Fifty years after the Second Vatican Council, architectural historian Robert Proctor examines the transformations in British Roman Catholic church architecture that took place in the two decades surrounding this crucial event. Inspired by new thinking in theology and changing practices of worship, and by a growing acceptance of modern art and architecture, architects designed radical new forms of church building in a campaign of new buildings for new urban contexts. A focussed study of mid-twentieth century church architecture, Building the Modern Church considers how architects and clergy constructed the image and reality of the Church as an institution through its buildings. The author examines changing conceptions of tradition and modernity, and the development of a modern church architecture that drew from the ideas of the liturgical movement. The role of Catholic clergy as patrons of modern architecture and art and the changing attitudes of the Church and its architects to modernity are examined, explaining how different strands of post-war architecture were adopted in the field of ecclesiastical buildings. The church building’s social role in defining communities through rituals and symbols is also considered, together with the relationships between churches and modernist urban planning in new towns and suburbs. Case studies analysed in detail include significant buildings and architects that have remained little known until now. Based on meticulous historical research in primary sources, theoretically informed, fully referenced, and thoroughly illustrated, this book will be of interest to anyone concerned with the church architecture, art and theology of this period.
The ecclesiastical architecture of the past fifty years is often indistinguishable from other types of buildings, as with the Church of St. Madeleine Sophie Barat in Trona, California (1958). Interestingly, while most people can ...
In No Place for God, Doorly traces the principles of modern architecture to the ideas of space that spread rapidly during the twentieth century.
Zens takes apart traditions that have divided the body of Christ into groups, built walls under various guises, and separated people of faith by distinctions that Christ did not author.
By telling the stories behind their modernist churches, the book describes how the buildings both reflected and shaped developments in postwar religion—its ecumenism, optimism, and liturgical innovation, as well as its fears about staying ...
Church Builders It is only out of sacred reality that sacred buildings can grow ... that sacred substance out of which churches can be built must be alive and real...
- Back of the book
HAMMOND , Peter , Liturgy and Architecture , Barrie and Rockliff , 1960 . Towards a Church Architecture , The Architectural Press , 1962 . HELLRIEGEL , Martin , Unto the Altar , Nelson , 1963 . HOFFMAN , Lawrence A , Sacred Places and ...
Vivid original artwork on the cover depicts the four evangelists in full color English texts use the Gregorian formula for the solemn tone
Are you 'evangelizing' in the wrong direction?
The last decade has seen the emergence of a whole new generation of church designs. Covering buildings across the world, Contemporary Church Architecture aims to appeal not only to architects...