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About St. Luke's > Architecture | |||||||||||||
  The Church Building St. Luke's architect was John Sutcliffe (d. 1913) Chronology:
The style is Gothic Revival (an idiom widely used from about the 1830's through the 1920's, especially but not exclusively in the Anglican tradition). Gothic is distinguished from Romanesque most obviously by its use of pointed rather than rounded arches, and these were taken to symbolize the upward movement of prayer and of Christian aspiration generally. The specific phase of Gothic suggested by the window tracery, by the hammerbeam-type roof over the chancel, by the arcades (without capitals on the piers), and by the wooden and stone furnishings is the Perpendicular Gothic of the fifteenth century. Basic units: The nave (to the West) and the chancel (to the East). The chancel is subdivided into the choir and the sanctuary. The short transepts (to the North and South) make the church cruciform (or cross-shaped). Reflections on the architecture and furnishing of St Luke's (by Richard Kieckhefer) Entering a church is a metaphor for entering the presence of God. While the God who transcends all places is present to us in every place, an environment rich in sacred symbols directs our attention and makes us more conscious of the holy dwelling in our midst: Archbishop William Temple noted that we consecrate certain places and times not because they are uniquely sacred, but to remind ourselves that all places and times are sacred. Furthermore, a church provides a place where the assembly of worshipers collectively, not just individuals, can experience God's presence. The Greek word for "church", ekklesia, means "assembly". Whereas the temples of many religions are meant primarily for individuals and secondarily for groups, a church is built chiefly for group worship and only secondarily for personal devotion. Churches are designed in many ways, and there is much to be said for each of the possibilities. Some churches are meant to create a sense of intimacy, while others are designed to inspire a sense of awe and wonder. Some are built chiefly as places for the congregation to focus directly on the clergy and follow the words of the preacher, and some are designed to give people a feeling of contact with others in the congregation, while in yet others the clergy and congregation alike are directed more toward the presence of God. The use of seating may promote a stationary mode of worship, or the design and furnishings may encourage a sense of movement and dynamism. Like any church, St Luke's represents a particular type of church building. Its design grew out of the ideals of the Anglo-Catholic movement, founded in the nineteenth century and still very much alive. Whether one shares all the values of Anglo-Catholicism or not, an understanding of how and why the church is designed as it is--and how its design can be used creatively without simply working against its architectural form--requires knowing something about those values. First, the building we have at St Luke's is one of the largest Episcopal churches in the region, and like any church of its length and height it is meant to arouse a sense of splendor, to evoke a consciousness of God's presence among us. It is meant not so much for intimacy as for awe and wonder. The spirit of Anglo-Catholic builders was very much that of the Psalms: "O Lord, I love the house in which you dwell, and the place where your glory abides" (Ps 26:8), or "I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory" (Ps 63:1-2). One Psalm verse widely cited in the Anglican tradition is "Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness" (Ps 29:2, 66:4, and 96:9, and also I Chronicles 16:29), an evocation of the solemn and celebratory beauty for which a church building is meant as the setting. Another Biblical text sometimes cited in the Anglo-Catholic tradition as a source for reflection on liturgy is the Book of Revelation, where the solemn worship of God enthroned in heaven becomes a model for liturgy in a church--and it is no accident that the east window at St Luke's depicts scenes from Revelation. Secondly, the building is longitudinal in form rather than auditorium-style. It follows one of the oldest traditions of church building, going back to the earliest times when large numbers of Christians worshiped together: to the west lies the long rectangle of the nave, and to the east is the shorter space of the chancel, subdivided into the choir and the sanctuary. At its worst, this arrangement can serve to distance the congregation from the clergy, especially when barriers are set up between one part of the church and another, as in many of the English cathedrals. But it can also allow for a sense of dynamism, and of movement from one type of setting to another. When there are no barriers--and at St Luke's there are none--everyone can move at different moments in the liturgy from one end of the church to another. Approaching the altar represents entering more closely into the presence of God, and coming back from the altar signifies going out into the world. The procession at the beginning of the liturgy, the Gospel procession down into the nave, the Offertory procession (with gift-bearers representing the congregation), the Communion procession, and the recession at the end of the liturgy--all these suggest the dynamism of Christian worship and Christian life. Furthermore, the very structure of the Eucharist is linked to different uses of sacred space: the liturgy of the Word is centered on the west end of the church, and for Communion the congregation moves to the east end, while the Eucharistic Prayer is delivered from one end all the way through to the other. When "nave altar" is used, the effect is to shorten the processional path and create something more closely approximating a unified liturgical space, with the altar and the priests closer to the congregation, and neither the clergy nor the people proceeding up to the sanctuary for Communion. We should not make the mistake of assuming that a particular architectural form is necessarily linked with a specific use or conception. A longitudinal design may promote a sense of movement and dynamism, but it does not guarantee it, nor is this sense impossible in other kinds of church. Processions can take place in any liturgical space, even one laid out as an undivided square or circle. But the longitudinal plan, with its distinction of nave, choir, and sanctuary, more clearly invites what another plan might make more difficult: a dramatic experience of passing from one type of sacred space to another. Thirdly, our church building is richly decorated. The decoration mostly involves coordinated sets of images: there are representative saints of various centuries in the windows, representative preachers depicted on the pulpit, national saints of the British Isles on the reredos behind the altar, and the like. But the decoration is more than mere decoration. One of the hallmarks of the Anglo-Catholic tradition generally is its emphasis on a richly developed vocabulary of sacred symbols, and all the carvings, windows, and other representations in our church are meant as symbols pointing toward God, toward Christ, toward the Church throughout its history. The saints and angels are there as a "cloud of witnesses" (Hebrews 12:1), as representatives and reminders of the connectedness of this particular church with the Church extending through and beyond history. This theme is perhaps more explicitly developed in Eastern Orthodox churches, which glisten with paintings everywhere and declare thereby that the liturgy celebrated here below is a sharing in the eternal liturgy of angels and saints. But this theme is found in our liturgy as well, and in the artistic embellishment of our church. These features of our church can all be taken as strengths; they can also be viewed as problems--or, perhaps more appropriately, as challenges to our understanding and challenges for our creative appropriation of the traditions we have received. First, a church built on a grand scale can be perceived not only as a sacrament of the divine presence but as a monument to clericalism and triumphalism, a glorification of its builders, or a declaration of God's aloof unapproachability. And it will be all that for us, if we think of it in those terms; like any other work of culture, a church has the meaning we allow it to have. Those who prefer a more intimate worship environment may find any larger structure overwhelming, and the larger the building the more the members of the parish must find other ways to promote a spirit of fellowship. Secondly, we sometimes hear that in a church with a long rectangular nave worshipers cannot see each other's faces, only the backs of their heads. That is, of course, quite true. A church with seating arranged in a fan-shape allows members of the congregation to see each other and emphasizes more clearly a sense of contact with others in the assembly. But there are two ways a collectivity can be formed: either by turning toward each other or by turning together toward some common focus of attention. The intention behind the design of a church like St Luke's is very much the latter. (One of the writers who did much to popularize the idea of a round church in which all can see all was the German architect Rudolf Schwarz, but when he actually designed churches his preference was for an elongated shape such as a parabola in which ?no eye looks into another...no man looks to his fellow--all look ahead.?) A comparison sometimes used is that of a band of people gathered at sunrise on a beach, all standing together, and all keenly aware of each other's presence precisely because they are looking in shared excitement not at each other but at the rising sun. Thirdly, the nave of St Luke's is less richly decorated than the chancel, and even on a fairly sunny day the nave can seem a bit dark. The builders meant the nave to lead our attention forward toward the sanctuary. If the nave itself makes an important contribution to the visual ensemble, it is chiefly by the rhythm of the piers or pillars on either side, which replicate the movement of a procession. As in a classical temple, so too in a Christian church of this design, the arcades are reminders that the life of the spirit is dynamic: the Christian assembly moves toward God and moves out into the world, and the church building itself suggests something of that movement. But the distinction between the more adorned chancel and the less ornate nave is also in part the result of historical circumstance. The building is in various ways incomplete, in large measure because the Great Depression left the parish's funds depleted: the hammerbeam-type roof that was meant to extend through the nave is in place only over the chancel; the west tower that one sees on various early depictions of the church was never built; the corbels above the piers were meant to have statues of saints standing on them, but these were never supplied. Thus the church building remains a work in progress, very much like the Church generally or the Kingdom of God. |
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