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Some shots of the Abbaye de Ste. Madelaine du Barroux, near Avignon, founded in 1983:
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=36517041
This gives a better idea of the stupendous proportions of the Grande Chapelle of the Papal Palace in Avignon. The chapel is in seven bays, three occupied by the sanctuary [the first by the altar, thes econd by the Papal Throne, the third by the assisting papal chapel. The remaining 4 bays lay below the chancel gate [as in the Sixtine in Rome]. As with teh Sixtine in Rome, this chapel is also built to the specification for the Temple in Jerusalem contained in the Old Testament:
Something of the Grande Chapelle, deicated to Sts. Peter and Paul:
The chapel of St. Jean, which is below the chapel of St Martial and immediately connceting to the Hall of the Consistory, was also decorated by Matteo Giovenetti 1347-1348 with scenes from the life of St John the Baptist and from the life of St John the Evangelist:
The frescoes in the Chapel of St Martial in the Tour St Jean of the Papal Palace at Avignon. These are the work of Matteo Giovanetti 1344-1345. Those on the vault depict the early life of St. Martial:
A useful article on the papal palace at Avignon;
The Theology and Metaphysics of the Gothic Cathedral – part 4 & conclusion
by Br Lawrence Lew, O.P.Conclusion
As we have seen, claritas is one of the central qualities of beauty, and it was embodied in the stained glass window, which glowed with colour like precious stones as light shone through it. Abbot Suger considered the beauty of this coloured light to have transported him to “some strange region of the universe which neither exists entirely in the slime of the earth nor entirely in the purity of Heavenâ€. His church thus became a bridge between earth and heaven, a veritable porta caeli. Moreover, the great stained glass windows clearly evoked Revelation 21:19, which spoke of the heavenly City as being “garnished with all manner of precious stonesâ€. As such, the stained glass re-iterated that the church building was a symbol of the new Jerusalem.
One element in the Gothic cathedral combines the ‘requirements’ of beauty which we have been discussing thus far. It may be said to be a summation of the medieval architect’s vision, and this is the rose window. The circle is an image of the cosmos – both spiritual and material, thus the rose window alludes to the entire cathedral itself as a model of the ordered arrangement of creation. The circle is also complete, considered by Aristotle to be a symbol of perfection, and thus it has perfect integrity. The rose window was also constructed using a complex combination of geometry and number to produce perfect proportion and harmony. The finest example of this is arguably the north rose window in Chartres. As Cowen writes: “Everything in the window is generated from the properties of the square within the circle… This series of squares can also be related to the Golden Section [and their arrangement on a spiral is] governed by the Fibonacci series (a series in which each term is the sum of the two preceding ones)â€. Interestingly, the Fibonacci series had only been published thirty years before this window was made and the series also “governs the system of growth in a number of flowers – notably the sunflower, daisies and in a related but more complex way the roseâ€. Thus, one sees in this use of geometry something of the natural order that the divine geomancer has written into creation. Finally, the stained glass in the window is aglow with luminous colour and brightness. Therefore, beauty is communicated in the rose window, which is itself a microcosm of the entire cathedral itself which strains upwards towards God and is a symbol of he who is Beauty. Subordinate to this form of beauty in the Gothic cathedral, and so also with the rose window, is the theological scheme of the ‘lights’ in the window which may be read as a biblia pauperum. At Chartres, Christ the divine Logos is at the centre of each of the cathedral’s three rose windows: the Last Judgment is depicted in the west rose, the Parousia is in the southern rose, and the Incarnation in the northern rose. Given that the circular windows are an allusion to the cosmos, that light is a symbol of creation, the rose windows place Jesus Christ at the centre of all creation and the order of the universe. For it is by the divine Logos that the world was made and arranged, and it is also by the Incarnation, death and resurrection of the Word that the world was re-made and order was restored to the chaos introduced by sin. As we saw at the beginning of this essay, then, all these elements which are unified in the rose window and ‘read’ from it are also unified in the Gothic cathedral which is a symbol of the entire cosmos and its past, present and future, governed by Christ and centred on the Eucharist which is, of course, the living heart of the Church.
The medieval cosmology that the Gothic cathedral represents helps us to understand why the medievals built these wonders of Christian civilization. As Günther Binding says, “During the course of the 13th century… a general striving was becoming evident, in all areas [of medieval Europe], to determine the exact place of mankind both in terms of his reason and his nature, within the harmonious, well-proportioned cosmos of creation, in other words in the perfect forms in which God reveals Himself. Efforts were made to understand the secret of the world and to point out the innate divine order within itâ€. Mâle had noted the medievals’ “passion for order†and this is seen in the intellectual work of the universities and religious orders. However, this same passion was reflected in the Gothic cathedral which stands as a symbol of the medieval vision of the cosmos. These buildings stand as a witness to the truth which the Scholastics perceived and taught. They stand as a symbol of the Church and her revealed truths, and within her walls the saints are taught and fed, and glimpse their heavenly homeland. Their beauty is an eloquent invitation to us today, who no longer perceive the truth as clearly as the medievals did, to rediscover the veritatis splendor which they communicate. As Auguste Rodin once said: “If we could but understand Gothic art, we should be irresistibly led back to truthâ€.
The Theology and Metaphysics of the Gothic Cathedral – part 3
by Br Lawrence Lew, O.P.Beauty & Order in the Gothic Cathedral
St Thomas Aquinas has said: “ad pulchritudinem tria requirunturâ€, and these three requirements of beauty are integrity, right proportion or harmony, and claritas (brightness, vividness). Beauty was vital to the cathedral if it were to adequately symbolize the celestial City, and indeed beauty pointed to God who was the bestower of all created beauty and in whose Beauty all beautiful things participated. As such, if the Gothic church was to be a symbol of the new creation, redeemed and ordered by Christ, then it had to have beauty, and thus, it had to have integrity, harmony and brightness. These three elements are indeed central to the form of the Gothic cathedral, as we shall see. Moreover, as Von Simson notes, “the cathedral is perhaps best understood as a ‘model’ of the medieval universe [and] the intimation of ineffable truthâ€. Thus, it had to stand as a symbol of the beauty of both the created order, as well as the revealed order in which all creation is made new in Christ. This is clearly a tall order, but it was believed to be possible because there were certain requirements of beauty, chiefly proportion, of which the three elements we mentioned above are all a kind. As Von Simson says, then: “If the architect designed his sanctuary according to the laws of harmonious proportion, he did not only imitate the order of the visible world, but conveyed an imitation, inasmuch as that is possible to man, of the perfection of the world to comeâ€.
The Gothic cathedral, we have seen, is a model of the cosmos. This Greek word, κόσμος meaning order, harmonious arrangement, or even ornaments, gives us an indication of how the medievals saw the cathedral. The key to cosmic perfection, and thus to the perfection of the cathedral, was geometric proportion. Coming from Pythagoras’ geometry which influenced Plato (in particular his Timaeus, which was one of the few Platonic works known to the early medievals), the writings of St Augustine and Boethius emphasized the harmony of the universe and the ordering of the universe according to perfect Pythagorean proportions and ratios. This was taken up by the Platonic School of Chartres, such that Alan of Lille could say that God was the elegans architectus who constructed the universe and ordered it as the divine geomancer. In this regard, the medievals cited Wisdom 11:20, “You have arranged all things by measure and number and weightâ€. Hence, the cathedral architect who wished to construct a model of the universe had to employ geometry and Pythagorean proportions, so imitating the divine architect who had created the cosmos itself. In this way, the cathedral, with its carefully measured form, was a true symbol of the cosmos. The architect might also have had in mind the Old Testament account of the construction of Solomon’s Temple, for which God himself gave the measures and proportions. So too, the new Temples of God had to follow these proportions; an example of this being done is the Vatican’s Sistine chapel. Therefore, we see in the medieval architect’s love for perfect proportion, a desire for consonance and harmony – one of the ‘requirements’ of beauty – in their work.
The medievals also had a fascination with numerology and sacred numbers, for St Augustine had said that “The Divine Wisdom is reflected in the numbers impressed on all thingsâ€. For example, the number three, of course, was the number of the Trinity and consequently of the soul, and of all spiritual things. Therefore, complex combinations of geometry, perfect ratios, and number symbolism can be found throughout the Gothic cathedral although Mâle warns against making this kind of symbolism too ubiquitous in one’s interpretation of the church. Even so, there are clear instances of an interplay of geometry and beautiful proportions and sacred numbers which we have already mentioned. The façade of Milan cathedral is one such example, which relies on the proportions of the Pythagorean triangle. Even more perfect is Chartres cathedral of which Von Simson notes: “the elevation of Chartres cathedral is the supreme vindication of this philosophy of beauty†based on the perfection of proportions.
However, it is important to note too that the medieval architect’s preoccupation with ordered measurements was not at the expense of structural stability. Indeed, the use of proportion, mathematical ratio and geometry aided the stability and strength of the building, so that one sees in the Gothic cathedral a marriage of beautiful form and structural function, thus giving integrity – another ‘requirement of beauty – to the building. Hence Von Simson said that “architecture that is scientific and good must invariably be based on geometry; unless he obeys the laws of his discipline, the architect must surely fail… And it is taken for granted… that the stability and beauty of an edifice are not distinct values, that they do not obey different laws, but that, on the contrary, both are comprehended in the perfection of geometrical formsâ€. It may be that today we find the medieval ‘obsession’ with Pythagorean geometry and Platonic ideas of cosmic design and arrangement to be somewhat esoteric. However, one cannot argue that these buildings have stood the test of time, being both beautiful and fine structures, thus witnessing to the science, the recta ratio, right reasoning, indeed, that was the foundation of the architect’s art.
Metaphysics of Light
One of the major characteristics of the Gothic cathedral is its soaring height which, compared to the Romanesque church, is flooded with light, often mediated by beautiful stained glass windows aglow with colour. The Sainte Chapelle in Paris, and Chartres cathedral, are two of the most evocative Gothic churches on account of this ‘jewelled reliquary’ quality. St Thomas’ third ‘requirement’ of beauty is claritas, which he qualifies thus: “things are called beautiful which have a bright colourâ€. As such, Von Simson notes that for the medievals “stars, gold and precious stones are called beautiful because of this quality [of luminousity]â€. However, these things are beautiful because of the way they reflect and refract light. Light is of great importance because it is linked to the central notion of vision; light enables us to perceive beauty, and even, in some sense, to see God. As St Thomas says: “corporeal light is necessary as regards external sight, inasmuch as it makes the medium actually transparent, and susceptible of colourâ€. The Angelic Doctor also says that, “The created light is necessary to see the essence of God, not in order to make the essence of God intelligible, which is of itself intelligible, but in order to enable the intellect to understand†and again, “This light is required to see the divine essence, not as a similitude in which God is seen, but as a perfection of the intellect, strengthening it to see Godâ€. Indeed, Blessed Dionysius held that God himself was “an incomprehensible and inaccessible light†and that all creation is an act of divine illumination, so that all things participated in God’s light, and there was a hierarchy of perfection according to the illumination of the thing. Moreover, it seems that light was likened with being, so that for the Areopagite, “if light ceased to shine, all being would vanish into nothingnessâ€. As such, light – who is God – was necessary for the order of the universe, and for its being.
Consequently people like Abbot Suger believed that created light was the best created symbol by which to see and know God, and so he proclaimed: “Bright is the noble edifice that is pervaded by the new lightâ€. The lux nova is both Christ and the physical light that filled his new church, and its brightness is a reference to claritas, and so, to its beauty. Therefore, Von Simson says that “Light and luminous objects, no less than musical consonance, conveyed an insight into the perfection of the cosmos, and a divination of the Creatorâ€. Given such a metaphysics of light, it is no wonder that the Gothic age developed an aesthetics of light that is most beautifully expressed in the Gothic cathedral, for it is by the latter that we come to experience the former. Or as Von Simson put it, “corporeal light [was an] ‘analogy’ to the divine lightâ€. Light is thus a vital element in the Gothic worldview and vision, and it is characteristic of the symbol that is the Gothic cathedral.
Continued in part 4: the Rose Window & Conclusion
I shall be back to this shortly but I eblieve the inspiration for the Gothic as indeed for all Christian art is to be found in the Incarnation – here we have a God who is utterly beyond yet can communicate somethingof himself in spacio temporal realities. his is why iconoclasm -such as among the reformers of the 16th century- is not and cannot be a Christian option.
The Theology and Metaphysics of the Gothic Cathedral – part 2
by Br Lawrence Lew, O.P.
Continued from here.The Church on earth as it is in heaven…
Nevertheless, the Gothic cathedral was not exclusively a symbol in this full sense, but also on a more basic catechetical and narrative level, so that the building’s decoration and its ornamentation may also have served as a biblia pauperum. As Mâle puts it: “Aware of the power of art over childlike and humble souls, the mediaeval Church tried through sculpture and stained glass to instill into the faithful the full range of her teaching. For the immense crowd of the unlettered, the multitude which had neither psalter nor missal and whose only book was the church, it was necessary to give concrete form to abstract thought.†Such a view assumes that the ordinary medieval Catholic was sufficiently familiar with Christian doctrine and writings so that he or she could, with relative ease, identify what the art was portraying. Nonetheless, there is more than a hint of functionalism in this viewpoint as it seems to imply that the sculpture, stained glass and images had to perform a consciously pedagogical function. However, one cannot fail to note that Gothic cathedrals often contained sacred images that one could not see with the un-aided eye. For example, the great east window in York Minster contains all of salvation history from creation to the eschaton, but it cannot be seen with ease, even with corrective lenses, from the ground level. How then could its narrative have a catechetical value? Kieckhefer thus suggests that these images “are there… most basically as reminders of the religious culture from which they derive, as witnesses to a history that could in principle be known… they fuse into a totality, a community of images, perceived only as a symbolic world of identities and meanings entered into easily but known only gradually and perhaps never fully†. Therefore, they work together as part of a larger symbol – the entire church building itself, and their ‘nett effect’, so to speak, is to “make metaphysical stirrings not only plausible but irresistible within even the soberest hearts”, as Alain de Botton says. The truth of this statement is borne out in the millions – Christian or not – who continue to marvel at the beauty and transcendence of the Gothic cathedral, even when other church buildings might leave them cold and unmoved.
York Minster
Mâle himself explains in detail the various ‘mirrors’ which reflect truth and reality in the Middle Ages to those who view the cathedral. Aspects of medieval life and work, nature, plant-life and animal-life, secular and sacred history are interwoven with Scriptural stories, moral virtues and vices, the lives of the saints, and the hope of the world to come. As such, past, present and future, are represented in the iconography of the Gothic cathedral so that all time and all peoples – the Catholica – are united in the church building which is a symbol of the Church herself, who is Mother of all humanity. Therefore, Augustine Thompson OP says that the cathedral was “a presentation of the whole order of the cosmos, the machina mundi. And its coordinated parts made it a representation of the ‘army of the people of God’. Taken as a whole, the cathedral made present the orders of the church, the society, and the commune. Medieval theologians saw in the Ecclesia Matrix the pattern of the heavenly Jerusalem come down to earth†. The Church is the sacrament of salvation, a sign to all people of creation redeemed by Christ and of divine order restored to a world disordered by sin. Thus, the church building, which was a visible symbol of the entire Church Suffering, Militant and Triumphant, embraced and ordered all of creation in its iconography and decoration, and it stood as a sacramental sign of the Church herself. As the Gradual from the Dedication of the Church put it: “Locus iste a Deo factus est, inaestimabile sacramentumâ€. This ecclesiological point is often missed by commentators who are all swift to cite Abbot Suger’s evocation of the celestial City in his new church. The Church, however, is – as the Vatican II document Lumen Gentium reminds us – both on pilgrimage here on earth, straining for her final glory with Christ and the saints, and also the already immaculate Bride of Christ united to her Head and Bridegroom.
This eschatological hope is, of course, vividly embodied in the Gothic cathedral. Von Simson states that “the church is, mystically and liturgically, an image of heaven†, particularly the vision presented in Revelation of the “holy city, the new Jerusalem coming down from God out of heaven†(21:2). The church’s many pinnacles, gables, niches and turrets evoke the “many mansions†in the Father’s house . Over the great west doors, a tympanum depicting Christ in Majesty and the Final Judgement, showed that one entered into the heavenly city having been judged by Christ as worthy. As such, those who entered the cathedral enacted and anticipated their own hoped-for entry into the new Jerusalem. Hence, to cite again from the Dedication liturgy of a church, the church building: “Hic domus Dei est, et porta coeliâ€. Of course, as Von Simson reminds us, a desire to evoke heaven and for the church to stand as a symbol of the new Jerusalem was not unique or new to Gothic architecture; one sees the same impulse in Byzantine and Romanesque buildings, and again very vividly in later Baroque architecture. However, “what distinguishes the cathedral of this epoch from preceding architecture is not the eschatological theme but the different mode of its evocation… it is not sufficient to ask what the Gothic cathedral represents [but] how the Gothic cathedral represents the vision of heaven†. So, we need to return to the metaphysical and theological principles that underline the Gothic imagination, and how that was given form in the Gothic cathedral.
Continued in part 3: The beauty and order of the Gothic cathedral
The Theology and Metaphysics of the Gothic Cathedral – part 1
by Br Lawrence Lew, O.P.The British philosopher Alain de Botton has written that “Any object of design will give off an impression of the psychological and moral attitudes it supports… in essence what works of design and architecture talk to us about is the kind of life that would most appropriately unfold within and around themâ€. Given this basis to our evaluation of all architecture, and especially sacred architecture, it seems to me vital that we pay attention to the cultural and philosophical milieux which give rise to various forms of architecture. For a beautiful building that transcends the merely functional is a work of art, which expresses deeper realities. An architect, then, is an artist whose art is that of organizing structures, giving it form, to create a beautiful space which can be enjoyed aesthetically. The beautiful space, so arranged by the art of the architect, is then enjoyed by those who walk through the space, so that it becomes, in a sense, a living and enduring work of art with which we interact. Thus the French philosopher Etienne Gilson says that “architecture is the art of that which is to last as music is the art of that which is to pass awayâ€. In what follows, I wish to discuss those metaphysical ideas that underlie a great Gothic cathedral, and consider the theology and weltanschauung that informed the medieval master mason.
The medieval vision & symbolism
St Thomas Aquinas famously said that “pulchra enim dicuntur quae visa placentâ€, ‘beautiful things are those which please when seen’. As such, beautiful things, which participate in God’s beauty and receive their proper beauty from him, was apprehended through the human senses, and especially through one’s sight. Sight is an important part of understanding the medieval world view, and the vision of God, by which St Thomas meant that the glorified human intellect can come to know God “as he isâ€, is central to Scholastic theology, for “the ultimate beatitude of man consists in the use of his highest function, which is the operation of his intellectâ€. Hence, St Thomas asserts that “the blessed see the essence of Godâ€. Thus, to know God – in so far as creatures are capable of doing so – is to ‘see’ God, just as we might say ‘I see’ when we mean that we have understood something. Therefore, Otto von Simson notes that “the Gothic age, as has often been observed, was an age of visionâ€.
Nevertheless, it is important to note that St Thomas affirms that “it is impossible for God to be seen by the sense of sight, or by any other sense, or faculty of the sensitive power†because God is incorporeal. Hence, God’s essence is not seen by our eyes. However, our eyes can “receive some form representing God according to some mode of similitude; as in the divine Scripture divine things are metaphorically described by means of sensible thingsâ€. Therefore, the medieval imagination is suffused with a ‘sacramental’ view of the world, so to speak, in which corporeal things represent incorporeal things, and it is through the material that we can perceive the spiritual. Abbot Suger, who was responsible for what is often recognized as the first Gothic church, said that his abbey church of St Denis transformed “that which is material to that which is immaterialâ€. This idea, which had been expounded by Blessed Dionysius the Areopagite, is firmly rooted in the Incarnation, and following in this tradition, St Thomas would say that, “our intellect, which is led to the knowledge of God from creatures, must consider God according to the mode derived from creaturesâ€, and, “signs are given to men, to whom it is proper to discover the unknown by means of the knownâ€. This is possible because created things participate in the truth, beauty and goodness of God. As St Thomas, commenting on Dionysius’ The Divine Names says, creaturely beauty is nothing other than the “likeness of divine beauty participated in thingsâ€. This fundamental idea, which permeates the practice of medieval art, is what lead Abbot Suger to say that “the dull mind rises to truth through that which is materialâ€, thus giving a strong symbolic, even ‘sacramental’ sense, to the arts. Émile Mâle, in his study of the religious art of thirteenth-century France, thus said that “mediaeval art was before all things a symbolic art, in which form is used merely as the vehicle of spiritual meaningâ€. The chief form of this symbolic art that dominates the landscape of the Middle Ages, is the cathedral, on which we shall concentrate in this essay.
We must first consider what is meant when we speak of medieval art as symbolic. Since the Middle Ages, the word ‘symbol’ has come to be used to indicate something that points to something else, or to indicate something, rather like a street sign or a traffic signal. As Von Simson notes, “for us the symbol is the subjective creation of poetic fancy†and, as Tillich notes, “much of what previously had symbolic power has become meaninglessâ€. However, for the medievals, and indeed as it ought to be for Catholics, “the concept of symbol has a deeper, more comprehensive sense, because it intends to present and describe a real means of communication between God and humanity under the aspect of signâ€. This is to say that the symbol – and in this case we mean the Gothic cathedral – is not just an earthly reminder or signpost of heavenly realities, but rather it is the ‘en-fleshing’ in worldly matter of heavenly realities. As in the Incarnation the eternal Word communicated with humankind in the flesh, so God continues to communicate his truth to us through material signs and visible means. For, Von Simson argues, the medievals understood that “the physical world as we understand it has no reality except as a symbol… symbol is the only objectively valid definition of realityâ€. This metaphysical sensitivity characterizes the medieval artistic vision, so that the Gothic cathedral is not to be primarily understood in functional or socio-economic or aesthetic terms, but in metaphysical and theological terms, and one has to ask what truth the cathedral symbolizes; how does God communicate with us in its beauty and form? Hence, Von Simson says, “the medieval artist was committed to a truth that transcended human existence. Those who looked at his work judged it as an image of that truthâ€.This strong symbolic sense, which is redolent of a Catholic understanding of sacramentals, the theology of the Incarnation, and the philosophical idea of participation, is central to any grasp of the Gothic cathedral and its architecture. I would argue that this was largely lost after the Reformation, and it needs to be re-discovered. For a church is not built just as a theatre for the sacred drama of Liturgy, nor merely as a badge of our cultural identity, nor even as a didactic ‘worship space’, but it is, as the medievals saw it, a transformation of space and matter so that the church building makes visible and truly communicated in its very physical form the metaphysical reality of redeemed Creation, which is sacramentally made visible in God’s holy Church.
Continued in Part 2: the Eschatological vision of the Gothic Cathedral
Some further details in relation to the Patrick’s Street7Paul’s Street development in Cork:
Good news from An Bord Pleanala: The Bord has refused permission for the erection of a glass box opposite St. Peter and Paul’s in Cork City:
http://www.pleanala.ie/search/quicksearch.php?q=PL+28.230141&case_scope=all&include_reports_etc=1
Further examples from the Cram Ferguson of Boston portfolio can be seen here:
And a third project by Ethan Anthony of Cram Ferguson, Boston
St. John Neumann, Farragut, Tennessee
“St. John Neumann Catholic Church, a Romanesque-style Church that seats over 1,000, is currently in the final phase of completion. The building will include a Day Chapel and an Adoration Chapel. St. John Neumann Church is inspired by Romanesque churches of the Burgandy region in France, which saw the finest and earliest development of Romanesque architecture.”
(A beautiful Romanesque structure, again, with a very nice stone and the use of the orange tiled roof is another beautiful aspect of the building. The ornamental additions at the roofline as also an important inclusion.)A further project of Ethan Anthony of Cram Ferguson, Boston
Our Lady of Walsingham, Houston, Texas
“This recently completed new Gothic church in roughly hewn Texas limestone is located in the Spring Branch section of Houston, Texas, off Wirt Road. The church accomodates 300 worshippers and celebrants. One of the transepts houses a shrine to Our Lady of Walsingham and was built to the exact size of the legendary Walsingham Holy House, destroyed by Henry VIII during the Reformation. Carpentry and stonework are in the manner of medieval churches found near the site of the Walshingham miracle. Stained glass was made by the Willet Studio in Philadelphia. Gargoyles by local sculptors ward off evil spirits from the four corners of the tower.”
(Do again note the stone and the detailing around the doors and windows.)
(Note the timber roof.)
(The addition of a timber porch mounted with a cross was a nice touch.)
Thursday, April 30, 2009
A Look at the Architectural Work of Ethan Anthony and HDB/Cram and Ferguson
by Shawn TribeThe topic of sacred architecture has been raised here quite a bit of late, specifically as it pertains to the sanctuary and altar. However, recently I was reminded again of some work by the architect Ethan Anthony particularly, and HDB/Cram and Ferguson generally, which struck me. Specifically I am thinking of the architecture Syon Abbey in Virginia — an abbey that follows the Benedictine rule, but whose monks are not in full communion with Rome (and while I feel compelled to mention this, my sole concern is for the architecture).
HDB/Cram and Ferguson, who our own architectural correspondent, Matthew Alderman, has often made reference to, are to my mind a firm which has produced some of the very finest examples of modern day sacred architecture in traditional styles. I have been particularly pleased by their approach to mediaeval forms of ecclesiastical architecture. Indeed, too often post-gothic revival attempts at these styles come across rather poorly and blandly — no doubt for pragmatic reasons; namely the money made available for a project by those commissioning it. That is not the case here. (This said, I also want to be clear that I am not disparaging the other fine architects and architectural firms that exist, and which we have often featured here upon the NLM.)
If I were to analyze why these particular projects have been so successful, I believe a significant factor is the traditional materials they employ. Quality stone, as would be seen in traditional architecture of this variety, features prominently in these projects — stone of rather pleasing varieties which have a particular warmth and inviting quality to them I would add. In addition to this, there is a particular attention to the architectural details that made these styles so particularly appealing historically, be it in the details of the forms themselves or simply in the colours employed.
Of course, rather than simply discuss this, what seems best is to simply show you the projects in question, with these considerations in mind, letting you make your own considerations.
As I have often noted of recent, the project of giving consideration to why certain manifestations of the sacred arts and architecture are particular edifying is an important exercise, especially for those of you in a position to commission these things, or who might be in the future. I am hopeful that by bringing these various examples to you in the various realms of sacred art, it will assist you in your future projects and pursuits, giving you, even if only in a small way, some standard of judgement.
With that, the NLM is pleased to present to you three projects of HDB/Cram and Ferguson. (The descriptions come from the website of the architects.)
Syon Abbey, Copper Hill, Virginia
“Syon Abbey is a community of Benedictine monks located on the first ridge of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia, near Roanoke. In early 2000, HDB was commissioned to design a Gothic Church and monastic buildings. The designs were inspired by our study of ruined English monasteries. Constructed from imported Spanish limestone, the monastery was completed in the fall of 2007.”
(Please note that this picture shows the building still as a work in progress, not yet complete. Note the stone and its warm tonality, and the detailing on the tower, the rose window and also above the door, as well as the proportions of the structure.)
