The
Inspiration of Jesus in Architecture
Prague, Czech Republic
October 2005
Introduction
Architecture
is also an almost inherently practical art. We can theorize about the
usefulness of the arts in general and make an good argument that things like
paintings and symphonies are good for human beings in complex ways that we may
not be completely able to articulate, but there is no arguing about the
fundamental practicality or usefulness of architecture. Architects can plan and
build beautiful buildings, but an architect is no good unless these buildings
can stand up and people can actually go inside. Architecture has been called
“frozen music,” and I like that analogy because it emphasizes the mathematical
relationships, the repetitions and variations, the patterns, inherent in both
architecture and music, but no one ever actually walked in and lived in a
sonata. Thus, architecture is, I think, unique in the field of the arts and our
task of seeing images of Jesus in architecture will be different than the task
of seeing images of Jesus in paintings or films.
Some architectural basics
(Slide
two) One was post-and-lintel construction in which upright posts support
horizontal beams; a variation on this is the whole wall as a supporting
structure to sturdy cross beams forming the roof.[1] (Slide three) The second method is the use of
the arch or arch and vault. (Slide four) This method has numerous variations
including the barrel vault, a crossed vault, an arcade, a dome, and so on.
The more questions we ask about a particular architectural structure, more meaning emerges. We can ask about space, for example. How much interior space is there? Why? How is that space divided? What is the relationship of space and mass? We can ask about light, where the light enters, how it is dispersed, how it is experienced by those who enter the building and to what end. In addition to identifying the system of support, we can ask how the particular system, whether post-and-lintel or arch and vault, is carried out and to what effect. We may note the relationship of the interior to the exterior and the basic unit of proportion or module on which the whole is based. I think you see what I mean about how meaning can emerge if we interrogate the structure from a number of points of view. But images of Jesus? We will have to work a little harder to see those.
The
Greek word used in the New Testament for the Christian assembly is ecclesia, and the term used for these
meetings places was domusecclesia, almost literally the house for
the assembly or the meeting place for the community, the house for the
church. The primary need was for space,
an open, interior space for the assembly of the believers. There were other needs also--like a platform
for the bishop and deacons, a vestibule for those still being taught, a
baptistery, a storage room for charity work, and so on—but the main
consideration was a large assembly room. Here is where I see an image of
Jesus-- symbolic to be sure, but a large assembly room literally constructs the
symbolic language used in the New Testament, which describes the church as the
body of Christ. Jesus himself said, “Where two or three are gathered together,
there am I in the midst of them.”
The
image of Jesus is seen in the assembly itself, and architecturally speaking the
construction of a large assembly space is one way of presenting the presence of
Jesus, one way of “imaging” Jesus. Perhaps this point will seem a bit more
convincing if we contrast these early examples of Christian architecture with
the dominant religious architecture of the time, the temple.
(Slide
five) This slide is a photograph of the Roman temple, the Maisson Carree;
Roman, but still very much influenced by the style of Greek temples. In Greek
and Roman temples, only a few priests entered. People in general were outside
and the temple was a backdrop to the ceremonies. The idea that the building
should be structured for the purpose of accommodating the assembled people as a
whole is a new idea, distinctively Christian, saying something about
Christianity in general but also, I think, attempting to embody, to demonstrate
in structural and symbolic terms, the body of Christ. In the city of Rome alone, in the mid-third
century there were more “than forty large churches in private houses owned by
the Christian community.” Though these were pulled down by order of Diocletian
in A.D. 305 (van der Meer 54), some remnants of these tenement or apartment
house churches exist to this day, incorporated into fifth century church
buildings, under the floor of these larger, later buildings. These remains give evidence of two story
apartment houses being remodeled to have a large upstairs assembly room, in one
case also remodeled to incorporate an adjoining bathhouse which would have been
used as the baptistery (Krautheimer 8,9).
Thus, while we have no first and second century Christian architecture,
we do have some suggestions from the third century of an architecture that
structurally set out the idea of the body of Christ.
Following
the widespread persecution of Christians by Diocletian in the very early fourth
century during which Christian places of assembly were destroyed, Christianity
was made a legal religion by Constantine in A. D. 313. Once Christianity had
official sanction along with official funding, the building of churches began
in a remarkable way. Many, many church buildings were constructed in a variety
of styles throughout the Roman empire. Churches were built from Egypt and Syria
to Gaul and Spain and beyond. Constantine’s mother, Helen, made it her mission
to build churches on significant sites in the Holy Land, from the Church of the
Nativity in Bethlehem to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.While
there was great variety in these buildings, the dominant style used by these
fourth-century Christians was the basilica.
(Slide
six) A basilica was a large public hall, often a hall of justice, often
subdivided by supports. It might have side aisles, a clerestory, and an apse.
It could have a flat ceiling or an open-timbered roof (Krautheimer 20-21). The
basilica model was useful to Christians for a number of reasons, including the
fact that it did not remind people of the pagan temple style. One commentator
has put it this way: “Even the uninitiated could not avoid the impression of a
worship ‘in spirit and in truth’ that would be worthy of an invisible Ruler and
King of the World” (van der Meer 63).
The
basilica negated the idea of the pagan temple and, more positively, provided a
large interior space suitable for the coming together of the whole
congregation. This new Christian meeting place would be called basilica id est dominicum, “assembly
hall that is the house of the Lord.” In its function as a place of assembly, we
can see that the basilica continues the symbolism of the church building as the
meeting place for the body of Christ, but it is in the fourth century that we
begin to see additional images of Jesus in the buildings constructed by
Christians.
The Central-Type Plan
From the
early days of Christianity, Christians were noted for their attention to burying
the remains of the dead. Christians, unlike their pagan neighbors, did not
practice cremation, but like the Jews practiced the burial of bodies. In some places, like Rome, there were
extensive underground burial grounds, the famous catacombs. These were begun in
the late second century and continued until the late fifth century with most of
the catacombs actually dug out and extended during the fourth and fifth
centuries after Christianity became legal (Krautheimer 9-10; van der Meer 19).
But underground tunneling was not possible or desirable in many locations, and
Christians used primarily open air cemeteries.
After the legalization of Christianity with the Edict of Milan by
Constantine in A.D. 313, many large memorials, called martyria or memoriae, One influence on these buildings came from
the mausolea or heroa, buildings built to honor great rulers. These buildings were often circular or
octagonal structures, and they were consistently associated with kings and
rulers. What does this have to do with
images of Jesus, you might ask.
(Slide
seven) Well, this round or octagonal shape was strongly associated with the
idea of a ruler, and the very shape of the building would have spoken to the
congregants the idea that Jesus is a mighty King, a great ruler (Krautheimer
42), an idea that could be explored only when the ruler was supporting rather
than persecuting Christians. The tomb of Constantines’s daughter Constantia was
of this circular type, supported by pairs of columns arranged in a circle
(built about A.D. 350) (Honour 303-4). This particular building is interesting
to us for a number of reasons. The fact that it was built for the emperor’s
daughter shows the connection of the circular plan with royalty and rulers;
also, it was associated with a church and soon became a church itself; also has
been well enough preserved that it gives us a definite visual connection with
fourth century church architecture.
(Slide
eight) This next plan, the Church of the Theotokos ( or God-bearer) on Mount
Gerazim, is from the fifth century (484) (Krautheimer 116). This building was
intended as a church, never a martyrium
or tomb, but again there is a connection with a ruler because it was built by
an emperor, the Emperor Zeno, to commemorate and give thanks for a military
victory (Krautheimer 116).
(Slide
nine) The central type church plan remained important for over thousand years,
particularly in Byzantine architecture and often with a mosaic or fresco of
Christ the King. (Slide ten) One of the most impressive church buildings of all
time, the Hagia Sophia, was built in this style. Because it is a mosque today
and has been a mosque for over 500 years, it is hard to experience this
building as the architects intended, but we can try. We have to imagine it
without minarets and with images of Jesus instead of medallions with Arabic
script. It was built by the emperor Justinian in the early sixth century.
(Slide
eleven) The vast central dome almost seems to float high above the rest of the
building because it is supported by a circle of arched windows so that light
flows in right below the dome. This church building speaks of Christ as the
Lord of the Universe. Even in Roman times--for example, in the Pantheon--the
hemisphere of the dome represented the heavens, the cosmos, and in these domed
Christian churches the building became a “microcosm of the celestial and
terrestrial worlds” as well as a setting for re-telling and re-enacting
Christ’s life on earth. A Russian
visitor to the Hagia Sophia, coming from Kiev, wrote: “When we were there, we
thought we were in Paradise, and we forgot everything that had gone before”
(quoted in van der Meer 45).
At times
it is difficult if not impossible to separate architectural structure from
architectural decorations, and one of those times is in the Byzantine church.
(Slide
twelve) Particular images of Jesus are usually assigned to particular areas of
architecture, with an image of Jesus as Pantocrator in the central dome. This
one is from Daphni, near Athens. (Slide thirteen) And there is often an image
of the child Jesus on Mary’s lap, the Theotokos, in the apse. (Honour 328).
I want
to move back to the fourth century and another modification made to the
basically rectangular basilica that also influenced church architecture for
centuries, even millennia. (Slide fourteen) One place that this change can be
seen is in the basilica built by Constantine on Vatican Hill in Rome to honor
St. Peter. This basilica no longer exists and is often called Old St. Peter’s
to distinguish it from the current St. Peter’s which was built in the sixteenth
century. Old St. Peter’s was probably it begun about A.D. 333, after
Constantine moved his capital to the East (Krautheimer 32).
The building was intended as a shrine to Peter and was built over an
earlier martyrium, a simple structure
that was built in about A.D. 160; archeologists have found a hemispherical
niche with pair of columns holding up a lintel and small flat roof which was
also topped by a pair of columns with a pediment (Krautheimer 11).
In
contrast to this small late second century shrine, the basilica built by
Constantine was huge, and it took decades to build. The nave and aisles were lined with graves,
making it a covered cemetery. The nave itself was 84 meters (276 ft.) long
(Krautheimer 35).
In
addition to the large nave with two aisles on each side, and a clerestory
lighting the nave, there was a transept between the nave and the apse and
extending beyond the nave in both directions. It was a large, continuous,
undivided transept. As we look at the diagram of this building, we see the
shape of a cross built into the architecture. This basilica was cruciform,
proclaiming in its very structure the crucifixion of Christ. (Slide fifteen)
The building is completely gone, but drawings give us a likely idea of what the
interior would have looked like.
Writers
living in the fourth century have left us records of some of the earliest
cross-shaped church buildings. In
Constantinople, the Church of the Holy Apostles was built with four equal arms
around a central drum with a conical roof. There are no archeological remains
of this church, but it was described by the historian Eusebius, and he
specifically called it “cross-shaped” (Krautheimer 46-47). Also from the fourth century is the Church of
the Apostles in Milan, built in 382 and planned by Ambrose. It was a huge
cross, 200 Roman feet long and 50 roman feet wide. The arms of the cross were
lower than the nave, and the altar was placed in the very center of the cross,
visible to those who entered from the transepts or from the nave. At the
dedication of the building, Ambrose spoke about the importance of the cruciform
shape, and this shape because very influential. I think we can understand why.
Even while it is a very practical, functional shape, well-suited to the
assembly of Christians coming together as the body of Christ, it also by its
very shape symbolized the body of Christ, particularly his crucifixion.
(Slide
sixteen) Eventually this structure took on the symbolic meaning of the building
itself representing the body of Christ, with the nave as the trunk, the
transept his arms, and the apse as his head, and the crossing as his heart
(Schwarz 3; Schloeder 6). In symbolic terms one could say that the church
building made Jesus visible even as Jesus made God visible.
Such a
symbolic interpretation has strong roots in the scripture where Jesus is
metaphorically described in architectural terms. Speaking of himself, Jesus
quoted from Psalm 118: “the stone that the builders rejected has become the
cornerstone” (NRSV). Peter, preaching in the Jerusalem temple used this same
verse to describe Jesus. Paul also used the language of architecture in I
Corinthians: “For no one can lay any foundation others than the one that has
been laid; that foundation is Jesus Christ” (I Cor. 3:11; NRSV). In the New
Testament, terms from architecture were used metaphorically to describe the
work and mission of Jesus. In the fourth and fifth centuries—and throughout the
Middle Ages—Christians talked about buildings in a metaphorical way to evoke
the image of Jesus.
Even in
the twentieth-century, church architect Rudolf Schwarz meditated extensively on
the idea of the building as a body and invited his readers to consider the many
connections of the whole body to a building. For example, a building is a labor
not only of the hand but also of the whole body. Further, we experience a building not only with
our eyes or our ears but also with our whole bodies. In addition, a building
itself is, in a sense, a body with a face to present to the outside world as
well as an inner space. A building, like a body, can have a skeleton covered
with a skin. A church building, in particular, according to Schwarz should be a
“revelation of eternal structure,” a “whole cosmos.” While Schwarz believes the day of the
cruciform church is past, he believes that shape symbolizes Jesus on a very
deep and profound level (3, 7, 26, 27).
From the
point of view of the twenty-first century, with hundreds of cruciform churches
all around us, we might be tempted to ask why it took until the fourth century
for Christians to come up with such a plan. Part of the answer we have already
mentioned: until the fourth century, Christianity was not a legally protected
religion and thus could not and did not build monumental buildings that stood
out visibly to the general public. Yes, in the third century they were
remodeling multi-story apartment houses to include large assembly rooms, but
only with official, imperial recognition would Christians have the resources to
build on a large scale. It is also true that the cross was not an early or
immediately popular symbol for Christians. In the first century the cross was
all too clearly an instrument of official torture. By the fourth century, with Christianity
legal and martyrdom seemingly a thing of the past, Christians turned more and
more frequently to the symbol of the cross, particularly a symbolic and
beautified cross as a symbol of the triumph over death and sin.
Thus
architecture, inherently abstracted and symbolic, is a good place to look for
the shape of the cross. In architectural
terms, form, function, and support were all well-served by the cruciform shape
and it was used in many variations.
Precisely because this cruciform plan is so familiar to us, it has
become almost difficult for us to see and appreciate it, so we are going to
take some time and look at a number of versions of this idea from the fifth
century.
A woman
named Galla Placidia ruled as Empress of the Western Roman Empire from A.D. 425
until her death in 450. (Slide seventeen) During her rule the Western capital
was in Ravenna, not the city of Rome, and it was in Ravenna that she built a
large church and a smaller building thought to be her mausoleum. Both were
cross-shaped, influenced by the great cross-shaped churches of Milan
(Krautheimer 137; Honour 311). (Slide
eighteen) The entire interior of the mausoleum is covered with shimmering
mosaics which remain intensely and vividly colorful to this day. (Slide nineteen) Jesus is seen here as the
Good Shepherd, a depiction at once realistic and symbolic. While the mosaic
presents a realistic man with realistic sheep, we soon remember that Jesus was
not a literal shepherd but a symbolic one. And the staff that this shepherd
holds is a highly stylized golden cross—like the shape of the building
reminding us of the cross primarily to testify to his triumph over death with
no hint of suffering.
Far from
Ravenna and Milan, in Hermopolis—today’s Cairo, Egypt--another type of
cruciform church was built. (Slide twenty) Notice that the three apses
connected to the nave make the whole into the shape of a cross. This building,
the Hermopolis cathedral, dates from the mid fifth century (Krautheimer 87).
(Slide twenty-one) At about the same time in a monastery far to the south in
Egypt, the cross shape was incorporated entirely into the interior with the
exterior being a very solid, heavy rectangular wall. This plan is for a
monastery church called the White Monastery, and it was build about A.D. 440
(Krautheimer 88).
(Slide
twenty-two) This church in Salonica, Greece, is a highly complex basilica with
two crosses, one inside the other. It also comes from the fifth century. Italy,
Egypt, Greece, and also Syria saw the cruciform church. (Slide twenty-three)
Here is a complex cruciform plan from Syria, this one combining a central
octagonal area with each arm of the cross a basilica in itself. This church was
both for a monastery and for many pilgrims. (Krautheimer 96, 111-112).
(Slide
twenty-four) One type of cruciform plan is sometimes called “cross in a box” or
“cross in a square” and I think the architectural drawing makes its name clear.
This plan combines a central type plan with the four equal arms and also a
transept. This particular building is from the fifth century in the area we
today call Jordan (Gerash) (Krautheimer 117).
While
not nearly all church buildings since the fourth century were built in the
shape of a cross, the cruciform shape has definitely dominated church
architecture whether with the Latin cross in the West or the Greek cross in the
East. We talked about Byzantine architecture primarily in terms of the central
dome, but I need to point out that often the dome is the center of a cross,
which means that Byzantine churches are also cruciform. (Slide twenty-five) Look with me at the
church of San Marco is Venice. Here we have a central dome in a cross of smaller
domes. (Slide twenty-six) Here also is the meeting place of East and West.
(Slide twenty-seven) And look at the glittering interior—almost entirely
covered mosaics. Rarely in the history of architecture, it seems to me, have
form, function, structure, and symbolism come together so effectively as in the
cruciform church—and maybe that is why its influence has been so pervasive.
A great
wave of church building took place in Europe shortly after the year 1000.
(Slide twenty-eight) A man living at that time, the monk Raoul Glaber,
described it like this: “it befell almost throughout the world, but especially
in Italy and Gaul, that the fabrics of churches were rebuilt, although many
were still seemly and needed no such care; but every nation in Christendom
rivaled with the other, which should worship in the seemliest buildings. So it
was as though the very world had shaken itself and cast off her old age, and
was clothing herself everywhere in a white garment of churches” (quoted in
Honour 370, also by Clark in the Civilisation
films).
Here we
are looking at a magnificent Romanesque church; clearly it has a cruciform
plan. Like Roman architecture it relied on the arch for support. (Slide twenty-nine) Unlike the earlier
basilicas, Romanesque churches did not have a flat wooden ceiling, but rather
favored stone vaulting and the barrel vault. (Slide thirty) To support this
vaulting, the churches needed huge supporting piers and thick walls. (Slide thirty-one) In Prague, St. George’s is
an excellent example of Romanesque vaulting, arches, and thick supporting
walls. (Slide thirty-two) Often
Romanesque churches were often built to accommodate pilgrims, so they tended to
be quite large and they were built with numerous side chapels, the apsidal
chapels, to hold particular relics. In considering Romanesque architecture, one
is again confronted with the question of what is “decoration” added on and what
in inherent to the architecture. The sculpted tympanum and capitals, for
example, are inherently part of the architecture. (Slide thirty-three) At the
Autun Cathedral, over the doorway to confront each person entering the
building, is Jesus, enthroned in glory, and judging all souls. Yes, it is a
work of sculpture, and we even know the sculptor’s name, Gislebertus, but it is
definitely a part of the building and it definitely gives us an image of Jesus,
not as the youthful Good Shepherd of Ravenna, but as the ultimate, powerful
judge.
The line
between Romanesque and Gothic is fuzzy rather than sharp, a gradual transition
of one style into another rather than two styles widely separated in time and
place. In fact, as you know from your church buildings in Prague, one building
can combine Romanesque and Gothic characteristics. (Slide thirty-four) As
architects strove for greater height, for more light, for a more unified
interior space, a number of innovations came together producing the Gothic
style that so swept over Europe that it was called the International Style. It
has so dominated the minds of Christians that Gothic style churches are built
to this day. The National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., for example, was built
in the twentieth century in the Gothic style. Contemporary Christian artist He
Qi criticizes modern Chinese Christians in the Three Self church for building
in the Gothic style instead of a more uniquely Chinese style. I certainly
appreciate his point, but I must confess that I do love the Gothic style.
What
characterizes the Gothic style? (Slide thirty-five) It is still cruciform. But
the arches are pointed, allowing for great, seemingly infinite height. (Slide
thirty-six) Also, the vaulting is ribbed, groin vaulting, making the vaults
lighter and putting the weight in the ribs. (Slide thirty-seven) The intricate
net vaulting of St. Vitus’ Cathedral in Prague is exceptionally beautiful, and
the architect Peter Parler is rightly renowned for his innovations in the
Gothic style. (Slide thirty-eight) In addition to the pointed arches and ribbed
vaulting, much of the weight of the vaults is thrust outside the building
through flying buttresses, so that the weight does not have to be supported
entirely on heavy walls and huge interior piers. (Slide thirty-nine) Instead
the walls can be opened up for windows, allowing room for the stained glass
windows which are rightly regarded as the glory of the Gothic. Further, because
so much of the weight is supported externally, the interior spaces of the
building can flow together with much less sense of division, and—in some
cases—a sense of complete openness. (Slide forty) The huge piers have been
replaced by clusters of slender columns, further creating a sense of
verticality and lightness.
There is
much symbolism built into the great Gothic churches, and I think that most of
us sense that the verticality is a way of lifting our minds and thoughts and
hearts to God. The pointed arches also seem to point upward, perhaps almost as
praying hands. The interiors are full of light, and because that light is
streaming in through stained glass windows, it seems like a spiritual light, a
transformed light, an image of what the worshippers hope will happen to their
own lives in the light of God’s love. The light itself almost seems like
visible evidence of the presence of God. The golden light of the cathedral here
in Prague feels like heavenly light to me. The interiors are light in another
way, too; that is, they do not seem to bear down, to weigh down. And I think
that sense of physical uplifting also speaks to the assembled worshippers. In
writing his history of religious architecture, Ernest Short focuses on the
architect’s fundamental responsibility to hold things up, to provide support.
He describes a definite contrast between Greek architecture and Gothic
architecture in this regard:
Whereas
the Greeks accepted the fundamental conflict between the column and its burden,
the Gothic masons and builders strove to make the burden seem an illusion. The
Greek was right: the force of gravity is an actuality not an illusion. . .
Nevertheless, the inventions of the Gothic builder were so ingenious and their
methods of creating illusion so perfect that they gave to their columns and
arches the mysterious beauty of a dream world in which the forces of gravity
appear to lose their power to oppress weak humanity” (167).
Maybe one
of the reasons that Gothic architecture retains such an appeal to this day is
that it does seem to lift burdens and draw one up into another world. (Slide
forty-one) Abbot Suger, builder of St. Denis, regarded as the prototype of
Gothic churches, described the experience of entering the cathedral as entering
an anagogical world, joining “the material and immaterial, the corporeal with
the spiritual, the human with the Divine” (quoted in Honour 384 and Fleming
204-205 ).
As with
the sculpture of the Romanesque churches, it is difficult if not impossible to
separate the decoration from the structure of the Gothic churches. (Slide
forty-two) In the case of the Gothic, the sculpture is primarily on the outside
of the building, filling the observer with images of Jesus even before
entrance. Then, once inside, the images emerge in the stained glass. It would
be impossible for us to list all the images of Jesus presented in the stained
glass and sculpture of the Gothic cathedrals, for here the images proliferate.
From his infancy to the final judgment, Jesus is presented. In fact, the
history of the world from creation to judgment is presented, and—it should be
noted—most of the Gothic churches were especially devoted to the Virgin Mary,
as in the Notre Dames de Paris and Notre Dames de Chartres and so on. So they
are full of images of Mary. (Slide forty-three) But since our focus is on
images of Jesus, we will look at this tympanum over the middle set of three
doors (three to suggest the Trinity and Jesus as part of the Trinity) on the
west portal of Chartres. Here he sits enthroned, in power, surrounded by the
symbols of the four evangelists, reminding us that while he reigns as the king
who brings us gospel, good news.
I don’t
want to conclude with the Gothic style, suggesting as some have done, that it
is the ultimate statement in Christian architecture. Also, I don’t want to go
century by century looking at every style. So I am going to leap boldly into
the twentieth century and look for images of Jesus in twentieth century
architecture. In addition, I want to shift our focus of questioning from the
shape of the building to the function.
What I
mean is that part of the way to see images of Jesus in church architecture is
to ask what is done in the space, how is the space used. (Slide forty-four) And
for this example, I want to look at a modern cathedral, one from the twentieth
century.
In 1940,
during the German bombings of England in WWII, Coventry Cathedral was
completely destroyed and left a charred, skeletal ruin. After the war, the
English church and the English people were ready to rebuild, and a competition
was announced to decide the plan and the architect. (Slide forty-five) The
conditions of the competition began with this declaration:
The
Cathedral is to speak to us and to generations to come of the Majesty, the
Eternity and the Glory of God. God, therefore, direct you.
It is a
Cathedral of the Church of England. In terms of function, what should such a
Cathedral express? . . .
The
doctrine and the worship of the Church of England is liturgically centered in
the Eucharist. The Cathedral should be built to enshrine the altar. This should
be the ideal of the architect, not to conceive a building and to place in it an
altar, but to conceive an altar and to create a building.
In the
Anglican liturgy it is the people’s altar; the altar should gather the people,
it should offer access for worship and invitation to Communion.
With the
altar—in the unity of worship—there is the preaching of the Gospel among our
people of Coventry and the interpretation of the Word. (Spence 4)
While
the name “Jesus” does not appear in this declaration, there are two images of
Jesus that are prominent, and these two images form the basis of the design for
the new cathedral. The first is the image of Jesus in the Eucharist, Jesus
breaking the bread at the Last Supper and Jesus as the body and blood
sacrificed for all. The Eucharist is to be the center of the worship space and
the altar the gathering place for the people. The other image of Jesus is more
abstract and symbolic, but it goes right back to the Gospel of John “In the
beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God” (John
1:1). We could go back through the basilicas
and the domed churches and the Romanesque and the Gothic and we would see the
same thing: the buildings are planned to keep the Eucharist and the Word as the
central focus, thus the buildings inherently build images of Jesus into the
architectural functioning of the space.
The
architect who ultimately won the commission and built the new Coventry
Cathedral also had an image of Jesus in mind for the cathedral as a whole.
(Slide forty-six) While visiting the site of the old, burned out cathedral, he
had a profound religious experience and—though it was not required by the
competition—determined to “preserve as much of the old Cathedral as [he] could”
(Spence 6). In his words, “I saw the old Cathedral as standing clearly for the
Sacrifice, one side of the Christian faith, and I knew my task was to design a
new one which should stand for the Triumph of the Resurrection” (6).
As we
have noted before, decoration is often very strongly connected to and with the
architecture, and the actual architectural plan submitted by Basil Spence
included his plans for stained glass windows and for a large tapestry to go
behind the altar. In the case of the tapestry, he even had the artist in mind
as he submitted his plans (Spence 14-15)(Slide forty-seven) In the tapestry,
Jesus is enthroned in glory and surrounded by images of the four gospel writers
in a design similar to the sculpted tympanum of Chartres and also to the mosaic
over the south porch of St. Vitus’ cathedral. Traditional images are used in a
stunningly contemporary way at the Coventry Cathedral.
I also
wanted to show you a little of my home and our campus and the chapel on our
campus. (Slide forty-eight) It was built in the late 1960’s and uses a
traditional Georgian style along with some modern touches. Because I have seen
many of the documents related to the building of this chapel, I know that it
was deliberately planned to present many images of Jesus. For one thing, it has
a cruciform shape. For another, the baptistery and table for the Lord’s Supper
and pulpit for the presenting of the Word are prominent, asserting the
centrality of Christ as bread of life, as living water, and as living word.
(Slide forty-nine) There are also a number of stained glass windows presenting
key images of Jesus. This one, for example, shows Jesus as the Lamb of God who
takes away the sins of the world and who triumphs over death in resurrection.
(Slide fifty) Another uses the cup and bread as well as stylized grapes to
express the presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. (Slide fifty-one) Further, the
whole building is topped by a tall Celtic cross, clearly visible to all who
approach the campus. The chapel is located at the geographical center of the
campus, suggesting that Jesus is at the center of all we do.
Conclusion
We began
this lecture with the observation that images of Jesus in architecture would
necessarily be abstract and symbolic. The earliest church buildings were
primarily designed as places of assembly, suggesting by the structure the idea
of the church as the body of Christ. Byzantine churches were characteristically
built around a central dome, emphasizing Jesus as King of the Universe. The
cross-shaped church embodied Jesus’ death on the cross and his triumph over
death. The new Coventry Cathedral, like many other church buildings, is
constructed to emphasize the presence of Jesus as and in the Word and at the
Eucharistic table. It is always hard to predict the future, but based on the
churches being built in the U. S. today which are sometimes described as
multi-purpose rooms or even warehouses, it seems to me that church architecture
may be returning to its earliest roots, emphasizing the assembly and thus the
image of the church as the body of Christ. At the same time, the tradition of
the cruciform church building, and to a much lesser extent, the domed church
building, still has a strong hold on our thoughts and imaginations.
Bibliography
Clark,
Kenneth. Civilisation: A Personal View. BBC, 1969.
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Frank,
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Honour,
Hugh and John Fleming. The Visual Arts: A
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River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2000.
Jensen,
Robin Margaret. Understanding Early
Christian Art. NY: Routledge, 2000.
Krautheimer,
Richard. Early Christian and Byzantine
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Walter. Art in the Early Church. N Y:
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[1] The slides are available on the accompanying CD. Parenthetical notations tell when to change slides.
