Abbey-Roads2

Photo: St. John’s Abbey Church, Marcel Breuer, completed 1961.  (I happen to admire the architecture and consider it conducive to monastic liturgy.) 

It is not new. 

Many of us have lamented the banality and sterility in the architecture style of contemporary churches.  On various blogs and websites, there seems to be a blanket condemnation of modernist church design as a product of the so-called “spirit of Vatican II”.  It is an easy assumption to make, especially for younger Catholics and those unfamiliar with the history of architecture in general.

However, as I noted in my comments on the post at Salve Regina, this architectural trend predates Vatican Council II by several decades.  It emanates from post WWI 1920’s German Bauhaus School of architecture, re-named in post WWII United States as the Intenational Style, by the American architect, the late Philip Johnson due to an exhibition  on the subject at the Museum of Modern Art with the same title.

Not a few ‘modern’ churches in Minnesota reflect this style of architecture, in fact the abbey Church of St. John’s in St. Cloud, Minnesota is a good example of the architectural style of Marcel Breuer.  (The Abbey Church also has Stations of the Cross which are set into the floor.)  This Church certainly predates Vatican II, albeit the monks may have anticipated the changes on the horizon.  In addition, the local parish church I now attend was built in 1961, and is mostly devoid of all ornament, as are many churches dating from the 1950’s to the 1960’s.  All of these structures are derivative of the International Style. 

Photo credit: Salve Regina Blog.   

Purity of form and function remain the hallmarks of this particular school of modern architecture; devoid of ornament, in reaction to the “elitist” styles of architecture of the past.  The intent of the architect was to make good design available to the masses, demonstrating it could be manufactured from simple materials, and appropriated anywhere.  In this environment, on some level, the people became the focus, as opposed to the grandiose ornamental architecture of the elite.

The style gained sway in Germany, Holland and France, and may be understood as a revolt against the elitist monarchial systems that had been in place throughout Europe, which of course was evident in the prevailing triumphalist architecture.  Thus it is easy to see, how the style accorded with modernist trends emergent within the Catholic Church, with its emphasis upon the laity and active participation, not excluding the growing disrespect for hierarchal authority.

Though Nazi Germany, and later the Soviet Union expelled the International Style architects, I still believe within this school of thought are elements of Marxist socialism and the utopian dream.  Thus, some critics may be correct in referring to the style, especially in Churches, as “communist”.  Of course, I’m neither a historian nor is my scholarship of architecture well informed enough to back up this assertion, it is simply my impression.

People must remember that the desire for inovation and change, both liturgically and architecturally, indeed predates Vatican II.  Already when I was in grade school, forms of the dialogue Mass were being experimented with.  Churches were being constructed, greatly influenced by the International Stle, and religious art was becoming increasingly more modern, if not abstract.  Hence, the iconolclasm that occurred after the Council had been well underway, preceding the call by John XXIII to throw open the windows of the Church.

Indeed, the windows were opened, causing many things to ”come out” or at least surface, as well as occasioning many things to get in.  The seeds of rebellion and revolution were well embedded in the Church before the 1960’s; consider that previous Popes, including Pius XII, repeatedly warned about those who would dismantle the churches and the liturgy as well.  In my uneducated opinion, it is not that the Council either willed or permitted these things to happen, rather it seems to me the Council Fathers did little to condemn, much less stop the progression of the modernist movement within the Church.

Paul VI once lamented, “Through some crack the smoke of Satan has infiltrated the Church.”  With all due respect to His Holiness, I don’t think it was a crack, someone opened a window, while neglecting to put a screen on it.