Chapter XXIII: Religious Ideas for the Architect

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N the whole, the architects are less to blame than the churches for failing to make of church buildings successful symbols of religion. They have been quite as zealous as the churches in the reëstablishment of a nobler conception of the church building. In a recent letter, Mr. William Orr Ludlow has discussed this point. "There has been a very distinct tendency on the part of some of the Protestant denominations to consider the church building an auditorium and to make comfort, acoustical qualities and clever arrangement of plan the criterion of excellence. These things are all essential but after all are merely the good body and unless the spirit is conserved, the best part is wanting.

"A building is an expression of purpose and the church building is something more than a comfortable and convenient place for the worship of God. It may be unfashionable in these days to speak of the 'House of God,' but that very fact indicates the lack of appreciation of the real purpose and real ownership of the building.

"If then it really is God's House and not merely a convenient place in which to worship Him, any true architectural expression must recognize the qualities and character of the real owner. If someone builds a house for me and builds it without recognizing anything of my character and tastes, to say the least, he is an unfaithful steward of my funds. To build the House of God and make beauty, dignity and spirituality, as expressed in architecture, entirely secondary to good heating and acoustics is to build God's House without God."

The first religious idea, therefore, for the architect to bear in mind, in planning his church, is that it is to be a House of God. The building as viewed from without or from within should be definitely recognizable as standing for

FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH MONTCLAIR NEW JERSEY

A chancel of exquisite detail. It displays the difficulty of centering attention upon the communion table without making it a definite altar.

religion, an ever present reminder of God. There should never be any question as to whether it might possibly be a post office or any other secular structure. Forms, styles, proportions which have been commonly in use amongst the people for other public purposes, though perhaps in themselves appropriate, should not be used for a church.

For the clear representation of religion, probably no structural feature is so important in the exterior aspect of the church as a tower or spire. Some churches in the Gothic style have been so designed as to produce the aspiring effect without a tower. By the lofty and narrow proportions of the façade, and the prominence of tall, pointed windows, they give an impression of lift and upward reach. But it is diffi cult to do and not often successful. The typical church should have a spire or tower.

Just what interior elements can be utilized to convey the feeling of religion is for each artist to decide for himself. On the whole, probably nothing is so tangibly effective at this point as the planning of some kind of chancel, as already suggested. But the desire and the spirit of the builder is more important than the forms he chooses for his expression. It is in the nature of the case difficult for an ungodly man to build a House of God. Whatever the style the first demand of the building is that it somehow convey a sense of God. In such a church, sometimes at least, men who have come to admire will remain to pray.

In this connection it is worth suggesting that the conception of a church building as a House of God relates itself to two important religious faiths, one ancient and one modern. The Eastern Church has always emphasized the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation. Present-day religious faith emphasizes the conception of the Immanence of God. These are only different forms for solving the same religious problems. The architect should understand something of the present vitality of this present thought of the immanence of God, in its two most important aspects. First, it means that present religion conceives of God as at work creating and recreating the world, especially as actually an energy and influence in the spirits of men. The second aspect is the

thought of God as ever revealing the truth. A House of God should in some sense be a record of the historic triumphs of religion, a statement of old faiths which are more and more confidently held to be true, together with a genuine expectancy of larger light and nobler success yet to come.

A church should have Man in it as well as God in it. It should be a strong and manly structure-honest, dependable, vigorous in all its structural character. It should not be overly decorated nor too delicate. If possible, the structural principle of the building should be clear and evident, rather than obscured or covered up. It is, for instance, to me a very great regret that the heavy masonry arch over the crossing in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New York, cannot be seen. It has been covered with lesser slabs and stones. In an age which has developed so little of such structural stability, I would like to see the very stones that hold the great building up. Let the architect reveal the structure wherever it is possible.

In its symbolism, also, it should have something to glorify the achievements of man and express confidence and hope in the development of man. Without worshiping the saints, we can enlarge and brighten life by vivid recollections of the leaders of the human race. It is not possible or desirable to make of any church a Pantheon or a Hall of Fame. It is possible to put in every church something to connect the religious experience of the present with the spiritual achievements of the great and good in the history of the human conquests of mind and heart.

Tablets, windows, portraits, statues, may be utilized, many or few, according to the scale of the building and the interests of the community, to memorialize those spiritual achievements considered to be especially inspiring by the particular church. The brilliant new reredos of St. Thomas's Church, New York, contains figures of the early political heroes of American life as well as saints of the church. This is one definite way of putting Man into the church.

It is perhaps more difficult to express the other great present conception of man, the ideal of brotherhood. But it must be included in some way. If the theological analogy of