Matthew Alderman is an architect who lives and works in Concord, MA.
That churches are still being built in Italy, a nation where regular mass-goers make up less than 30 percent of the population and that possesses a birthrate that would make your Sicilian grandmother weep, is news not unlike Dr. Johnson’s comment about a dog walking on its hind legs: one is surprised it is being done at all, never mind questions about quality.
While new construction is a significant aspect of the present revival of ecclesiastical architecture and design, the enrichment of existing churches is equally important.
It is a perilous thing to ask the saints for design advice. The apostle Thomas earned his patronage of the architectural profession by giving away most of his construction budget to the poor and was nearly martyred for his trouble…
The Cathedral of Christ the Light in Oakland fuses Christian symbolism and modernist architecture in a luminous yet vacant church for the Diocese of Oakland.
David W. Dunlap’s From Abyssinian to Zion: A Guide to Manhattan’s Houses of Worship taps into a very elemental part of my New York—its oft-neglected churches, synagogues, and temples