challenge and reposition Catholic Church design in the mainstream history of the post-war Modern Movement. How does Proctor s Modern Church go about d

Transcription

1 ROBERT PROCTOR, Building the Modern Church: Roman Catholic Church Architecture in Britain, 1955 to 1975, Ashgate, 2014, ISBN: , 75 A book on post-war Modernist church building in these islands is long overdue. Proctor, who has been researching and publishing scholarly articles on Catholic church design since the early noughties, is probably the best placed to write this overarching volume: as the author modestly states: Catholic post-war architecture in Britain has barely been written yet. Proctor focuses chiefly on the Catholic parish church (continuing a long-standing English preoccupation with that building type). But, unlike previous periods where church design was at the forefront of architectural innovation, the post-war parish church was not. Among historians of the Modern Movement, church design has been relegated to the periphery when set against mainstream post-war social programmes of the welfare state, like housing, schools and hospitals. Post-war religious architecture had, on the whole, been forced to stick to traditional forms (a free-standing church), and even despite seismic liturgical shifts like Vatican II, churches remained monumental public buildings, where aesthetic concerns (as distinct from social and technical) dominated. Proctor s book authoritatively attempts to 123 )

2 challenge and reposition Catholic Church design in the mainstream history of the post-war Modern Movement. How does Proctor s Modern Church go about doing that? Chapters are structured around several subject themes broadly, but not always, set out in chronological order from the 1950s tothemid-1970s. Proctor adopts the theoretical premise that the built church is a product of human reason of the various agents and their influences involved and, in turn also embraces Henre Lefebvre s thesis that space [the church in this instance] is not a neutral container, but a tool of thought and action. Not only is church building set within a Modernist architectural and artistic context (chapter 5 is devoted to church art), but within the complex development of the Catholic Church itself. In addition, Proctor examines the social role of the parish church and pilgrimage shrines. Finally Proctor examines the interrelationship between new church building and civic planning in suburbs and New Towns. By chiefly focusing on the parish church in England and its regions, Proctor examines both the architecturally good and the typical. He helpfully avoids focusing on London. The cultural breadth of the book and its scale is impressive. As a thematic building-type study, it is not as onerous a task as it might have been if it had included the established churches of England, Scotland and Wales (Northern Ireland is not included in the study), or as ubiquitous as post-war housing. Yet the Modern Church ambitiously attempts to tell the story of the buildings of the British Roman Catholic Church : it is in this pan- British approach, from a Scottish architectural-historical perspective alone, where the book sometimes disappoints. In terms of church organisation, there is no British Catholic Church: in 1942, for example, the Bishops Conference of Scotland was established as the national grouping to represent the diocese of the country. Scotland had no de jure position of primate, such as that held by the Archbishop of Westminster in England and Wales, but the two archbishops of St Andrews and Edinburgh, and Glasgow, held seniority. Of course, in this review for a Scottish audience, there is an understandable bias towards Proctor s studies of Scottish churches, especially when they align with the British (chiefly English) context or follow a separate path. It is in the key architectural history chapters ( Modern Church Architecture, Forms of Modernism, Liturgical Change and, to a lesser extent, The Church and the World ) where Proctor develops his multi-layered complex story, peaking in the 1960s with impressive Catholic Church adherence (in contrast with decline in the established churches). This is a story which records creative architects and artists working with an outward facing Catholic Church, set against post-war changes and upheaval in the social make-up of Catholic congregations, the practices and liturgy of the Catholic church (Vatican II reforms) and wider revolutions in architectural forms and methods. The account begins with an overview of the powerful stylistic post-war hangover of Traditionalism in Catholic Church design. In England, historicist architects such as Goodhart-Rendel, F. X. Verlade and Giles Gilbert Scott continued to dominate. The 124 )

3 Byzantine-Romanesque British Catholic tradition is brilliantly illustrated, exampling Manchester and Liverpool as regional tendencies and the Modern Gothic in London. English architect Charles Purcell s 1950s Early English Gothic-inspired St Ninian, Knightswood illustrates Scotland s adherence to this tradition. The origins of Scottish Traditionalist church design, and its strong east west regional divides are not detailed in the book: historically, the neo-byzantine played a very limited role in Scotland. Amid a widespread acceptance of the Modern Movement mainstream architecture in the 1950s, Proctor identifies the tide turning towards Modernism with architects and clergy. A transitional stylistic church design of the mid-late 1950s first developed. The semi-autonomous commissioning structure of the Catholic Church, in which the parish priest commissioned the architect with diocesan approval, established favoured architectural practices: in the west of Scotland Proctor focuses on the 1950s churches of Thomas Cordiner and Gillespie Kidd & Coia (GKC); and in the east, touches very briefly on the work of Reginald Fairlie & Partners and Peter Whiston. Cordiner was the Archdiocese of Glasgow s preferred architect of the 1950s for churches (and schools): his geometric red-brick churches somewhat align with what Proctor brands Municipal Modernism churches that in form and material are not unlike other English civic buildings of the late 1950s, early 1960s. But it is the transitional churches of GKC of the late 1950s where Proctor s main interest lies, and unlike other architectural historians he does not simply disregard them. GKC s St Charles, Kelvinside, he argues is the most impressive British Catholic church of the period, likening it to English neo-gothic contemporaries (countering Gavin Stamp s earlier conclusion that the firm s brick box churches are chiefly mainland European in form and stand apart from the English mainstream). The book then turns to Modernism proper, and examines the reasons why architects and clergy embraced change. Proctor identifies key pre-vatican II turning points. For the Catholic Church in England and Wales, it was Frederick Gibberd s exuberantly Modern, single-volume Liverpool Cathedral design (1960 7) that marked an architectural change with worship in-the-round. The year 1960 was also an architectural and intellectual watershed for the creation of modern Catholic Church architecture, according to Proctor, with the publication of Peter Hammond s influential Liturgy and Architecture, and in 1961 the first magazine issue of Church Building Today edited by the two central figures in the New Churches Research Group (NCRG), architects Robert Macguire and Keith Murray. Two chapters are devoted to pre- and post-vatican II liturgical reforms. Modernism and the Liturgical Movement provides a narrative and an excellent detailed analysis of collaborations between architects, theologians and clergy, while Liturgical Change illustrates the more typical complex and fragmented experiences of the church and clergy in designing churches for reformed worship. Catholic Church liturgical reforms developed 125 )

4 in stages from the 1960s until the mid-1970s. On a more practical level, as Proctor points out, modern buildings were cheaper than traditional ones. Demand for new churches was central to this. Proctor explains that England s peak church building took place in the 1960s, only slowing down in the early 1970s: it was estimated that 600 new Catholic churches were built in England and Wales in the 1960s. The 1950s saw a marked increase in economic immigration from Ireland to Europe, and England witnessed further immigration in the 1960s which led to this Catholic church-building boom. Perhaps because Modern Church chiefly focuses ongkc schurch buildingsin the west of Scotland, the broader social-religious trends nationally are not detailed. Yes, Glasgow s church-building drive in the 1950s was impressive, but more generally in post-war Scotland, it was the geographical shift and spread of Scottish Catholics (alongside their population growth and increased adherence) that impacted most on Scottish church building. The postwar New Towns had a significant impact on the developing Scottish Catholic community, as did the spread and growth of Catholic communities into small towns, particularly in the east of Scotland. So, the general trend (especially after Vatican II reforms, as outlined in chapters 6 and 7) was for church design to follow rational requirements of worship and avoid aesthetic wilfulness. Proctor concludes that the modern church problem was only resolved when the liturgical movement transformed debate reconciling church building with modern architecture. It is in these, and the later chapters, that the strength of the study is to be found. Proctor displays a deep knowledge of the role played by the architect and their interaction with church clients when examining the practice and process of church commissions. For example, his detailed analysis of GKC s church commissions uncovers a breadth of individuality within just that firm. Despite GKC s reformed designs not adhering to his general English narrative (the firm did not appear to engage with the English liturgical reform movement) he forefronts their innovations innovations that revolutionised Scottish church architecture in the mid-1950s with the design of St Paul s, Glenrothes. Proctor explains how GKC became the go-to firm when the parish priest wanted a modern church, and details how Jack Coia presented his assistants designs to the diocese persuading and reassuring bishops and financial secretaries alongside the parish priest (for example at St Patrick s Kilsyth). The contradictions and complexities of GKC s commissions are uncovered: St Paul s, Glenrothes, was heralded by the architectural press as probably the most successful modern church to be built on this side of the English Channel, but criticised by NCRG for evoking traditional Scottish church forms and having a theatrical sanctuary. The NCRG appear to have had little effect on Catholic Church design in Scotland. Similarly, the liturgically conventional plans and traditional forms like St Bride s, East Kilbride, were criticised for straying from the norm. Proctor also details when liturgical arrangements were modified as an afterthought during construction by GKC, such as at St Martin s, Castlemilk, and Our Lady of Good Council, Glasgow: both altered in He concludes 126 )

5 that St Margaret s, Clydebank (1970 2) was the only Catholic church designed specifically for the new liturgy by GKC. Modern Church concludes with two innovative chapters on Devotion and Ritual and Community, which attempt to evaluate the impact of Vatican II reforms for the parishioner. The loss of devotional imagery for the worshipper (single volume worship reduced side chapels and statues) had a negative impact for some. Pilgrimage shrines, however, predictably held on to historicist forms: the evocative Votive Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes, Blackpool, by F. X. Verlade (1955 7) illustrates the continuing power of tradition in religious worship. Modern Scottish Catholic identity is briefly discussed with Basil Spence s unbuilt 1951 design for St Martin sand St Ninian s, Whithorn. Adopting an innovative thematic approach, underpinned by extensive documentary research and brilliant illustration, Proctor s Modern Church, provides for the first time an authoritative and broad account of post-war Catholic Church design in these islands. Given the privileged position post-war churches have in contemporary preservation listing, this will be an important source book for students and heritage professionals. The Scottish modern church has not attracted such detailed academic study or publication yet, but hopefullythepublicationofmodern Church will inspire. Diane M. Watters DOI: /arch )