reorganisation and destruction of irish catholic churches
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Wow, this thread just gets better (or worse) – now it’s ghastly, deathly-pale German Church interiors! No wonder Catholicism is gasping for air in that country! How did Benedict survive unscathed?
It is interesting that with the eclipse of European culture, comes the de-sacralization of architecture and the consequent alienation of the language. Reading Richard Hurley’s apologia for his various soulless productions, one hears a vocabulary that is wholly alien to anyone with an inkling of what the Sacred Liturgy means in the Catholic economy. So we hear the inane patter of the sociologist and the barely disguised superciliousness of the behaviourist. The people are to be control-processed in a non-threatening “gathering placeâ€, before entering the tame and void “Eucharist room†(I ask you!), through a “mallâ€. How appropriate – “mallsâ€, the new Cathedrals of modern Europe. The family setting – where’s the fireplace and the scrabble board? – emphasises the Eucharist as meal, we are told. And what emphasises its more fundamental aspect – that of sacrifice, or, if you insist, sacrificial meal?
In any case, Liturgy detached from its theological and historical, its symbolic and cultic fundaments becomes a floating free-for-all, the play thing of ideologues, charlatans and the semi-educated; unaware even of their own ignorance of that which they pretend to be masters and teachers. All “kudos†to those trying to save Cobh from the dying gasps of this iconoclastic hiccup in the Church’s history. Like all iconoclasm, it will eventually be overcome by the return of common sense, that is, the return to the sacred.
In relation to the Euch. Room in Carlow with its extensive use of stools, I think we may have to resort to Alvar Aalto’s domestic furniture of the 1930s to discover a prototype. If correct, then we shall have to abandon the artistic apotheosis of the Galway milking stools – though, of course, we cannot exclude the possibility of some indigenous trace elements of the Galway milking stool insinuating themselves into an otherwise anonymous composition.
Cleraly, the Viipuri library conference room, built in 1929, cannot be positively excluded as a prototype for the socalled antiphonal approach to the Euch. Room in Carlow and for its more elaborate version in St. Mary’s Oratory.
Stools chair by Alvar Aalto (1930-1931)
Elegant domestic modern stools and chairs designed by Alvar Aalto
Re #279 St Mary’s Oratory at Maynooth. The big organ looks as if it is the principal object of worship…. And they have overlooked those old stained-glass windows. They seem so sadly out of place….
@Praxiteles wrote:
I am compiling a list of the liturgical errors and omissions in the design and layout of St. Mary’s Oratory in Maynooth and would be glad to have comments from others before posting the list – just to ensure that I have them ALL..
Isn’t Patrick Pye’s tapestry between the lancet windows hung a little too high? Nice tapestry shame about the place.:p
Re. liturgical errors and omissions, one that is immediately evident – there are no Stations of the Cross.
An interesting Aalto prototype
Parish Church, Riola (Italy)
The new church was one of the first in which the ‘reformed’ Roman Catholic liturgy would be given expression in architectural terms; the aim was to provide a close relationship between altar, choir and organ, as well as the baptistery. The shape of the church itself is an asymmetrical basilica with asymmetrical vaulting through which light, directed especially towards the altar, enters the building. Galleries were dispensed with, but the choir area was extended to compensate for their absence. The front wall of the church can be opened so that the forecourt serves as an extension to it.”
— Karl Fleig. Alvar Aalto. p171.
Details
The Riola Parish Center was designed in 1966.
The main body of the church was completed in 1978, without the campanile.
— Malcolm Quantrill. Alvar Aalto: A Critical Study. p204; Karl Fleig. Alvar Aalto. p171.
Riola could very easily double for a gymnasium or a community centre – a few climbing ropes up the side and swings for the trapeze artists, and it would be just perfect! 😀
I agree with Gianlorenzo about the Patrick Pye tapestry of the Transfiguration (cf. #284) -here we are dealing with a great modern Irish artist, with a strong spiritual content in his art. Unfortunately, the surroundings are not ideal to bring that out – it might as well hang in a soulless modern museum.
The Maynooth website givs the following info about St Mary’s chapel:“St. Mary’s Oratory, in the Pugin buildings, had been allotted to the senior students in the1850s, over the protests of Nicholas Callan, who claimed that he had been promised the large hall as a laboratory. The plain space was slightly embellished after it had been gutted in the fire of 1 November 1878, but it remained utilitarian despite the insertion of two genuinely distinguished stained-glass windows in 1939. They survived an unfortunate refurbishing in the name of liturgical renewal, and remain a chief glory in a total and happier reordering carried out to mark the new millennium. This renewal was made possible with a generous grant from the St. Joseph’s Young Priests Society. The Oratory is adorned with works of art by Patrick Pye (Transfiguration), Imogen Stuart (Madonna and Child), Ken Thompson (St. Joseph, Altar, Ambo, Chair), Kim en Joong, O.P. (non-figurative) and Benedict Tutty, O.S.B. (Tabernacle and Cross).”
Incidentally, the same website mentions the vandalism carried out by the erstwhile President, Mgr Miceal Ledwith, in the little St Mary’s Square, originally designed by Pugin:
“Finally, there is the bicentenary garden, located in St. Mary’s Square, designed to symbolise man’s spiritual journey towards God. It really should be taken slowly and reflectively. A detailed leaflet is available.”
When one sees the said square in its present sad condition, one is not surprised to find that the one responsible for same is now working for a New Age community in California, devoted to a 35,000 year old warrior called Ramtha! What would Pugin have said?
@sangallo wrote:
Incidentally, the same website mentions the vandalism carried out by the erstwhile President, Mgr Miceal Ledwith, in the little St Mary’s Square, originally designed by Pugin:
“Finally, there is the bicentenary garden, located in St. Mary’s Square, designed to symbolise man’s spiritual journey towards God. It really should be taken slowly and reflectively. A detailed leaflet is available.”
When one sees the said square in its present sad condition, one is not surprised to find that the one responsible for same is now working for a New Age community in California, devoted to a 35,000 year old warrior called Ramtha! What would Pugin have said?
We can easily imagine what Pugin might feel to see the present state of St Mary’s Square at Maynooth. What we are waiting for is some word of explanation and apology from the present Trustees of the College for that questionable appointment and all its weird consequences – which include the vandalization of the Lady Chapel and the installation, contiguous to St Mary’s Square, of a vulgar American bronze: Notre-Dame a la mousse au chocolat.
Congratulations to the Friends of St Colman’s Cathedral for the simply stunning photos of the cathedral recently added to their website! Follow the link http://www.foscc.com/Gallery.html
What a spectacular building! Unfortunately, it seems that some of the mosaic is rather worn and damaged, with some amateurish repair work done. Surely Pugin and Ashlin deserve better!
Incidentally, it would be nice to have some more photos of the scenes from Irish church history in the capitals and over the arches of the cathedral interior. The are a bit high up for the naked eye to view comfortably.
Does anyone know if there is a similar series elsewhere in Ireland?
Maynooth College Bi-Centenary Gardens
St. Mary’s Square, Maynooth – lower quad in the photograph (Before)
Ibid. loc. After
The Bi-Centenary Gardens were commissioned to commemorate the 200th Anniversary of Maynooth College in 1995. The Garden with its lake and fountains are based on the biblical theme ‘from origins to destiny’ and reflects the salvation of humankind in Genesis chapters two and three. All plants in the garden have been mentioned in the Bible.
While described oficially as above, there can be little doubting that the Bi-Centerary Gardens in St. Mary’s Square in Maynooth have little or nothing to do with Christianity or even Judaism as concepts like “destiny” and “origins”, and especially the “salvation of humankind” are nowhere to be found in the Old Testament. It is time to take a good hard look at the BI-Centenary Gardens and see it for what it is: a modern composition brutally imposed on an historical context without the slightest respect for the architectural integrity of St. Mary’s Square. The bit about Biblical plants is sheer hocus pocus as it is highly unlikely that anything grown in the Middle East would survive a winter in the mainly northern facing square. Micheal Ledwith realized in the great outdoors a level of vandalism only surpassed indoors in the contiguous St. Mary’s Oratory.
Reply 286 tells us that Ken Thompson is responsible for the Altar, ambo and president’s chair in St. Mary’s Oratory, Maynooth. Those of use who know him well realize that he has a quirky sense of humour. Are they sure in Maynooth that he is not in some way taking the mick with that awful chairback so evidently modelled on a mitre? Wood is not is his best medium. He is stupendous in stone. The Paschal chamber stick in the Honan Chapel was not KT at his best.
St. Marry’s Square (nocturne)
I came across the following in a google search. It certainly captures the mood of St. Mary’s Square with accuracy:
I stayed at the College in Maynooth – the grounds and the loding was lovely.
Considering the College used to be a Catholic Seminary, the very pagan rock garden with it’s standing stones seemed out of place.
I caught the reflection of one of the college buildings in the pool of the Rock Garden.
I think it best that we do not pursue anything further about the standing stones.
The St Mary’s Square arrangement, now that we see some good photos of it (#289), does look like a cross between the deserted graveyard
To leave Maynooth modernity, and indeed modernity, for a while and return to St. Colman’s Cathedral and its glorious tympanum, I thought it might be interesting to explore its iconographic prototypes in Romanesque France and therefore post a picture of the magnificent tympanum of the Abbatiale de St. Pierre at Moissac constructed between 1120-1135.
If Moissac draws so many visitors these days, it is because of its tympanum and its cloister. The latter with its many famous capitals is rightly considered the most beautiful one left in the world. In the tympanum of the south portal, the sculpture of Moissac is truly monumental. It is placed above the level of the eye and is so large as to dominate the entire entrance. It is a gigantic semicircular relief, over 15 feet in diameter, framed by a slightly pointed archivolt in three orders. Its great mass is supported by a magnificently ornate lintel, a sculptured trumeau, or pillar, representing Paul and a bearded prophet, and two doorposts on which are carved the figures of Peter and the prophet Isaias. The portal is sheltered by a salient barrel-vaulted porch, decorated on its lower walls with reliefs representing incidents of the Infancy of Christ, the story of Lazarus and the Rich Man, the Punishment of Avarice and Unchastity. In its grouping and concentration of sculptures, the porch is comparable in enterprise to an arch of triumph. The tympanum itself is a remarkable work of engineering and architecture, for 28 blocks of stone were brought together to form its surface.
The meal of the rich man, Dives (at right),
as dying Lazarus is cared for by the dogs (left).
St. Peter on the left side of the entry door
under the Tympanum.Another exxample, the architrave of the portal of the Church of St. Genis-des-Fontaines, erected in 1019/1020:
Must say all you guys and gals out there have shocked me with your documentation and reflexions. The foreign stuff is terrible. That Schwarz man. But how did they ever go for thus stuff in Ireland and worst of all in the Catholic Church here? If I can bring the discussion back to Cobh. What a MESS. It seems to me that there a number of formal problems. I mean, who says the cathedral has to be messed up? Where does an idea like that come from? Is it the bishop? Some flunkey lurking behind the throne? And who ever got it into their head to choose an archirect who seems to have a career most accurately exemplified by Drogheda railway station, which is just a banal remake without the teeniest hint of GRACE. He seems also to have the odd technological byre to his name. Otherwise? So how does a bishop get a project going with someone with credentials like that? I mean!! What a miserable, sad contrast with the glorious past. The all-in-one design that has been Cobh Cathedral till now replaced by this stuff! Is this serious? Surely even a bishop has some superior under the seventh heaven. I mean, is there no one who checks this stuff out? In this day and age? All I can say is, poor ould Church if this sort of stuff goes through. And there must be a law against it. Aren’t there learned judges in the land? Aren’t we paying through the nose for GOVERMENT? You seem to have some brains, Praxiteles. What’s the score, old son? 😮 Speak!
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