to a car with enough steel to emerge from the Battle of Britain unscathed, but oftentimes the phrase is whispered at buildings that catch one's eye for their beauty and fine craftsmanship that seem inimitable in our current societal situation. The phrase provokes a symphony of questions: when did our craftsmanship stop? why don't we care about classical notions of beauty anymore? is this even economical these days? Why, indeed, don't they make 'em like that anymore?

The full answer involves a long, tedious slog through the history of modern architecture whose chief and original goal was to destroy ornament and create "machines for living." For brevity's sake I will simply say that architects of the day such as Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier, and their fellow Modernist windbags sought (whether they knew it or not) to de-humanize architecture. The result litters America's cities to this day. The city hall of my hometown of Grand Rapids is a chief example of this "progress": a noble Gothic Revival edifice (pictured at left) was torn down to make room for two black glass boxes. Tragedies like that happened nationwide during the decades after the Second World War leaving us with dry, lifeless shells of structure that care nothing for their physical or human surroundings.

So, when we see buildings from an earlier time, buildings that involved the dedication and effort of the community and the skilled labor of artisans, we are rightly awed. Awed, and perhaps - like me - a bit disgusted at what we have sacrificed on the altar of progress. 

My goal, as a future architect, is to make 'em like they used to. People deserve better buildings; our survival as a culture demands them. 

English Tudor Chapel

This is a hypothetical design for either a small parish church or a large chapel designed in a hybrid Tudor/Gothic style. A peculiarity of English Gothic architecture is the use of hammerbeam roofs with their interconnected arches and shaping of vertical space. The particular ceiling used for inspiration here comes from the great hall of the grand English manor house Wollaton Hall.

As for the liturgical elements of the chapel, I decided on a relatively restrained interpretation of the Gothic, which was common in the British Isles during the Medieval period. The sanctuary is traditionally arranged with a large freestanding altar at the center; the tabernacle, crucifix, and accompanying candlesticks immediately behind the altar; the ambo on the Gospel side of the sanctuary; a smaller lectern on the Epistle side of the sanctuary; and the sedilia (seating for the priest and altar servers) on the Epistle side, facing perpendicular to the nave.

I have discussed here numerous times as to why it is symbolically important to keep the altar, the crucifix, and the tabernacle grouped together (though it is not mandated specifically, and there are other noble options if the arrangement is not practical), however, the placement of other furnishings in the sanctuary is also symbolically derived. Many of the earliest Christian churches had their altars located in the east end of the structure, since east is the direction of the rising sun, and worship toward the east speaks to Christian belief about the resurrection and rising with Christ. Given the altar in the east, the presider would often sit along the south wall in the sanctuary, so that he was facing north. In the early Christian world, south represented the Christianized Roman Empire, while north was filled with heathen barbarians. Thus, the priest would preach from "the Church" to the non-Christians. Additionally, the Gospel was often read from an ambo (pulpit) on the north side of the sanctuary. The Gospel must be spread by those who already believe to those who do not believe.

Having the priest and the altar servers face perpendicular to the nave also serves another purpose - it keeps them from being the center of attention. Often in modern churches, the priest's chair is situated so that he is always facing toward the people when seated. This can detract from the true meaning of the celebration of the mass. If the priest is not directly facing the people he becomes less of an attraction unto himself.

I have thus explained myself. I must say that I am very happy with how this drawing turned out, and count it among my favorite hypothetical designs. As always, click the photo to view larger.

St. Mary's Church, Grand Rapids

The other day, since I'm unemployed and have nothing better to do (having already filled out my fair-share of job applications), I went down to the Lower West Side, a Grand Rapids neighborhood that was once home to many different groups of European immigrants. The legacy of these ethnic groups lives on in the ecclesiastical architecture they left behind (there are four impressive Catholic churches within the neighborhood: Sacred Heart of Jesus, St. James, St. Adalbert, and St. Mary). Most delightful, in my opinion, is the church of St. Mary. It was constructed by German immigrants and completed in 1873, making it the second-oldest extant Catholic church in Grand Rapids after the Cathedral of St. Andrew. The structure is neo-Gothic in style, reaching back to the Gothic architectural heritage of Germany. The bell tower, completed in 1884, is a Grand Rapids landmark that can be seen from the main highways, soaring to a height of 200 feet.

Inside the church, the neo-Gothic-ness really gets going. Spires, pointed arches, and a riot of color fill the nave and sanctuary with visual interest. The 24 large stained glass windows tell the saga of salvation through scenes from the lives of Mary and Jesus. Two side altars, one dedicated to the Virgin Mary and one to St. Joseph, are decorated with statues of other saints important to the heritage of the immigrant church-builders. Nowadays, a shrine to Our Lady of Guadalupe stands next to the Mary altar; a sign of the changing demographics of the diocese and American Catholicism as a whole.

Above is a panoramic view of the nave of the church, looking toward the sanctuary. Visible on the left is the side altar dedicated to St. Mary, and the right is the altar dedicated to St. Joseph. The main altar is also quite magnificent, placed beneath several marvelous stained-glass windows in the apse.

Neo-Gothic Distractions

Readers may recall my post concerning the church of St. Vincent Ferrer in New York City from last week. In a spirit of Gothic revival that inspired that ecclesiastical monument, I have designed a church similar. Shown is a section-cut through the nave of the church so that the apse (the rounded end of the church where the sanctuary is located) is visible. Inspiration was drawn from the Chapel of Versailles (though that chapel is in fact Baroque) and the Sainte Chapelle - the crowning glory of the French Gothic. At the center of the sanctuary is a large freestanding altar, while a secondary high altar with the tabernacle is located at the far edge of the apse. The altarpiece, imagined as a carved wood installation, reaches upward toward the windows which represent heaven. The crucifix is located at the crown of the altarpiece, where the figurative heaven and earth meet (as Christ's sacrificial act reunited us with God). Niches to the left and right of the altar - above the gallery arches - would contain images of the Twelve Apostles.

The presider's chair and altar server's stools are located to the left of the altar, while a carved wooden ambo (more popularly, though incorrectly, known as a pulpit) sits to the left of the altar, projecting into the nave on a raised platform.

This is my first true attempt at anything in a Gothic style, and I feel like I may have tried to incorporate too much. However, I have always been drawn to the Gothic's spiritual foundations as a style that wished to make present the church as the heavenly Jerusalem coming down from heaven. More to come...

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