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 Why Are There So Many Ugly Churches? | An interview with Moyra Doorly, author of No Place For God | August 13, 2007 
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Journalist and architect Moyra Doorly is the author of No Place For God: The Denial of the Transcendent in Modern Church Architecture (Ignatius Press, 2007), a critique and examination of the banality and ugliness that is evident in so many modern Catholic parishes and cathedrals. In No Place For God, Doorly traces the principles of modern architecture to the ideas of space that spread rapidly during the twentieth century, seeing a parallel between the desacralization of 
the heavens (and consequently of churches) and the mass inward search for a god
of one's own. Carl E. Olson, editor of IgnatiusInsight.com, recently
interviewed Doorly about her book and some its main points of emphasis.
IgnatiusInsight.com: You have a background in architecture and are also a convert to the Catholic Faith. Can you tell me a bit about your interest in architecture, your journey to Catholicism, and the relationship, if any, between the two? Doorly: Architecture is interesting because of the power it has. Buildings can inspire wonder or dread, and either enhance or diminish the lives of the people who use them. My journey to Catholicism began as a flight from a series of nightmarish, New Age inspired experiences. The only connection between the two I can think of is a visit, during the first few months, to a Modernist-style parish church which made me gasp with horror and ask 'What have they done?' IgnatiusInsight.com: I suspect that some readers might think that No Place For God a bit polemical. But it clearly echoes and voices the frustrations felt by many Catholics. What has been the reaction so far to the book? Doorly: Some readers might think that. But Relativist church buildings, which proclaim by their form and aesthetic that they are no place for God, can provoke strong reactions. At any rate, it's too soon to tell how it's been received. (For example, copies have only just arrived in the UK.) IgnatiusInsight.com: When did "The Great Building Disaster", as you describe it, begin, and what were its philosophical, theological, and cultural roots? Doorly: The disaster began when the spirit of Relativism, as embodied in Modernist architecture, met the 'spirit of Vatican II'. Both share the desire to discard tradition and break radically from the past, to dismantle the boundaries and dissolve the forms.  
IgnatiusInsight.com: What are some features of the "architecture of relativist space" and why should ordinary Catholics be familiar with them? Doorly: Ordinary Catholics must already be aware of the changes that have taken place in church architecture over recent decades. The architecture of Relativist space, like the universal model it embodies, is homogenous, directionless and value-free. A Relativist church building downplays or even denies the concept of sacred space, rejects linear forms, and is designed so that every part of it appears to be of equal importance. Outside it will resemble the local library or sports stadium, thereby proclaiming 'nothing special here'. Inside the people 'gather round' the plain and unadorned altar, having hardly noticed as they passed the Tabernacle, and the message is the same. Once gathered, there is apparently nowhere 'beyond' to aim for because the circular or semi-circular liturgical space cannot suggest this possibility. The subjectivism of the Modern Age favours circular forms because in a Relativist universe there is no truth 'out there'. The denial of the transcendent vision is inherent in the form of the contemporary church building and the space it creates. This same blocking of the route to the transcendent is also the result of sanctuary re-orderings in traditional churches. IgnatiusInsight.com: Who is E.A. Sovik and why is he (a non-Catholic) so important to understanding why there are so many ugly Catholic churches today? Doorly: In 1773 the Lutheran architect E.A. Sovik published Architecture for Worship in which he laid out his reasons for dismantling the traditional form of the church building and replacing it with the 'centrum' or worship space for 'the people'. Sadly his ideas where widely adopted by many Bishops' Conferences as the model for new Catholic churches at the time and since. IgnatiusInsight.com: The recently built Our Lady of the Angels Cathedral in Los Angeles has been very controversial here in the United States. In what ways does it give shape, so to speak, to what you call the "Relativist Church Building"? Doorly: The new cathedral is designed to be more 'inclusive and universally appealing than specifically Catholic' said one official of the Los Angeles Archdiocese. According to the brochure, the cathedral is 'for people' and is 'a place for everything that ennobles the human spirit; fine art, music, folk craft worship and more'. One question must be asked. Why build a Catholic cathedral that has as one of its central aims not to be specifically Catholic? To aim for universal appeal is a Relativist impulse borne of the belief that all religious traditions are equally valid, that there's 'nothing special' about Catholicism and nothing special about God. In Los Angeles Cathedral it seems that only Man is special. IgnatiusInsight.com: Some modern church architecture has been based on the premise that it reflects a more accurate understanding of the worship of the early Christians. How did this notion come about and how accurate is it? Doorly: This notion is entirely mistaken. Again it is a Modernist impulse to discard two millennia of tradition in an attempt to return to the imagined simplicity and sense of community enjoyed by an ancient age. In the early Church people gathered in houses because church building was illegal. The early Church did not allow Catechumens into the main body of the church and the entirely 20th century novelty of Mass facing the people would have seemed an alien practice IgnatiusInsight.com: Not a few modern Catholic churches have been designed and then defended as having been built for the benefit of "the people". Any truth to that claim? Doorly: Never trust anyone who claims that some entirely new and radical way of doing things is for the benefit of 'the people'. They always mean that the benefit is for themselves. IgnatiusInsight.com: The final chapter of No Place for God is a plea for a return to ad orientum—the priest and people together facing East in liturgical worship. How vital is facing liturgical east to a re-appropriation of good church architecture? Doorly: The return to ad orientum--the priest and people together facing East in liturgical worship is vital if the transcendent vision is to be reclaimed. Turn Again Father. IgnatiusInsight.com: Any signs of hope when it comes to church architecture? Doorly: There is definite hope. A new generation of younger scholars and priests is beginning to ask these questions and draw on the magnificent tradition of the Church both in writing and practice. Churches are beginning to be re-re-ordered by reversing the stripping of the altars that has taken place. Secular architects began abandoning the principles of Relativist space thirty years ago. Church architects can do the same given the lead by those who commission the designs. Related IgnatiusInsight.com Articles and Excerpts: • A Great Building Disaster | Excerpt from No Place For God | Moyra Doorly • The Altar and the Direction of Liturgical Prayer | Excerpt from The Spirit of the Liturgy | Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger • How Should We Worship? | Preface to The Organic Development of the Liturgy by Alcuin Reid, O.S.B. | by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger • Foreword to U.M. Lang's Turning Towards the Lord: Orientation in Liturgical Prayer | Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger • The Mass of Vatican II | Fr. Joseph Fessio, S.J. • Walking To Heaven Backward | Interview with Father Jonathan Robinson of the Oratory • Does Christianity Need A Liturgy? | Martin Mosebach | From The Heresy of Formlessness: The Roman Liturgy and Its Enemy • Music and Liturgy | Excerpt from The Spirit of the Liturgy | Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger • Rite and Liturgy | Denis Crouan, STD • The Liturgy Lived: The Divinization of Man | Jean Corbon, OP • The Latin Mass: Old Rites and New Rites in Today's World | Anthony E. Clark, Ph.D. • Worshipping at the Feet of the Lord: Pope Benedict XVI and the Liturgy | Anthony E. Clark, Ph.D. • Reflections On Saying Mass (And Saying It Correctly) | Fr. James V. Schall, S. J. • Liturgy, Catechesis, and Conversion | Barbara Morgan Moyra Doorly, an architect who lives in England, is also a Catholic journalist and writer in the UK. She has written for various popular publications, including The Guardian, The New Statesman, and Tatler. If you'd like to receive the FREE IgnatiusInsight.com e-letter (about every 1 to 2 weeks), which includes regular updates about IgnatiusInsight.com articles, reviews, excerpts, and author appearances, please click here to sign-up today! |
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