reorganisation and destruction of irish catholic churches
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And here we have another example of a modern church Notre Dame de l’Arche in the XV arondissment in Paris which was built between 1986-1998 by Architecture Studio for 450 parishioners. The basic form here is the cube -chosen for its perfecion….
http://www.architecture-studio.fr/Architecturestudio.php?rubrique=ReaDetail&ID=PAPRO
The steel frame is not scaffolding but an integarl part of the structure intended as a buffer bewteen the sacral and the secular -something entirely inexplicable in Christian tradition.
@Praxiteles wrote:
And here we have another example of a modern church Notre Dame de l’Arche in the XV arondissment in Paris which was built between 1986-1998 by Architecture Studio for 450 parishioners. The basic form here is the cube -chosen for its perfecion….
http://www.architecture-studio.fr/Architecturestudio.php?rubrique=ReaDetail&ID=PAPRO
The steel frame is not scaffolding but an integarl part of the structure intended as a buffer bewteen the sacral and the secular -something entirely inexplicable in Christian tradition.
Sterile, eccentric, and narcissist.
This building does not invite others into the joy of the kerygma, nor does it proclaim the joy of the Christian faith to a world in search of hope. Where is the elan?
Instead, it fences off the Church from the world. It cages the 450 sheep. Forgive Rhabanus for thinking that Christ is the gate of the sheepfold and that one enters through Him – not through the perfection attributed to the cube, or any other shape except the cross. The message here is sadly neurotic.
How – or why – the 450 scraped together the funds for this baffles the imagination.
Oh well, in a few years it will make a suitable factory or an IBM plant. Nuclear research station also comes to mind. Split the atom and celebrate the cube! This is Rationalism turned in on itself. NEXT!!!@Rhabanus wrote:
Sterile, eccentric, and narcissist.
This building does not invite others into the joy of the kerygma, nor does it proclaim the joy of the Christian faith to a world in search of hope. Where is the elan?
Instead, it fences off the Church from the world. It cages the 450 sheep. Forgive Rhabanus for thinking that Christ is the gate of the sheepfold and that one enters through Him – not through the perfection attributed to the cube, or any other shape except the cross. The message here is sadly neurotic.
How – or why – the 450 scraped together the funds for this baffles the imagination.
Oh well, in a few years it will make a suitable factory or an IBM plant. Nuclear research station also comes to mind. Split the atom and celebrate the cube! This is Rationalism turned in on itself. NEXT!!!It is pretty curious taht 450 people could find the cash to erect this. But…..
Something for future reference, especially the list of buildings -some of which we have seen already and other that remain to be discovered:
And this, in Northern Portugal, by Alvaro Siza which could easily be mistaken for an electrical transmission station:
The doors to the Siza church are stunning when they’re open.
I’d be genuinely interested to see a few recent churches that meet with approval outside of the historicist confections of Duncan Stroik.
Some more views of that church by Alvao Siza:
@Praxiteles wrote:
Some more views of that church by Alvao Siza:
“Siza’s signature is on every detail.”
That’s clear! But this is only a poor man’s Le Corbousier.
Did you ever read more trite cliches? Fatuous mewlings about signifying the divine by light. Read St Augustine; study a Cistercian monsastic church from the twelfth century; look at a rose window.
So what’s new here?
The tiles in the “baptistery” (stretching to the ceiling – ooohhh!!!) give the impression of a French Vespasien.
The elongated doors at the entrance fulfill the Lord’s description of the narrow gate. But what kind of proportion here? The camel easily gets through.
Where is the human scale? Is God the great Dollhouse-Maker in the Sky? A celestial Giapetto?
And who gets to play Pinocchio strutting and fretting on the stage of this pathetic pastiche of a Marionette-Theater-of-the-Absurd?
At least Stroik’s historicist confections refer to a transcendent Deity, not to the Friendly Giant of CBC fame! Rememebr him in Vancouver, helloinsane? And even good ol’ Friendly had better taste — A Gothic Castle! Oh, I think I hear Rusty the Rooster and Jerome the Giraffe… Let’s pull up the baptismal font for two more to curl up in! And for those of you who like to rock, here’s a rocking chair!!
Back to the drawing board … before the draw-bridge closes – on the twentieth-century imagination.
Friendly’s pal Jerome the Giraffe (Hieronymus Girafficus?) lived in a “tall thin house.” Siza’s door would be ideal for him. Siza’s church is likely the first giraffe-friendly house of worship (or ought we call it “Worship Space”?) in the world, as we know it. Giraffes for Jesus Movement?
Space and light, space and light, space and light. Alright already! We got that!
Now can we think how to do this in a creative manner? How about a clerestory?
Iconography? Any sense here that the congregants belong to something bigger than their immediate group? What tells them that they are linked to the Church Triumphant in heaven? Any sense of the presence of the saints either as coheirs with Christ of the heavenly Kingdom or as intercessors?
Cue: Play recording of Sir Charles Stanford’s “Ye Choirs of New Jerusalem”Where is any eschatological sense of an afterlife or that we are journeying toward the new and eternal Jerusalem? Not a clue in Siza’s box.
Come to think of it, Friendly Giant in his Gothic castle presents more obvious trinitarian imagery than Siza’s box:
Friendly + Rusty + Jerome
The One + Logos + Agape
Memory + Intellect + Will
Father + Son + Holy SpiritPerhaps the Siza box will make an interesting Gnostic temple some day. Blissfully free of all “historicist confections” – among other things!
And another: this time the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles by Raphael Moneo:
http://www.buildme.net/Photo%20Library/Moneo%20LA%20C/index.htm
@Sirius wrote:
Although they shared a common objective during the appeal this is a most unstable coalition with conflicting long term interests. The various appellants have welcomed the Board’s decision for radically different reasons.
1. The secularist conservationists in An Taisce and the Irish Georgian Society believe that they have gained effective control over the architectural heritage of the main religious denominations.
2. The bureaucratic conservationists in the Department of the Environment believe they have “binned” Chapter 5 of the Architectural Heritage Guidelines.
3. The conservative Tridentines in FOSCC believe that they have turned back the liturgical clock.FOSCC were so focused on embarrassing their own hierarchy that they still do not realise the extent to which the appeal decision has advanced the cause of Secularism. Ian Lumley must find it amusing to hear the turkeys welcome Christmas.
very interesting reading this two years on and post 25 March 2008 TRidentine Mass in Cobh cathedral!
And here we have a contribution from Japan. Shigeru Ban’s Paper Church (1995) at Takatori in Kobe which was built for a community of Vietnamese catholics after the earthquake of 1995.
@Praxiteles wrote:
And here we have a contribution from Japan. Shigeru Ban’s Paper Church (1995) at Takatori in Kobe which was built for a community of Vietnamese catholics after the earthquake of 1995.
Apparently, the series of cardboard columns is supposed to be an assonanance of St. Peter’s Square in Rome.
@Praxiteles wrote:
Apparently, the series of cardboard columns is supposed to be an assonanance of St. Peter’s Square in Rome.
Apparently so are the chairs.
Likewise, the works of art hanging on the columns are a nod to the Vatican museum.
Gee, it’s just like being in Rome!! Why would Japanese Christians bother making a pilgrimage to St Peter’s-in- the-Vatican, when they have it all in this church? Just add one pope and a seventh candlestick and you’re off to the races!
@Praxiteles wrote:
And here we have a contribution from Japan. Shigeru Ban’s Paper Church (1995) at Takatori in Kobe which was built for a community of Vietnamese catholics after the earthquake of 1995.
By the way, can anyone tell why the missal stand is placed on the chair of the main celebrant? Some misdirected attempt at orientation by the vertically challenged?
Or is that, perhaps, not a missal stand, but a Tabor on which stands not the Blessed Sacrament exposed to the adoration of the faithful, but a riser on which sits a rather short celebrant exposed to the adulation of his parishioners and guests of honour?
The electrical outlet is strategically placed for maximum effect. Who can miss it – especially with that orange cord hanging from it. Very discreet!
Well, now that he has exhausted the postmodern imagination by means of The Paper Church of Japan, perhaps Praxiteles will favour us with a photo of The Temple of Dagon or else of the Abomination of Desolation. It seems that we must resort to the pagan world for some interesting architecture, since at least they have preserved some good old (ancient) natural piety, so scarce in the postmodern “confections” of recent buildings constructed purportedly for Catholic liturgical use. At least that was the conceit ostensibly employed to justify paying the architect and contractors.
Too bad that Pope Benedict XVI will be unable to visit the newly restored Basilica of the Assumption in Baltimore, Maryland on his upcoming visit to the USA. Although the classical redecoration of the basilica is more faithful to the original style of the building designed by Benjamin Henry Latrobe in the early nineteenth century than was the arrangement that it replaced, the basilica of the Assumption in Baltimore is a bit too federalist-looking for the tastes of Rhabanus, but it is much better than the most recent fare on this thread. The one exception, of course, was that magnificent 1874 drawing of St Colman’s, Queenstown/Cobh submitted by Paul Clerkin. Now there is a building designed with imagination, taste, style, coherence, and a language universally understandable, not to mention its clear reference to the sacred and to the eternal verities. Much more satisfying than caged-in- cubes (Austria)), asymetrical gimmickry (Los Angeles; Portugal), and paper chapels (Japan).
http://www.baltimorebasilica.org/dev_cms/index.php?page=gallery
Take a look around the Basilica of the Assumption in Baltimore, Maryland, on the llink provided above.
And another example: Los Nogales Chapel,in Bogota, Colombia by Daniel Bonilla 2002
And another by the same architect at La Calera, Bogota, Colombia
http://www.archphoto.it/images/bonilla/bonillach.htm
It looks as though our friend Bonilla studied in DUblin!
@Praxiteles wrote:
And another by the same architect at La Calera, Bogota, Colombia
http://www.archphoto.it/images/bonilla/bonillach.htm
It looks as though our friend Bonilla studied in DUblin!
Hope they use plenty of incense in Bogota, because they’ll need it to keep away the insects. Rhabanus is aware of the uses of incense as a demonifuge as well as a purificatory agent. One supposes, or at least hopes, that it may have a similar effect on “those pesky little devils.”
Note the title of the second church: Portiuncula – a “little portion” named after the humble rural chapel of St Mary of the Angels which served as the headquarters of St Francis of Assisi in the valley below the town. Built sometime in the tenth or eleventh century, the church belonged originally to the Benedictines, but after it fell into disuse in the twelfth century, St Francis restored it in 1207 and acquired it in 1210 from the monks for the foundation of his order of friars. It was in this chapel that his vocation was confirmed, that the Order of Friars Minor was established, and where St Clare took the veil from the hands of St Francis himself. Francis died in a tiny cell adjacent to the chapel.
That little chapel is now surrounded by a much bigger church built in the sixteenth century (1569-1578) in the style then favoured in Renaissance Italy. Since 1270 the “Portiuncula” was granted special privileges by the Holy See, most particularly the “Pardon of Assisi” or “Portiuncula Indulgence”, a full remission of temporal punishment due to sin, which may be obtained annually (under the usual conditions of sacramental confession and Communion, prayers for the intentions of the Holy Father, and detachment from all sin – even venial sin) by the faithful who visit the Portiuncula chapel from noon on1 August until Compline on 2 August.
In 1622, Pope Gregory XV extended the indulgence or pardon to all Franciscan churches. It now extends to all parish churches on 2 August.
Could the reason the walls of Bonilla’s church open up on a field be to accommodate the countless pilgrims who throng to the church seeking the Portiuncula Indulgence in the early August heat? Or does he, like good St Francis himself, like to have the animals close about him?
Bonillo’s models seem to be theatres rather than Dublin churches. Was Praxiteles referring by any chance to the Abbey Theatre in Dublin? More like the Barbican in London.
For those interested in beautiful seminaries, take a look at the architecture and art surrounding the seminarians in Milan. Clearly ecclesiastical, spiritual, easily recognisable as having to do with the Church, with prayer, and with the life of faith. Discernible in the architecture and arrangement of the chapels also are an aptitude for reverence, sanctity, and tranquillity.
Even if one cannot understand the language of the seminarians interviewed, the clip is worth watching for the beautiful environment provided for a community of young people pursuing a vocation to the priesthood. The clip was released on 13 April 2008 – World Day of Prayer for Vocations.
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