6 Replies to “A Primer on Church Architecture”

  1. Interesting features.

    I applaud the large baptistry, stone floor (as depicted), and bell tower.

    Lots of room for more pipes in that expanded loft over the narthex, but those extra-long pews seem awkward. (Do they even have room for kneelers on those steps? Doesn't look like it.) I'd rather have more flexibility with choirs and scholae singing there. Count me a doubter on the need for choir members to "leave" the sacred space to get downstairs, and process through the narthex to get back into the nave.

    Curious decision about a somewhat lower ceiling and two rows of columns, one that creates sight-line difficulties. I wonder about the acoustics between the columns, but with tiled floors and wood seats, it's probably minimal.

    An interesting interpretation/derivation of traditional with just a dash of a few awkward modern ideas.

  2. Thanks Jeffrey, this will not be the "final" design. In fact our ceiling will be higher to conform to Pythagoras' rules and the ceiling arching will cover the "dead" spaces that are at the end of the crucis apse and the back. Some modifications are forthcoming but the idea is a truly classical church.

  3. As a parishioner of OLMC, I agree that there are some awkward parts in the design shown in the video.

    There are two reasons for this: First, the design in the video is somewhat outdated. Our Chapelmaster has been working with the architect on acoustics, and the current design includes a higher roof and a more well-proportioned nave. He's also working on how the choir loft will be laid out, and it will not look much like it does in the video (BTW, our current loft also has no kneelers, but we have tough knees and offer it up!) Second, it is not, in fact, a totally new building. We are for financial reasons "reconfiguring" our current Church (a nasty, low-ceilinged pole barn we bought off a Protestant group some years ago), which brings with it some additional restrictions on the design. The Narthex is not truly a narthex – it's more a cry room (my guess is the average age in our parish is somewhere around 12 – lots and lots of babies) – so it's not entirely outside the sacred space. The long pews are the pews we already own – it's not in the budget to replace them anytime soon.

  4. "The Narthex is not truly a narthex – it's more a cry room …"

    Just for reference, many pastors and liturgists are rethinking the whole cry room space. My own take is that it's an unfortunate post-conciliar development we shouldn't have borrowed from Protestants. Traditionally, people would take fussy children outside to calm them.

    Cry rooms like this tend to be first stops rather than fall-back positions. They can accumulate cereal, books, stains, and such. Sometimes they attract teens and "casual" worshipers. It's not unheardof for elderly people to use them, too.

    It's a question whether you'd really want to have people walking through your "cry room" on the way to the nave. An alternate plan is an enclosed nursery not far from the nave.

    Do you need pews in a choir loft? Good chairs, perhaps with independent kneelers on the edge of the loft rail?

  5. It sounds like the modifications being considered are designed to address some of the issues that caught my eye and mind when I saw the video and that have been noted here.

  6. I've attended that church with babies, and it's not a cry room in the sense you are thinking. It's more of a climate controlled entryway/hallway area outside of the sacred space. The church is located in Colorado, and taking a young baby outside year round would never work.

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