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May 21, 2005
Renovating a Cathedral -- Bring out the Partisans, Elide Ends and Means
I fear that Amy Welborn has closed the comment thread on the Rochester, NY, Cathedral renovation. I don't blamer her - it's at the pointless stage. She had noted commentary on the situation from Irish Elk But I have my own blog, so I can go on repeating MYself. (update - Typepad was having problems)
*sigh*
People have always renovated. Let me show you some examples:
Take a look at this 17th century painting of the interior of St. John, s's-Hertogenbosch, by Pieter Saenredam.
Was it a desecration when someone took the Gothic altarpiece of St. John's, s'Hertogenbosch, out (and probably sold it for scrap) and put in a Baroque altarpiece? What Saenredam is painting is the contemporary building (more or less - it's actually a little bit of an inside joke - read the "information" page). The altarpiece with its painting was created by a friend of Saenredam. The church was late Gothic. The stained glass had been removed by Protestant iconoclasts (but, by the way, might not have been very colorful -- there was a great craze for grisaille in the 15th century - glass in yellows and greys and silvers).
Or look at Notre-Dame. Really -- THAT'S what Notre-Dame, Paris, looked like for about 200 years, from the Baroque (I think it happened under Louis XIV, but it might have been under the Regency) until the renovations of the mid-19th century Gothicked it all up again by taking off the big marble sheets that were encasing the gothic columnar piers (the current high altar is gothic revival flanked by some lamentable baroque statuary, combining the worst of the 19th and the 17th century). Yes, the Eldest Daughter of the Church didn't respect their own Gothic buildings. Was that a desecration, or change of style? Was it illegitimate? What about music over the same time range? Is change good in itself, evil in itself, or just change?
Now what annoys me isn't renovation, but the triumphalist language of the renovator or the architect which so often promises transformation in worship -- and Thomas Gordon Smith is just as guilty as Richard Vosko in promising that HIS arrangements will somehow make it easier for us to get to heaven. I think they're both usually wrong. I prefer Smith's (and Duncan Stroik's) buildings, but really, now. Thinking that worshipping in a Duncan Stroik building will make it easier to get to heaven is like thinking that there won't be problems of abuse showing up in traditionalist groups or conservative orders -- a disconnect between end and means.
Oh - the funniest thing? The renovations of Vosko and the buildings of Stroik tend toward chilly colors -- cool greys, whites, very pale rose, yellows. Neither of them seems to have the slightest feeling for medieval styles (not that I'm in favor of unilateral revivalism of any sort), but it is a pity that Vosko has gotten to renovate so many Gothic revival spaces. They both exemplify what my dead advisor used to call the Bauhaus spirit in many modern architects who would deny the connection to capital-M-modernism.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at May 21, 2005 8:27 AM