On this "rock" I will build my church
All Saints, Margaret Street is one of, if not the most breathtaking church in which I’ve ever prayed. Every time I pass through the courtyard into the nave, I feel like Dorothy seeing Oz. No surface is without color - it is like looking through a kaleidoscope. Built in 1859 at a cost of £70,000, the Bank of England inflation calculator informs me that invoice would be just north of £8,800,000 in 2019. Exchange those pounds for US dollars and the bill will run you $11,908,682.74. On one hand, that’s not a lot of money. Google “things you can buy for 10 million dollars” and you will find lists of silly and superfluous things that do not compare to the value of a church, not to mention the longevity and impact. Senatorial campaigns are now reaching a billion dollars, enough to build two All Saints’ in every county in South Carolina (imagine that!). However, churches are built by the generosity of dozens or perhaps even hundreds, and not tens of thousands. $12,000,000 is a lot of money and, with few exceptions, is far out of reach for the average parish church. Times, and income tax laws, have indeed changed.
And if built in 2020, the cost of All Saints’ would be much, much higher. I have learned only enough in our own church renovation to pretend to be dangerous, but I’m sure that modern code requirements, plumping, electrical, and heating work would drive that original cost significantly.
120 years ago, Ralph Adams Cram wrote, “We cannot hope to rival the little churches of England in this day and generation, for conditions absolutely prevent the hearty lavishing of labor that was characteristic of the Middle Ages. The cut stone and carving, the elaborate stone tracery, the buttresses and balustrades and pinnacles are out of the question. We cannot restore the externals of the Gothic style; but we can endeavor to re-create the underlying spirit, and lead it to express itself in the new forms we must impose on it” (Church Building, 1900).
Of late, my interest has been in how this has been done. One can find scores of architectural commentaries on the greatest churches – cathedral, parish, chapel – but very little in terms of the construction. As I examine my own decisions and choices, I’m curious how previous churches were built. What materials were used and why? What methods and why? What changes were made during the construction and how did it alter the original vision – for better or for worse? We have reached a point where improvement on the past is not possible, in terms of the original vision. Cram was right. We do not generally have the resources or the patience to start something that will not be finished in our lifetime. How does one re-create the underlying spirit?
On my mind at the moment is the choice of material. In our nave are a dozen or so crates full of glass fiber reinforced gypsum (GFRG), a type of cast stone. Our nave columns are steel beams. In the past they were covered with a simple Ionic column. Now, those beams are covered by the GFRG to resemble stone and arches are added in the bays. Cut stone is not feasible for the simple reason that there is already a steel beam supporting the next level. One could build around it, but at what cost? Herein is where I sometimes struggle. GFRG is not stone but will look like it. Does that make the structure – fake? Does that harm the theological message of the space?
I imagine the answer is that is no more fake, for instance, than the wax candles on the altar. There is a difference, I think, in a choice that is made for sake of economics and one that is made for the sake of convenience. There is a difference between choosing cast stone over quarried stone because you simply can’t afford the latter and choosing cast stone because you simply don’t care.
I want quarried stone, but it’s not possible – structurally or economically. Rectors must get over their Herodian ego and must remember that it is prayer that consecrates churches and not the other way around. The materials themselves are not magical conduits to the divine. It is the fact that for hundreds of years people have prayed within familiar structures that, when we see them and experience them, we are moved to do the same.
“The atmosphere of a church,” Sir Ninian Comper wrote, “should be such as to hush the thoughtless voice…The note of a church should be, not that of novelty, but of eternity. Like the Liturgy celebrated within it, the measure of its greatness will be the measure in which is succeeds in eliminating time and producing the atmosphere of the heavenly worship. This is the characteristic of the earliest art of the Church, in liturgy in architecture and in plastic decoration, and it is the tradition of all subsequent ages” (The Atmosphere of a Church, 1939).
If GFRG can help do that, and it is within our reach, it would be a waste not to use it. I often wonder what Cram and Comper would think of modern materials in traditional design. I have no way of knowing. But I think they would say that as long as the atmosphere of the church is not fake, the materials, whatever they are, have done their job.
I can’t build All Saints, Margaret Street, but then again, I don’t need to. It’s already been done! All Saints’ was built with materials and methods modern for 1859 and it certainly drew on generations before. As we build for the future, we use what we have in the present, informed by the witness and spirit, of the past.
