CHAPTER 1
A Call for Bold Leadership inNew Church Building Design
W. Brown Morton III
The Question
When is the last time you saw a newly built Episcopal Church building and saidto yourself, "That is one of the most inspiring buildings I have ever seen?" Ifsuch a time has been rare for you or if you have never had that reaction, youmight ask yourself why.
My work as an architectural conservator has taken me all over the world to helpthoughtful people plan for the future. This planning includes deciding whatexisting buildings to preserve, and when to introduce bold new design intoexisting settings. As a result, I have come to understand something about whatmakes the world's great places and great buildings great. Greatness, throughoutthe history of architecture, has come consistently from bold innovation.Greatness has rarely resulted from timid imitation or complacency, both of whichare subtle forms of cultural cowardice.
So much of recent institutional design in the Episcopal Church is uninspired,boring, and utterly predictable. Both the client and the designer appear to havelost confidence in the idea that the church's architecture can be a powerfulforce in spiritual development. Few building committees perceive spiritual self-confidence and innovation in new church design to an essential manifestation ofprophetic leadership. Instead, we have settled for bland buildings that meetcongregational needs for space and program, but which do little to help ourspirits soar. We may well ask if we have become captives of today's design andconstruction industry. Few new church design and construction projects beginwith the ambitious goal of creating a fresh vision of the New Jerusalem.Instead, we begin with "program" numbers: square-footage, heating and air-conditioning requirements, parking spaces, dollars, and timetables. We thenconfront the sad fact that almost all building components are prefabricated andmass-produced.
Thus, architectural design becomes largely an exercise in figuring out how tomake all the pre-existing pieces fit together. Consider for a moment the tyrannyof the standard 4-foot × 8-foot sheet of plywood and the eight-foot long two-by-four. Look down the eaves line of most post-World War II residentialneighborhood streets and contemplate the rigid conformity that lurks behind thevinyl siding and the brick veneer. Finally, add into this the very necessarysafety demands of today's building codes. There seems, at first glance, littleroom for genius.
Are We Afraid to Dream
Joseph Hudnut, Professor of the History of Architecture and Acting Dean of theFaculty of Architecture at Columbia University from 1926 to 1934, commented,"Architecture tells us not what men were at any period of history, but what theydreamed." Are we afraid to dream? A casual survey of most mainline churchesbuilt since 1950 would suggest that we are. Lining the roadsides and anchoringthe suburban intersections of post-war America are imitations (sometimes timid,sometimes aggressively over-scaled) of earlier architectural styles.
Hudnut also pointed out, "Architecture cannot be explained by social andpolitical circumstances; it is made out of the longings and starvations whichthe soul has endured." Have we forgotten this too? Where something non-traditional is attempted, the result all too often looks as if it was inspiredby a nearby golf club, ski lodge, or motel. Are we neglecting the importantfunction of the church building to represent the refuge we seek in Jesus?
This is not to say that there has been no excellence in innovative church designin the United States in the last half-century. There certainly has. Regrettably,it is the exception not the rule. And I must ask why most building committeesare content with a new building that is a feeble echo of an earlier style or abland adaptation of a nearby community center?
There are three possible explanations. First, traditional church architecturefeels comfortable to us and at the same time conveys an unspoken sense of pastauthority. Second, "modern" architecture conveys to many Christians somethingdauntingly secular. And third, we appear to lack confidence that our ownexperience of the living God is vibrant enough to fuel an authentic newexpression in church building design.
The Easy Comfort of Tradition
Traditional church architecture feels comfortable to us because it is so veryfamiliar. Many of the world's best-preserved historic buildings are religiousbuildings. Most of them were the result of bold and innovative design in theirown eras, seeking to express some newly valued perspective of God to those whobuilt them. We perceive them, rightly, as links to the historical traditions offaith and icons of past practice. However, we fail to appreciate that we cannever recapture the past or directly participate in the faith perspective of anearlier era. We can learn from the past, but we can never duplicate it.
Our Bubble Called "Now"
We humans live each moment of our lives in a constantly moving bubble we call"now." It is always "now" for us. Yesterday was "now" when we were there.Tomorrow will be "now" for us when we get there. Now is the only moment in whichanything is possible for us. We can never remain behind in a past moment oradvance prematurely into a future one. Our reality has been established by theunique interface between linear time, which we know as "chronology," andcircular time, which we know as "process" or "becoming."
The ancient Greeks referred to these two kinds of time as chronos and kairos.Most of us are more familiar with chronos than we are with kairos Chronos islinear and sequential. Chronos measures one thing after another. It marks aplace on an unrepeating continuum, but carries no suggestion of value. Kairos,on the other hand, is a circular measure of time. It denotes where something isin the cosmic cycle of conception, birth, adolescence, maturity, deterioration,and death. The "something" can be a natural event, such as a season of the yearor the life of a flower. Kairos marks a stage in the life cycle of anindividual, a community, also of an idea, a political system, a technology, atheology, a liturgical practice, or an architectural style. These two verydifferent, although always tangent, aspects of time—chronos and kairos—redefinethe fingerprint of every place at every moment.
Van Gogh's Sunflowers
We human beings also "think" historically. We tend to perceive reality throughthe lens of our own personal experience and the collective experience of ourparticular community, group, or era. Since each moment is unrepeatable, by thistime tomorrow, next week, or next year, we all will have moved on from this one.Our life experience and our perception of reality will have been modified by theaccrual of our additional experience. September 11, 2001 is clear example ofthis phenomenon. We can never return to the America of September 10. Once wehave seen a Van Gogh painting of sunflowers, we see sunflowers in the gardendifferently than before. Similarly, in terms of church architecture, because wehave lived in the twentieth century, because we have wrestled with the spiritualimplications of the Holocaust, Hiroshima, human travel in outer space, and nowinternational terrorism, we can never be people for whom past styles—the Gothic,Georgian, or Greek Revival—are authentic expressions of who we actually are asChristians now.
The Traditional Versus the Modern
Since "modern" architecture conveys to many Christians something thoroughlysecular, many avoid it as a solution to contemporary church building design.Present day "traditional" and "modern" architectural styles face in oppositedirections—traditional styles look to the past while modern styles focus on thepresent or the future.
New buildings in traditional styles seek to establish a visual connectionbetween the present moment and an historical period. Buildings imitating theGeorgian style of eighteenth-century America link us to our Colonial culture andto the lofty ideals of the Revolutionary era. Georgian buildings make us feelsafe, and American. Georgian churches, particularly in places such as Virginia,were icons, even in their own time, of established Anglican orderliness. Thebest of these churches shared a consistent and comforting design vocabulary withthe fine houses of the upper class. The sturdy "Protestant" liturgicalarrangement of the interiors, with emphasis on the Word and preaching, reflectedthe particular evangelical spirit of the times. Georgian churches were true totheir own era and have worn well across the centuries. Imitating the Georgianstyle in new church building design is a favorite choice of many congregations.It is a safe choice, a familiar choice, and it can be a visually pleasingchoice. However, it can also send the message that God is Georgian, aproposition that may sit well with some Episcopalians, but which may strikeothers as suffocatingly stuffy.
Starting in the second quarter of the nineteenth century, the Church of Englandexperienced the Oxford Movement, which soon spread across the entire AnglicanCommunion. The Oxford Movement was a reaffirmation of the medieval heritage ofthe church: liturgy, vestments, and pre-Reformation architectural forms. Thearchitectural style of choice during this period became the Gothic Revival. Thefeeling and appearance of many new Episcopal churches, throughout the rest ofthe century and well into the twentieth century, backed away from theProtestant, rational simplicity of the Georgian and Greek Revival periods andwrapped themselves in the mystery of medieval pointed arches and rood screens.As the church re-embraced early expressions of sacramental worship, elaboratealtars complete with reredos, and banks of stained glass windows, tookprominence again, and the pulpit moved to one side of the choir.
All this was an authentic architectural expression of a genuine liturgicalphenomenon within the church that matched perfectly other artistic achievementsin literature, art, and music from what we now refer to as the Romantic Period.Indeed, the two-centered Gothic arch has become a sign and symbol of "church"even more deeply imbedded in our collective memory than the golden arches ofMcDonalds is of fast food. And this memory is so powerful that many newchurches, often ones on a modest budget, are designed with little more than astripped-down Gothic arch in a prominent location, the hope being that this willmake the structure look "churchy." Surely there are fresh contemporary designsolutions that can also clearly communicate dignity and reverence.
What Could Glory Look Like?
Secularism truly has won the day if we are reduced to using paste-onarchitectural motifs from centuries past to express our faith. The Mexicanarchitect Luis Barragán, who died in 1988, has been quoted as saying,
I find it alarming that architectural publications have deleted from their pageswords like Beauty, Inspiration, Magic or Bewitchment, as well as concepts likeSerenity, Silence Amazement and Intimacy. All these are nestled in my soul andthough I am fully aware that I have not done them complete justice in my work,they have never ceased to be my guiding lights.
Barragán designed many outstanding buildings, largely in Mexico, includingchurches.
We appear to lack confidence in the proposition that our own experience of theliving God is sufficiently vibrant to fuel authentic, new expressions in churchdesign. The sources of this lack of confidence are complex.
Our faltering can be traced back to the Enlightenment of the eighteenth centuryin Europe at which time the idea that "man is the measure of all things" finallygained precedence in the popular mind over the centuries-old belief that "God isthe measure of all things." This shift in basic belief from sacramental realityto scientific reality finally tore the veil of the temple into entirely separatepieces—the sacred and the secular. Although a few brave voices in the lastcentury, such as C. G. Jung and Thomas Merton have tried to mend this tear, wenow live in a world where science mistrusts mystery. This has affected us all.
The realm of faith expression has become so compartmentalized in our daily lifethat we fail to understand it as a possible source for a bold new expression,through design, of the Christian gospel. We have become hostages to thecontemporary meaning of the word "appropriate." Most greeting cards mailed inDecember say "Seasons Greetings" or "Happy Holidays."
In such a world where we gingerly pick and choose how to visually express ourfaith, lest we offend, it seems to be easier to stick with the tried and truerather than take the risk of delving into the mystery of our own life in Christin search of new material. This must change. We must dare to be different. Wemust dare to show who we really are.
Another source of a lack of confidence in new church building design can befound in the fundamental issue of the nature of divine revelation. SomeChristians feel more comfortable with a theology that suggests that God'srevelation is more or less complete, having taken place in the past. OtherChristians eagerly anticipate God's continuing revelation in the here and now,and in the future. Still others sit uncomfortably on the fence. For the firstgroup, traditional church design is a clear choice. Many in the second groupshrink from exploring new expressions because they do not feel competent inmatters of architectural design and construction and are fearful of making alayperson's mistake.
Learning From the Kingdom Within
How can we overcome our lack of confidence in boldly seeking new expressions inchurch building design? Where can we begin? We can make a start by examining ourown faith experience, individually and collectively, and identify the moments,events, and experiences in which faith has been most meaningful to us. We thenshould carefully analyze those moments, events, and experiences to identify whatexactly gave them such quality. In what way may the following factors havecontributed to that quality: space, volume, light, dark, temperature, humidity,sound, quiet, simplicity, richness, choice of materials, security, intimacy,awe, focal points, and views? In other words, if we believe that intentionalarchitectural design can affect the state of our being, then the questionbecomes, "What can give three-dimensional space sacred qualities?" If we do notbelieve that design can affect our inner state, then church architecture need beno more than an exercise in "program" and numbers.
T. S. Eliot, in his Four Quartets, characterized the church of a long-abandonedreligious community in England called Little Gidding as a place "where prayerhas been valid." There is the seed of a very important idea in that statement.Something about the abandoned church building at Little Gidding stillcommunicated the spiritual work of those who used it, long after they and theirspecific words and actions had fallen silent. The important idea is this: It ispossible to intentionally design and construct sacred environments thatencourage and sustain successful spiritual development. An expression from theSufi tradition in Islam says, "The hen does not lay eggs in the market place."Nothing is wrong with a market place. It is just not the optimum locale for egglaying. What might be an optimum locale for prayer, for sacrament, forcontemplation, for rejoicing? Just how can we design and construct new spaces tosupport vigorously our ongoing growth in God? This is the challenge.
Spiritual Euthenics
There is a fancy word for a very spiritually useful concept: euthenics. In athin little book, The Superior Person's Book of Words, the author crisplyidentifies euthenics as "the science of improving the condition of humans byimproving their surroundings. In contradistinction to environmentalism, which isthe science of improving the surroundings of humans by improving the human."Euthenics can be thought of as helping other people to burst into full bloomthrough design. Why not practice spiritual euthenics as an exercise in Christianministry? Let us improve the spiritual condition of humans by improving theirspiritual surroundings. There is no better place to start than a new church. Oldwisdom will not, in every case, do. Quoting Eliot again, "... last year's wordsbelong to last year's language / and next year's words await another voice."
That voice should be bold. That voice should be strong. That voice should beours and that voice should be faithful.
