making some-things new

This time last year our church had a capital campaign to raise funds for a renovation project. Unlike many Catholic parish undertakings these days, ours is not a wreckovation but a real restoration of beauty. The estimated cost was somewhere near $2 million and included much needed repairs (new heating system, roof work, etc.) as well as much appreciated aesthetics.

Rather than going straight into debt, our pastor had the good sense to raise the cash before hand. All costs were raised or pledged by parishoners at Star of the Sea before the first paint brush came out.

Here are some before and during/after pictures.

Before (sorry about how dark it is!):



During/After:



Some things to note:

* marble columns (they aren't solid marble, but who would know any different?)
* Holy Spirit artwork
* the parking lot look to the back wall of the sanctuary is gone
* the sanctuary/altar has been raised (can't really tell looking at the first picture)
* the side altars will have their statues mounted against a white background
* the arches in the church look more natural (wood vs. the black covering you can't make out in the first photo)
* tile covering the sanctuary instead of carpet (again, not visible in these pictures)

There are other improvements, but these are some of my favorite.

St. James Cathedral

Somehow, in passing conversation with a non-Catholic friend, the architecture of our local Bremerton parish (Our Lady Star of the Sea, pictured below) came up. My friend had attended a wedding there once upon a time some ten years ago. But he never forgot what he described as, "One of the most beautiful churches in this area."



To be sure, Our Lady Star of the Sea, is a nice parish. But on the whole, there is nothing particularly remarkable about its elegant, yet simple, structure. So I asked my non-Catholic friend if he had ever been to the St. James Cathedral in downtown Seattle. He said no, and I told him he really should, if he was impressed with Star.

But all of this got me to wondering: What did our cathedral look like prior to its "renovation?"

I have no recollection of there ever being a renovation; but I'd be willing to wager my right leg the altar now sitting in the center of the nave is not to be found in the original blueprints.

Curious, I poked around on the Internet.

Here is a photo taken in 1907:



Notice the beautiful baldacchino, altar rail, and statues of Mary and Joseph (presumably on left and right, respectively).

All of which is no more.

Below is another picture; this one from 1929, still long before Vatican II, the "spirit" of which Modernists would soon use as their carte blanche commission to usher in the jackhammers and usher out the high altar.



And no cathedral would be complete without a side altar...


...side-baldacchino and all.

Contrast these pictures of yester-year with the new look:



Where the high altar used to be, the choir now sits.

In the words of architect Stephen Lee,

"The 1994 renovation and renewal began with an awareness that older church interiors were typically ill-suited to the reformed rites of Vatican II, which call for a change in the focus of liturgical action, to the gathered assembly."

I guess it never occurred to Lee that when a religion focuses liturgical action (i.e. worship) on the people, little room is left for God. Then again, maybe that's giving Lee (& friends) too much credit. Perhaps they were not so naive at all.

Contrast the thoughts of the cathedral's re-designer with then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in his book, The Spirit of the Liturgy:

"The turning of the priest toward the people has turned the community into a self-enclosed circle. In its outward form, it no longer opens out on what lies ahead and above, but is locked into itself...As one of the fathers of Vatican II's Constitution on the Liturgy, J.A. Jungmann, put it, it was much more a question of priest and people facing in the same direction, knowing that together they were in a procession toward the Lord. They did not lock themselves into a circle, they did not gaze at one another, but as the pilgrim People of God they set off for the Oriens, for the Christ who comes to meet us...."

Yeah...

I'll take the design of 1907 over that of 2007 any day.

Achitecture done right; thankfully not Wright

One of the more influential Western architects, Frank Lloyd Wright has left behind a legacy of insipid, uninspiring, flat structures (picture, below). Indeed, when it comes to the style of Wright, the only thing left to marvel at is the boundless adoration and approval his work enjoyed.



(I suspect there is more to the veneration of modernism than simply an American desire to be in vogue. But that is for another day, and another post.)

I wish here to contrast the banality of Wright with the beauty of authentic design.

Take, for example, Duncan G. Stroik Architecture, LLC, based out of Indiana.

See for yourself the transforming power of human desire, effort and creativity at its finest.