Gianlorenzo
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@Praxiteles wrote:
Longford Cathedral was widely regarded as Ireland’s finest example of a neo-Classical cathedral. The original architect was John Benjamine Keane with subsequent contributions from John Bourke (campanile of 1860) and the near ubiquitous G.C. Ashlin who is responsible for the impeccably proportioned portico (1883-1913) commissioned by Bishop Bartholomew Woodlock of Catholic University fame. The internal plaster work is Italian as were the (demolished) lateral altars. It was opened for public worship in 1856. In the 1970s a major re-styling of the sanctuary was undertaken by Bishop Cathal Daly who employed the services of Wilfred Cantwell and Ray Carroll. J. Bourke’s elaborate high altar altar and choir stalls were demolished and replaced by an austere arrangement focused on a disproportionately scaled altar. The results, which have not drawn the kind of universal criticism reserved for Armagh and Killarney, nevertheless leave the interior of the building without a natural focus. The insertion of tapesteries between the columns of the central apse was an attempt to fill the void and would be used again to solve a similar problem in the Pro-Cathedral in Dublin. The absence of choir stalls is to be noted as is the relative obscurity of the Cathedra – the very raison d’etre for the building.
Richard Hurley was also involved here. I found this picure of St. Mels prior to the disasterous reordering in 1976.Back to RH and the Galway Augustinians.
This is what they feel should be hidden/obscured behind the screen:mad:
@BTH wrote:
Would I be right in saying that Richard Hurley was the architect for both of these particular “reorderings”? It’s just that he is currently undertaking the renovations of the Augustine Church in Galway City Centre and his scheme, according to a recently published illustration, consists of the japanese – style screen as seen in Cork obscuring the (thankfully retained) high altar and exactly the same wooden altar, seat, pulpit and seating arrangement as in Maynooth… Very disturbing considering that many of the congregation will be housed in the aisles with views into the Nave obstructed by columns…
Very sad to see the same mistakes being made over and over again in churches around the country.
BTH, I found this in today’s Irish Catholic – the picture speaks for itself, and your predictions are correct:(
As a BTW have any of you seen what they have done in Rome? Just back and it is heartbreaking – it looks like the entire centre has been zapped by PVC. I didn’t have a camera, so no photos, but it would be too depressing anyway.:(
You are all presuming that Dublin is the point of departure. Having travelled on far too many occasions between Belfast and Cork, a service station near Dublin/Kildare sounds just about right.
http://www.irish-architecture.com/
To Paul Clerkin- NICE ONE
@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.
@Peter Parler wrote:
Please. No more Rudolf Schwarz. The pictures are just too, too distressing. Anyway, such supposedly “functional” buildings tend to be badly built and it is easy to predict that they will be abandoned or demolished well before mid-century. It could, though, be worthwhile preserving a few of them, in the German fashion, as a warning to future generations.
That is probably their only function. They are out of date now and their future can only be as ‘historical oddities’. Even the furniture is dated and passe. When will the apologists for Moderism and even post-Modernism realise that they are locked into their own time and, unlike what went before, beit Classical, Romanesque,or Gothic/Neo-Gothic, they have no future. Their appeal is to the ‘now ‘and that in itself is self- defeating in that there is no ‘now’. A look at other threads on this site will show how quickly things become outmoded and unfashionable. And that, in the end,is what the re-ordering of St. Colman’s is all about – it is a fashion trend that Bishop Magee, in his abysmal ignorance, feels he has to follow.
Regarding the ‘warning to future generations’, why is it that Ireland is always 10 years behind everywhere else. In the US and UK they are beginning to re-order the previous re-ordering, but here we are, prepared to destroy one of the truly worthy heritage structures in our land in the name of an our-dated and spurious ideology.Praxiteles wrote:Re: posting 251: Carlow College, Eucharist RoomRichard Hurley describes the creation of the Eucharist Room in his book Irish Church Architecture in the era of Vatican II as follows: “The nerve centre of the institute [for Pastoral Liturgy] comprised a plan of four spaces – gathering area, the Eucharist Room, the Blessed Sacrament Chapel and the Vesting Room. The gathering room was of great importance in the scheme of things. It would provide a place of welcome, a place of assembly before and after the liturgy and also a place to enjoy the hospitality of the institute. The Eucharist Room is entered directly off the gathering area along a narrow “mall” partially two storeys high and containing an open-string staircase. The Eucharist Room is spacious and light -filled]
What a growth of spiritual freedom!!!!!
What a ratiation of the Spirit of Freedom!!!!!@Praxiteles wrote:
I am sorry Fergalr, but the archiseek data bank gives Fuller as the architect for RIngsend.
The links are:
http://www.irish-architecture.com/buildings_ireland/dublin/ringsend_irishtown/
http://www.irish-architecture.com/buildings_ireland/dublin/ringsend_irishtown/st_patricks.htmlBit I am not sure if Fuller is responsible for all the structures listed :confused:
In an un-published thesis “Vision Marerialised: The building of St. Colman’s Cathedral,Cobh (186801917) by Ann Wilson, submitted to the Dept of History of Art and Design, 2002 for an MA Degree National College of Art and Design NUI, she states on p.71 that the spire on St. Colman’s is 287ft (87.47760 m.)
@Praxiteles wrote:
WIth regard to Rudolf Schwarz (1897-1961), the following entry in the Kirchenlexikon is interesting for what it has to say about Schwarz’s ideas about the transition from Crowd to People to People of God and the joining of Community and Altar]http://www.bautz.de/bbkl/s/s1/schwarz_r.shtml[/url]
An example of his work: the Corpus Christi Church in Aachen:
The Corpus Christi interior:
There is no doubt about it – we are living in the ‘Ugly Age’. 😮 :confused:
The Pro-Cathedral Church of the Conception of the Virgin Mary was built on the site of Lord Annsley’s town house at Marlborough Street and Elephant Lane, which had been acquired by Archbishop Thomas Troy in 1803 for £5,100. The building commenced in 1814 and was completed in November 1825. Plans for a church in the revivalist Greek Doric style, submitted by an architect who signed himself “P”, won the commission. It is accepted that the architect was George Papworth (1781-1855). Born in London, he moved to Ireland in 1806, and won commissions for Grattan Bridge, King’s (Heuston) Bridge (1828), Camolin Park, Wexford (1815), the Dublin Library in D’Olier Street (1818-1820) and Sir Patrick Dunn’s Hospital and was eventually Professor of Architecture in the Royal Hibernian Academy. The Pro-Cathedral contains monuments to Cardinal Paul Cullen and his immediate predecessor Archbishop Daniel Murray by Thomas Farrell. The apse is decorated by an alto-relief of the Ascension by John Smyth. Thomas Kirk (1781-1845) supplied a monument for the Reverend Thomas Clarke: two figures of Religion and Charity bewteen an urn which was his first exhibited work at the Society of Artists (as Piety and Chastity) in 1813. A relief of the Good Shepherd and a monument to William and Anne Byly are also attributed to Kirk. The organ is by the Dublin organbuilder John White. Its present architectural case was build by WIlliam Hill c. 1900. The great artistic treasure of the Pro-Cathedral, however, was the High Altar by Peter Turnerelli (1774-1839). Born in Belfast, Turnerelli had been deeply influenced by Canova (who much admired Turnerelli’s bust of Grattan (1812). From 1798-1803 drawing master to the princesses of George III, he was appointed Sculptor in ordinary in 1801. While his busts of George III, Washington and Wellington (1815), Louis XVIII (1816), Henry Grattan (1812 and Daniel O’Connell (1829) are well known, his master piece was the High Altar of the Pro-Cathedral with its splendidly proportioned mensa, reredos and ciborium. In 1886, rather incongrously, three stained-glass windows were installed behind the High Altar. Archbishop Dermot Ryan introduced a reordering to the Pro-Cathedral in the late 1970s. The architect for the re-ordering was Professor Cathal O’Neill . In an act beggering civilized belief, he demolished Turnerelli’s High Altar and reredos. The praedella of the altar mensa was salvaged and re-used to form a new altar erected on a lower plain in a hum drum extended sanctuary covered with carpet. The neo-classical altar rails were removed. The canopied and dignified neo-classical Throne was dismantled. The pulpit was reduced to the redundancy of a side aisle and a few surviving vestiges of the High Altar scattered about the interior. The Ciborium of Turnerelli’s High Altar was conserved and placed on a squat disproportioned plinth on a lower plain. The result has been the complete loss of the graceful, proportioned, symetrically articulated dimensions of the Apse and of the building itself which now lacks a central focus and suffers from the same focal void as Longford and Thurles. It seem strange that nobody seems to have realized that the High Altar was custom built to a location it occupied for 150 years. Attempts to relieve the focal void by drapery have not been convincing. It is suggested that at the time of the reordering, the significance of the High Altar and its provenance may not have been known to the architect responsible for its demolition. In Irish circumstances, the destruction of such a major work of art may possibly have cultural significance not too dissimilar to the bombing of Monte Cassino or the feuerblitzing of the Frauenkirche in Dresden.
Originally posted by Praxiteles on reordering and destruction of irish cathedrals – St Colmans Cathedral, Cobh thread
