Why a New Architecture?
Cram, Ralph Adams
December 16, 1925 THE COMMONWEAL WHY A NEW ARCHITECTURE? By RALPH ADAMS CRAM I FIND myself so fully in accord with most of Mr. Barry Byrne's statements of fact, in The Commonweal for...
...As I understand his argument it is that the restoration of Gothic as a living style in the service of the Catholic Church is all wrong since "changes in form should rise out of a necessity for solving new problems" and because "form follows function," whereas since "the proportions of the Gothic plan were relatively long and narrow" while "the altar was at a distance from the worshipers," the whole Gothic scheme and style must be abandoned for something that will bring the high altar into closer relationship with the people and also "the congregation and priest closer together for instruction...
...also not forgetting the ethereal and supremely practical Belem in Lisbon...
...Now in the first place I deny that conditions today differ in the least from those of the middle-ages so far as the function and use of a church are concerned...
...They were practically those of the basilicas of Constantine or Justinian and were much wider and more open than those of the Romanesque and Norman periods...
...The "projecting sanctuary" for which Mr...
...As a matter of fact the statement that "the proportions of a Gothic church were relatively long and narrow" is not correct...
...Byrne's modern priest who "views his church with naturalness" could ask for nothing more...
...Deep chancels and narrow, pier-blocked naves are an anachronism but they are no more Gothic than the centralized sanctuary and the wide, spacious preaching space...
...People do not resort to preaching in such fabulous numbers as during the middle-ages, our city churches are smaller and more numerous, while for our sins we cannot command such artists along any line, or craftsmen or workmen either, as were available during the same period, still "the altar is the church," "it is the Mass that matters" and a church must adapt itself to preaching, even now as then...
...Let Mr...
...Barry Byrne's statements of fact, in The Commonweal for November 25, that I venture to dissent from his conclusions...
...We have no new problems to solve...
...clergy and choir must never intrude between the altar and the worshipers, therefore they are pushed back to the far end of the nave in parish churches, and given a midway place in the cathedrals in order that they may be well out of the way...
...The aisleless Santa Maria del Pino is sixty-two feet wide, the central nave of Palma cathedral is sixty-four, while the vast nave of Gerona is no less than seventy-six feet in clear span...
...There is then no need for us t® find "a new church plan" for it was found for us centuries ago...
...From what he writes, it would appear that he is more familiar with English monastic churches than with the true cathedrals and parish churches of the rest of the Christian world, and had therefore attributed to the whole what is true only of a very small part, and that not to the point...
...again, as at Palma and Santa Maria del Mar, with slender columns widely spaced in naves of vast breadth...
...Nor is there any argument against this in the fact that we now have a fad for steel and reinforced concrete in construction...
...And they were this just because the need was felt to bring the people into closer contact with the altar and to provide better preaching facilities...
...Byrne's mistaken conclusions are due to false premises...
...Byrne so reasonably asks, is then actually the practice in what may be considered the typical Gothic church, and it is only amongst those of modern times who have followed Anglican ways that we find anything else...
...In this process the Catholic Church has had no part and I cannot see how Mr...
...Small churches carry wooden roofs as of old, greater churches are vaulted in masonry not, as Mr...
...Our forefathers have given us all we need as a basis to work on...
...In all the great Gothic cathedrals the aisles encircled the sanctuary and here the people gathered all around their altar, as they do today...
...the choice not of monastic or tentative early Gothic models but of those others which represent the Gothic or Catholic style at its perfection and were conceived to fit most exactly the unchanging demands of unchangeable Catholic faith and devotions...
...Here—I am speaking now of Spain-^-are marvelous wide naves, sometimes, as at Pino and Gerona, with n© columns at all...
...And in every case the high altar \& m the closest possible contact with the people...
...I would cite particularly such churches as Cirencester in England (there are scores of the same sort) SaintGermain in Amiens, and Saint-Maclou, Rouen, and in Spain all the work of Jayme Fabre and Juan Gil de Houtafion and their schools—Gerona, Manresa, Perpignan, and especially Santa Maria del Pino and Santa Maria del Mar in Barcelona, with Palma Cathedral as the most perfect of all...
...No new style and no ntw plaa coiald possibly give more practical results than are achieved here—and all are Gothic, organic in construction, inexpensive to build, and absolutely beautiful...
...Moreover it was the full expression of the Catholic genius, whereas all the others were steps and unfinished experiments...
...There are several of thesq bases, all Catholic—Romanesque, Norman, Byzantine, Gothic—and one reason we use the last so increasingly is partly because it is so much more fluid, supple and adaptable to our requirements than are the others...
...And there is just as little need for a new style, which we could not create if we wanted it...
...Gothic building methods are perfectly adapted to our requirements...
...It seems to me that Mr...
...Since these buildings were taken over for other purposes the deep choirs have remained and they do adapt themselves most indifferently to popular devotions—or would if people still resorted to them in their old numbers...
...For three hundred years there was a steady progress towards just this opemng out and this bringing the altar into close relationship with the people, and when it was suddenly stopped by the renaissance it had pretty completely reached its goaL The flamboyant churches in, France and Flandejrs, the perpendicular churches in England and all the fifteenth-century work in Spain have reached a point where Mr...
...again, as in the case of Belem, with a great preaching hall between the fairy4ike nave and the sanctuary...
...Byrne has made no new discovery, so far as the Catholic Church is concerned, in this respect, and his excellent scheme of a projecting sanctuary was anticipated 700 years ago and was in general use, outside monastic houses, through the whole mediaeval period...
...It is true also that since the beginning of the Gothic restoration there has been a tendency amongst Anglicans to accept this monastic choir as an essential part of the style, together with the narrow spaces and massive close-set pillars of the traditional Norman Gothic of England, with the result that the altar has been more and more removed from its true place amongst the people while the churches themselves have become very unfitted for preaching or the accommodations of large congregations...
...In Spain they were and are particularly insistent on this point...
...It is true that most of the English cathedrals were built as monastic churches and therefore have enormously deep choirs originally intended for the use of the monks alone...
...So, as I said before, it is not a question of a new plan or a new style...
...Byrne look at the unew arts" we have devised and see if he finds any encouragement in them...
...Byrne erroneously assumed, because we are "urged to it by the archaeological sentimentalist," but because masonry vaulting is the most noble, dignified, permanent and beautiful form we know, also it offers no difficulties in the matter of spanning wide areas...
...It is merely a matter of discretion...
...It is still a place where the faithful go to assist at the Sacrifice of the Mass, where they assemble for instruction, and where all the arts are brought together to do honor to God through the offering of beauty, and to fortify the souls of men through the influence of beauty...
...No, we must for a time work on the basis of what is left us through our Catholic heritage, content to wait until our culture and our civilization are such that a new style, if such is to be, will blossom naturally...
...Byrne's strictures and warnings can be applied to her...
Vol. 3 • December 1925 • No. 6
