Praxiteles
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And on the new Clasical movement in architecture:
http://www.firstprinciplesjournal.com/articles.aspx?article=205&theme=home&loc=b
And an article on iconography:
http://www.sacredarchitecture.org/pubs/saj/articles/iconography.php
And some further reading materila:
And some more on contemporary church building:
http://www.catholicculture.org/search/searchResults.cfm?querynum=1&searchid=175623&page=1
H. A. Reinhold was a diocesan priest from the state of Washington, and perhaps the only true radical in the leadership of the Liturgical Conference. A convert from Judaism, Reinhold had been chased from Germany in 1935. Known for his acerbic and hard-hitting opinions, his writings appeared frequently in his regular column in Orate Fratres, entitled “Timely Tracts.†Along with Hillenbrand, Reinhold was among the most vocal proponents of the connection between liturgy and social reconstruction. He was also a noted commentator on politics, art and architecture, leading to many articles in Commonweal and Liturgical Arts.
Praxiteles earnestly hopes that Johnglas will forgive succumbing to the temptation to quote another paragraph from Randall Smith’s article:
“De-constructing Modern Church Architecture
But that’s enough about Fr. Reinhold and his ideology of church architecture. My point is simply this: Here in this 1947 treatise, we find a popular course of lectures delivered to scores of prospective liturgists proposing all sorts of architectural “reforms” that most people associate with the Second Vatican Council, none of which are actually called for by the Council. When the Council documents finally did reach America in the mid-1960s, however, they were delivered into a social and cultural context that was already well imbued with the modernist architectural ethos. And thus when American liturgists read and interpreted those conciliar documents, they did so through the interpretive lens of the modernist architecture handed down to them by “experts” like Fr. Reinhold. In other words, we were well on our way to the kind of churches pictured in Environment and Art in Catholic Worship long before the Council fathers ever wrote a word of Sacrosanctum Concilium.
As I have indicated several times above, it may well be — indeed, it seems likely — that Fr. Reinhold was not a conscious modernist. It seems likely he had just taken in bits and pieces of what passed for the reigning wisdom in the architectural schools of his day. That’s not a crime. But it may be a problem if you take it upon yourself to dictate to architects how they must build a church. Sadly, Fr. Reinhold was merely the first in a long line of liturgists who have had the presumption to think that they can substitute for an actual architect. Nothing is more common in contemporary church building projects — especially the bad ones — than for the architect to have to work under the tutelage of a “liturgical consultant.” The liturgical consultant is not there merely to teach the architect about the liturgy, but to “help” the architect in matters of design. Most architects find this intrusion to be extremely frustrating. The liturgical consultant is a person who knows little about architecture telling someone trained in architecture how a building “must” look. Says who? As it turns out, not the Council; nor the Church; and definitely not the tradition of architectural design. So who then? Well, as it turns out, pretty much just the liturgical consultant who sells himself as capable of doing the job an architect is trained to do. Indeed, the claim seems to be that the architect simply cannot build a church building without the guidance of the liturgist. Oddly, the liturgist does not seem to think he cannot plan a liturgy without the help of the architect.
The principles that Fr. Reinhold espouses are not independent of any style, as he repeatedly insists; rather, they are central tenets of modernist design. Thus, if it is to be the case, as even Fr. Reinhold repeatedly insists, that the Church should canonize no style in particular, but remain open to all styles, then we must set about disengaging these modernist principles from the general prescriptions for the building of churches. What is clear, moreover, is that forcing modernist principles of building design upon unwilling church congregations and passing them off as if they were principles of the Council simply must stop”.
Praxiteles wholeheartedly endorses all this – remember the ghostly spectre of Mies that came over Belvelly bridge onto the Great Island to savage the interior of Cobh Cathedral in the guise of the the great Prof. O’Neill with practically no experience of cathedral architecture behind him and lots of experience in building railway footbridges with canned lifts.
An interesting paragraph from the Randall Smith’s article on the link in the previous posting:
“The Great White Wash
The blank, white back wall of our little Texas church reveals another of those architectural innovations that people have mistakenly associated with the post-conciliar period. In Fr. Reinhold’s 1947 book, he mentions a wonderful new innovation he has discovered: “Rudolf Schwarz proposes a white-washed wall behind the altar.”19 “There is great beauty in this original approach,” says Fr. Reinhold, “but are we ready to carry it out?”
The answer to that question would have to be an emphatic “yes.” But now the question is: Can we ever get liturgical experts to stop? Must every new church in Christendom have a blank, whitewashed wall behind the altar? Worse yet, how many beautiful high altars were torn out of old churches to make way for the miracle of the ubiquitous blank, white-washed wall behind the altar? Unfortunately, when American liturgists heard the Second Vatican Council’s call for a “noble simplicity” in church decoration,20 they could think of nothing other than the radical, abstract minimalism of the modernist style”.
I am just wondering where all this white-wash leaves the horrible creations of Richard Hurley (e.g. in St. Mary’s Oratory in Maynooth). If the idea was infiltrating the English language through Reinhold in U.S. in 1947; and if he had borrowed it from Schwarz who had been operating thirty years earlier in germany; and since Vatican II did not happen until mid-1960s, then how accurate is it to describe the great white-wash as a Vatican II “innovation”?
And some more on Vatican II and ecclesiastical architecture – the Cloyne HACK could do well to try and struggle thorugh the article or ask someone to read it out loud for them:
@samuel j wrote:
Anyone hear or know if the Consultants have come up with anything yet on the plaster falling etc. at St.Colmans..?
Officially, nothing fell in St. Colman’s….it just collapsed.
@johnglas wrote:
Wunderschoen! Es ist nur ein Projekt, aber keine Wirklichkeit. Schade!
Nicht ganz der Fall…erlauben Sie uns sagen dass es sei noch nich eine wirkchliche Realitaet! Aber, es wird schon bald sein!!
From the students of the university of Vienna;
And in the sme vein, an interesting article from this month’s Apollo Magazine:
http://www.apollo-magazine.com/news-and-comment/architecture/463151/flogging-off-the-silver.thtml
@Rhabanus wrote:
ake, you have no idea how bone-headed some ideologues can be. During the first wave of destruction in the 1960s and 70s, some churches in French Canada were selling off the sacred vessels and furnishings by the pound! Certainly some enterprising layfolk did divert the truck on the way to the dump, but the really committed iconoclasts made sure it was pulverized before it left church property.
An Anglican clergyman back in the late 1970s purchased a 17th-century silver censer made in France but brought to Canada – for the price of $250.00.
Hope the good folk who preserved parts of St Saviour’s will return them once the restoration commences.
Talking of restorations,there is an antoque dealer in Killarney who, over the years, has salvaged much of the fittings from the gutting Eamonn Casey did to St. mary’s in his efforts to outdo A.W.N. Pugin -just like our frind O’Neill’s efforts for Cobh Cathedral. Last year, he offered them back at the price he had bought them for. I do not know what heppened. Did anyone ever hear anymore of it?
@Rhabanus wrote:
ake, you have no idea how bone-headed some ideologues can be. During the first wave of destruction in the 1960s and 70s, some churches in French Canada were selling off the sacred vessels and furnishings by the pound! Certainly some enterprising layfolk did divert the truck on the way to the dump, but the really committed iconoclasts made sure it was pulverized before it left church property.
An Anglican clergyman back in the late 1970s purchased a 17th-century silver censer made in France but brought to Canada – for the price of $250.00.
Hope the good folk who preserved parts of St Saviour’s will return them once the restoration commences.
Funnily enough, Eamonn Duffy has several accounts of the lay people of various parishes hiding churhc furnishings from destruction during the English Reformation. See his book The Stripping of the Altars.
@Praxiteles wrote:
On second thoughts, is the second church with the painted stations of the cross St. Mary’s, Church Street, a Capuchin church built by JJ. McCarthy 1868-1881.
Apparently, the scrolls beneath the station oft he cross are in Irish. AN very interesting detail. At rpesent the statons look very isolated. What must theyb not have looked loike when surrounded by the stencil work.
@ake wrote:
yes st.Joseph’s and the Capuchin church exactly. Two very fine well preserved churches. The painted stations of the cross in the Capuchin church are excellent, as is the painting in the sanctuary.
re St.Saviour’s; you say some of it was dumped?but surely someone would have pawned it off for salvage? It’s far from worthless after all! At the very least, I’m sure there are people who’d employ a gothic pinnacle or a set of altar rails as a garden feature..
What was not ferried off in the skip was reduced to dust and dumped into the foundation of the rpesent sanctuary. Given the iconoclasm of the 1970s, money or commercial value was of no interest whatsoever. This was a much deeper idoleogical thing.
On second thoughts, is the second church with the painted stations of the cross St. Mary’s, Church Street, a Capuchin church built by JJ. McCarthy 1868-1881.
Is the first one not St. Joseph’s Berkley Road, by O’Neill and Byrne 1875-1880. Side altars by Ashlin and Colman. High ALtar by Mary Redmond. Is not the other St. Michan’s, Halston’s Street. Built 1811-14 with chancel, sacrist, side chapels, and tower by George Ashlin 1891-1902.
Looking at the St. Saviour’s site is very interesting. They now afford the possibility of contrasting the church before and after the wreckage and devastation. Rumour has it that some of the breathren in St. Saviour’s are anxius to do something about restoring the interior -hence the information on the site. I think we can assure them taht public opinion is about 600% behind any effort to recover in any measure the original interior.
The devastator – Austin Flannery – is now certified gaga and so the possibility of doing something is beginning to emerge.
As for the interior: from what we hear, great quantities of it were simply dumped into a skip and ferried off. However, as for many of the fittings, one of the breathren has carefully hoarded them and is sitting….waiting….for retoration.
