johnglas

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Viewing 20 posts - 1 through 20 (of 361 total)
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  • johnglas
    Participant

    gunter: It’s the way you tell them! And a happy Easter to you all.

    in reply to: reorganisation and destruction of irish catholic churches #774428
    johnglas
    Participant

    I suppose we’re left to reflect on the muscularity of this vernacular style compared to the later decadence of Churrigueresque; on the other hand, the interior is so plain (especially in the sanctuary area) that it loses any real numinous feel. But a beautiful little gem on the exterior. The benches are crude beyond belief and just stuck in front of the altar (chairs better?).

    in reply to: reorganisation and destruction of irish catholic churches #774424
    johnglas
    Participant

    It’s interesting reading some of the comments about the NYC chapel; clearly ‘ugliness’ is in the eye of the beholder and in the end what seems to be dooming this building is not its aesthetics, but the ravenous maw of mammon, in the shape of the redeveloper.
    This may not be the prettiest building in the world (should it be anyway?), but it does have a solidity and a presence externally; internally (apart from the Christ/Cross figure) it looks quite rational and underplayed.

    in reply to: reorganisation and destruction of irish catholic churches #774395
    johnglas
    Participant

    Prax: the problem remains with such a magnificent piece as Maynooth College Chapel that mass can be celebrated only ad orientem at this altar; I presume another ‘temporary’ altar is normally located in front of it, but at a lower level – does this have any pretension to dignity at all?
    I have come to the view that, while the current lturgy needs drastic revision and improvement, reverting to the Tridentine form is not the answer. So a ‘solution’ to the location and design of a suitable ‘forward-facing’ altar needs to be found in such a sensitive location as this. In addition, the ‘Tridentine’ vestments shown in the pictures just look skimped and out of place in such a wonderful setting.

    in reply to: Dublin Fruit Market #745192
    johnglas
    Participant

    Since when were ‘adult’ shops a problem? Too much like shopping for grown-ups (as opposed to the infantile notion of ‘retail therapy’)?

    in reply to: reorganisation and destruction of irish catholic churches #774365
    johnglas
    Participant

    A couple of observations here: the altar is obviously an amazingly restrained piece of rococo (a contradiction in terms?) which is not attempting to overwhelm the sanctuary in typical ‘Look at me!’ fashion; why the candlesticks are so studiously avoiding the predella defeats me.
    The other point is that if there is a ‘central’ or ‘forward’ altar (as one presumes there is), then the chairs could have been arranged ‘choir-wise’ or ‘antiphonally’ instead of so blatantly ignoring the high altar.
    ‘O tempora, O mores!’

    in reply to: reorganisation and destruction of irish catholic churches #774359
    johnglas
    Participant

    Stunning pictures of Beauvais; and on the topic of God working in mysterious ways… When Ryanair started flying to ‘Paris’ when they were actually going to Beauvais, a mere 50-minute coach-ride away, it meant that you could get there a little bit earlier on the way back and discover… Beauvais, not least this attenuated masterpiece of a cathedral. Thanks for the reminder, Prax!

    in reply to: New Dublin Outer Ring Road #750790
    johnglas
    Participant

    kefu: not wishing to be argumentative (indeed, not like me), but I wish people in Ireland would stop copying Pat Kenny in claiming that ‘Manchester’ has a greater population than ‘the entire country’ of Ireland. The last time I looked, Greater Manchester had a population of c. 2.5m; Ireland (Republic) has c.4.5m; Ireland (island) has c.6.3m. Indeed, Ireland has a greater population than the mighty Manchester and Liverpool combined (i.e. c. 2.5m + 1.5m = c.4.0m), but so what? There are many small countries of around 4-5m. Do I detect a colonial cringe, kefu?

    in reply to: reorganisation and destruction of irish catholic churches #774256
    johnglas
    Participant

    A very accomplished interior at Fermoy; I hope there is no question of this being sold off or ‘deconsecrated’. With a minimum of intervention, this could easily be restored to virtually its original state.
    Incidentally, I’ve now come to the conclusion that the flimsy ‘second altar’ in this kind of situation is best left as just that, to make clear what is still the ‘high altar’ (although an antipendium would give it a dignity it currently lacks). It also seems to me an irony that while some uber-trendy ‘liturgists’ seem obsessed with an ‘antiphonal’ layout, it is not implemented here, where the seats college-wise would be very appropriate!

    PS Any images of the gothicised parish church?

    in reply to: reorganisation and destruction of irish catholic churches #774236
    johnglas
    Participant

    A very accomplished interior at Fermoy; I hope there is no question of this being sold off or ‘deconsecrated’. With a minimum of intervention, this could easily be restored to virtually its original state.
    Incidentally, I’ve now come to the conclusion that the flimsy ‘second altar’ in this kind of situation is best left as just that, to make clear what is still the ‘high altar’ (although an antipendium would give it a dignity it currently lacks). It also seems to me an irony that while some uber-trendy ‘liturgists’ seem obsessed with an ‘antiphonal’ layout, it is not implemented here, where the seats college-wise would be very appropriate!

    PS Any images of the gothicised parish church?

    in reply to: reorganisation and destruction of irish catholic churches #774212
    johnglas
    Participant

    Prax: Thanks for the correction (I should have known) – no link shown, however.
    I think St Gall had a strong Bangor connection (as a disciple of St Comgall); the so-called Abbey Church is still there, after a fashion. It’s a decent enough 20thC reworking of a 17thC ‘restoration’ of fragments of a 12th/13thC (?)Augustinian priory on the site of St Comgall’s monastery! As you can imagine, there’s not a lot of the monastic ambience left – and it’s low-church CoI.

    in reply to: reorganisation and destruction of irish catholic churches #774210
    johnglas
    Participant

    Wonderful, sinuous and opulent interiors; an incentive to plainness of life and an inducement to holy poverty? Perhaps not, but then you can’t win them all!

    PS All those plain little chairs beside those glorious concave (mahogany?) choir-stalls? A case for the style police – and in Switzerland of all places!

    in reply to: reorganisation and destruction of irish catholic churches #774184
    johnglas
    Participant

    apelles; When I was (much) younger and visited Dublin only very occasionally, I recall that St Saviour’s was always one of my favourite stopping points. On a more recent visit, I wondered why I had liked it but found it all so soulless now. Well, now I know.
    Why don’t most religious orders and PPs just move out of their churches and just rent barns or warehouse units on anonymous industrial estates more suited to their aesthetic understanding?

    in reply to: pearse street developments #744259
    johnglas
    Participant

    ‘It is frustrating to see such an arrogantly scaled, blob of darkness steal the limelight from a distinguished set piece that has graciously served this street for 150 years. Smaller and simpler, it could and should have been better.’

    Ah, Graham, passion and erudition – other bloggers please note. And excellent pics to boot!

    johnglas
    Participant

    Ouch!

    johnglas
    Participant

    onq: I just became so frustrated reading your responses to Praxiteles (which never seemed to rise above the literalist reposte of the girls’ upper Fourth) that I have to respond in turn.

    As gunter says, there is an unanswerable case for the replacement of removed altar rails in historic (i.e. pre-Vat II) churches. Whether a contemporary church should or should not have a rail is a matter of liturgical taste, but that the sanctuary should be separate and distinct is not an issue. True, you don’t need a church for worship, but 1700 years of tradition cannot be lightly set aside. (All the churches of the Reformation still required some places of assembly, which oddly enough over the years have come to look very like churches – sort of odd, that.)
    The ultimate in separation between the nave (earth) and sanctuary (heaven) is the iconostasis of the Orthodox tradition – perhaps they could all be demolished and burnt in the interests of suppressing ‘vanity’. As for equating special clothes (vestments?) and ‘setting oneself apart’ (as one having a special function) with paganism, well that is pat on the head time.

    The problem with many contemporary and reordered churches is that they are simply not numinous enough, they are not ‘set apart’, they are not ‘special’. I have strong reservations about the architectural form of Stroik, but I have none about his intentions.

    in reply to: Shopfront race to the bottom #776180
    johnglas
    Participant

    You just have to face up to the fact you have a naff planning department; I’d love to hear one of them defending their record. ‘Temporary’ should mean about six weeks.

    in reply to: Wolfe tone park #717461
    johnglas
    Participant

    DOR: What you seem to be saying is that ‘if we hadn’t done skateboarding, we’d have done drugs’ – quite a statement and totally unprovable, not to say daft. As far as urban squares are concerned, skateboarders and cyclists are both the bane of Jo(e) Public.
    You may have a problem, but you don’t solve it by wrecking the public realm.

    johnglas
    Participant

    Oh yawn, not more ‘secret’ codes; the medieval free masons were not freemasons; if the triple gate motif is virtually universal and its origins are unknown, how can it be ‘masonic’? As for the two towers, weren’t medieval cathedrals supposed to have towers at all the cardinal points, i.e. 8 or even 9 in a cruciform church. And what of the twin towers (‘Jachin and Boaz’) that actually became steeples?

    However, the papacy’s condemnation of masonry has as much to do with power games as theology; plus ca change…

    in reply to: reorganisation and destruction of irish catholic churches #773613
    johnglas
    Participant

    Talkng of nose-dives, Burgos really went totally decadent with the sacristy – you would have thought some calm while vesting would have have been welcome. The figure of El Cristo may indeed be sublime, but the ‘kilt’ (surely not medieval) makes it look absurd.

Viewing 20 posts - 1 through 20 (of 361 total)

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