The modern, brutalist church architects were really driven not by a desire for authenticity, but by a modernist, iconoclastic ideology. The old world with its fancy churches, lacy vestments, precious art, and Mozartian masses was out. This was a modern world of factories, public housing—a world of  steel and concrete, concrete and steel.

Last month, I was blessed to attend a Writers and Artists Retreat at St Patrick’s Seminary in Menlo Park sponsored by the Benedict XVI Institute. A range of artists poets, architects, dramatists, and writers were present for discussions on faith, liturgy, evangelization, and culture.

Classical architect Duncan Stroik joined us, and over lunch we had an interesting discussion on authenticity in sacred architecture. I posed a question: “Given the low cost and abundance of modern building materials, isn’t it rather dishonest to use them to fabricate old-fashioned-looking churches?” I gave him some examples: When masonry was the only really permanent material for building, walls had to be thick to hold up the high roofs and upper stories. Masonry pillars had to be solid and substantial to hold up the arches that supported the walls above.

Now we have steel. Walls can be thin. Pillars can be slender. In our new church in Greenville, South Carolina, the architect used steel-frame construction but padded out the walls with an extra layer of steel and layers of plasterboard to give the illusion of depth and weight. “Isn’t that sort of Disney-land type pastiche? Isn’t it fake? If it’s steel and plasterboard should the walls be thin and the pillars slender? Indeed, why have pillars at all because you don’t need arches to support the upper walls. Properly placed steel beams will do.

Stroik pointed out that “honesty” of materials was one of the arguments used by the modernists. Architects like Le Corbusier (who designed Notre-Dame du Haut in Ronchamp, France) would say steel-reinforced concrete lends itself to a new, honest austerity: “Concrete is a noble material.” He wrote,  “It is by the economy of its use and the sincerity of its expression that we can achieve a truly modern architecture.”

Others considered that the sincere slabs and honest monoliths made churches resemble Stalinesque office blocks, inner-city parking garages, or machine-gun bunkers. They really thought their honesty gave their churches integrity. So German architect Gottfried Böhm ( who designed Maria, Königin des Friedens church in Germany) wrote: “The church must look like what it is: a house of God, not a house of man. This means simplicity, honesty, and strength.”

Stroik agreed that this was disingenuous—the modern, brutalist church architects were really driven not by a desire for authenticity, but by a modernist, iconoclastic ideology. The old world with its fancy churches, lacy vestments, precious art, and Mozartian masses was out. This was a modern world of factories, public housing—a world of  steel and concrete, concrete and steel.

Especially in mid-twentieth century, architects (along with modernists in the other arts) sought an idiom that reflected the new, post-war realism. There was no room for frippery, decoration, or ornamentation. Thus British liturgist Peter Hammond,

The church must speak the language of its own time, not that of a past age… The architecture of a church should be functional, honest, and appropriate to the liturgy and life of the Christian community today.

I told Duncan Stork about the conversation I had with our architect Christian LeBlanc while building the new Our Lady of the Rosary, Greenville. The pillars in the church are steel encased in a fiberglass shell that is painted to look like marble. I asked whether this wasn’t dishonest. “Shouldn’t they be masonry pillars that really do support the walls above?”

Christian answered, “Father, you know those massive pillars in Durham Cathedral in England?”

“Of course. I’ve been there several times.”

“You know they have that marvelous Norman decoration—carved zig-zags and chevrons?”

“Uh huh”

“Well, the decoration is the outer skin of the stone pillars. Inside they are rubble and rough stone. It’s the same principle. The inner pillar bears the weight. Then they made them look pretty with an outer layer of decoration. Its just that our inner pillars are steel.”

Stroik agreed. We imagine that in times past every building had a perfect integration of materials and design. Certainly in the past the need for a truly structural arch demanded that the architect combine this need with the demand for overall harmony and beauty of design, and the intrinsic balance and beauty of an arch contributed to the overall pleasant result. It is no different today. Architects from the beginning have weighed the balance between structural integrity and beauty of design, and this was considered to be honest workmanship. It is the modernists who focussed only on the “honesty” of modern materials which fed a brutalist and iconoclastic ideology. Man-made ideology that required a distrust beauty as part of the manifesto.

When I lived in England, I worked as a charity fundraiser and traveled to a different Catholic parish every weekend. I will never forget visiting one particularly ugly, brutalist structure in the Southwest of England. When I commented on the church’s unattractiveness, the parish priest said, “Oh yes. You’re right. In fact the architect was a committed brutalist. He stated explicitly that churches should be so ugly on the inside that people will want to leave as soon as possible to go out and do God’s work in the world”

In that respect the architect succeeded. The people did leave. Whether or not they went out to do God’s work in the world is an open question. From the present state of England I’m guessing not.

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The featured image, uploaded by seier+seier, is a photograph of the pilgrimage church, Maria Königin des Friedens, Neviges, Germany. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.