Sacred spaces: designing America's churches

Christian Century, June 15, 2004 by Gretchen T. Buggeln

AMERICAN CHURCH architecture is wonderfully varied, it includes rickety storefront assembly halls and megachurch complexes, diminutive country churches and massive Gothic piles. Our ideas about worship space come from our different religious traditions, our social enclaves, our sense of history (or lack of it), and our personal worship experiences and desires.

Despite this variety, most American Christians visualize "church" in more or the less the same way: as a rectangular building with a tower or spire, containing a rectangular sanctuary with pews in straight lines facing an elevated pulpit and choir loft. For two centuries most American churches have taken this form. Several architectural styles have dominated the landscape. Colonial revival buildings (white clapboard or red brick, with white pillars in front) are perennially popular. The Gothic style, despite its Roman Catholic overtones, has also been fashionable among Protestants since the mid-19th century. Gothic churches generally have spires or crenellated towers, pointed arches, buttresses, and rectangular or cruciform sanctuaries with vaulted ceilings.

In the late 19th century, Protestant congregations popularized the "auditorium church." In her engaging book on this period, Jeanne Halgren Kilde of Macalaster College explores the development of the auditorium church, showing how the style grew out of urban congregations' desire for heartfelt, accessible and participatory worship. These buildings were often Romanesque--rambling, rough stone structures with multiple towers and round-topped arches. Inside they incorporated the lessons of theater design. Sanctuaries were radial-plan amphitbeaters with large stages, highly visible organs and choir lofts, dramatic lighting, comfortable seats and harmonious and colorful decor. Recognizing a need for family ministry and urban outreach, architects integrated parlors, lecture halls, sports facilities, locker rooms and classrooms into the church complex. Examples of this style include Pilgrim Congregational Church in Cleveland (1894) and Trinity Methodist Episcopal in Denver (1888).

The auditorium church and its associated style of worship faded in popularity after World War I. Many Protestants desired a return to a more formal service, and liturgical formality called for architectural formality. Churches erected at this time, often in the Gothic style, have large, formal, high-ceiling sanctuaries that focus the congregation's attention on the liturgical center of worship rather than on fellow worshipers.

By the mid-20th century, another trend emerged. Traditional, formal church buildings seemed stale and inappropriate to many. Next to modern public buildings, "old-fashioned" churches appeared hopelessly obsolete. Dissatisfaction with older forms stemmed also from a new understanding of worship and community. The new liturgical ideal, based on early Christian precedent, was the "gathered church," a body of believers that comes together for fellowship and participatory worship. Architects and building committees responded accordingly.

Architectural reform in this period was guided by denominational committees, satellite departments of the National Council of Churches and architects' associations. Big, drafty sanctuaries, they argued, could not foster the desired sense of community. Their model church was a small one, with a horizontal emphasis, accommodating no more than a few hundred in a circular worship space that encouraged a sense of belonging.

The modern style seemed to offer considerable advantages. Innovative geometry and plain surfaces would challenge complacency. Industrial materials made structures cheaper. Smaller spaces would draw congregations together. The "honest" use of natural materials added warmth to otherwise stark surfaces.

There are excellent examples of churches from this era, such as the buildings of Eliel and Eero Saarinen in Columbus, Indiana (Tabernacle Church of Christ, 1942; North Christian, 1964), a city known for its splendidly effective embrace of modern arehitceture.

But most attempts at modern church buildings were less successful. Modernism presented both conceptual and practical challenges for congregations and architects. For instance, academic modernism celebrates individual experience, yet churches are supposed to promote community. Proclaiming "form follows function," modernism heralded the death of ornament, yet ornament in many Christian traditions is essential to worship and group identity. Cool modern design also demands more mental work from worshipers, who are often unprepared for the task.

To make matters worse, middle-brow building committees aim architects rarely adopted modernism as a coherent design scheme. Modern churches may temporarily have looked "up-to-date," but in the end they proved failures. I blow of several churches commonly referred to (by church members!) as "the ugliest church in Christendom," and they are all modern. It may be possible to play with Gothic or neoclassical details and still produce a building with character. Modernism, perhaps like any plain style, is harder to get right. The bad buildings look really bad; they are bland, uninspired spaces without clear focal points.