CHAPTER 1

A Call for Bold Leadership inNew Church Building Design

W. Brown Morton III

The Question

When is the last time you saw a newly built Episcopal Church building and saidto yourself, "That is one of the most inspiring buildings I have ever seen?" Ifsuch a time has been rare for you or if you have never had that reaction, youmight ask yourself why.

My work as an architectural conservator has taken me all over the world to helpthoughtful people plan for the future. This planning includes deciding whatexisting buildings to preserve, and when to introduce bold new design intoexisting settings. As a result, I have come to understand something about whatmakes the world's great places and great buildings great. Greatness, throughoutthe history of architecture, has come consistently from bold innovation.Greatness has rarely resulted from timid imitation or complacency, both of whichare subtle forms of cultural cowardice.

So much of recent institutional design in the Episcopal Church is uninspired,boring, and utterly predictable. Both the client and the designer appear to havelost confidence in the idea that the church's architecture can be a powerfulforce in spiritual development. Few building committees perceive spiritual self-confidence and innovation in new church design to an essential manifestation ofprophetic leadership. Instead, we have settled for bland buildings that meetcongregational needs for space and program, but which do little to help ourspirits soar. We may well ask if we have become captives of today's design andconstruction industry. Few new church design and construction projects beginwith the ambitious goal of creating a fresh vision of the New Jerusalem.Instead, we begin with "program" numbers: square-footage, heating and air-conditioning requirements, parking spaces, dollars, and timetables. We thenconfront the sad fact that almost all building components are prefabricated andmass-produced.

Thus, architectural design becomes largely an exercise in figuring out how tomake all the pre-existing pieces fit together. Consider for a moment the tyrannyof the standard 4-foot × 8-foot sheet of plywood and the eight-foot long two-by-four. Look down the eaves line of most post-World War II residentialneighborhood streets and contemplate the rigid conformity that lurks behind thevinyl siding and the brick veneer. Finally, add into this the very necessarysafety demands of today's building codes. There seems, at first glance, littleroom for genius.

Are We Afraid to Dream

Joseph Hudnut, Professor of the History of Architecture and Acting Dean of theFaculty of Architecture at Columbia University from 1926 to 1934, commented,"Architecture tells us not what men were at any period of history, but what theydreamed." Are we afraid to dream? A casual survey of most mainline churchesbuilt since 1950 would suggest that we are. Lining the roadsides and anchoringthe suburban intersections of post-war America are imitations (sometimes timid,sometimes aggressively over-scaled) of earlier architectural styles.

Hudnut also pointed out, "Architecture cannot be explained by social andpolitical circumstances; it is made out of the longings and starvations whichthe soul has endured." Have we forgotten this too? Where something non-traditional is attempted, the result all too often looks as if it was inspiredby a nearby golf club, ski lodge, or motel. Are we neglecting the importantfunction of the church building to represent the refuge we seek in Jesus?

This is not to say that there has been no excellence in innovative church designin the United States in the last half-century. There certainly has. Regrettably,it is the exception not the rule. And I must ask why most building committeesare content with a new building that is a feeble echo of an earlier style or abland adaptation of a nearby community center?

There are three possible explanations. First, traditional church architecturefeels comfortable to us and at the same time conveys an unspoken sense of pastauthority. Second, "modern" architecture conveys to many Christians somethingdauntingly secular. And third, we appear to lack confidence that our ownexperience of the living God is vibrant enough to fuel an authentic newexpression in church building design.

The Easy Comfort of Tradition

Traditional church architecture feels comfortable to us because it is so veryfamiliar. Many of the world's best-preserved historic buildings are religiousbuildings. Most of them were the result of bold and innovative design in theirown eras, seeking to express some newly valued perspective of God to those whobuilt them. We perceive them, rightly, as links to the historical traditions offaith and icons of past practice. However, we fail to appreciate that we cannever recapture the past or directly participate in the faith perspective of anearlier era. We can learn from the past, but we can never duplicate it.

Our Bubble Called "Now"

We humans live each moment of our lives in a constantly moving bubble we call"now." It is always "now" for us. Yesterday was "now" when we were there.Tomorrow will be "now" for us when we get there. Now is the only moment in whichanything is possible for us. We can never remain behind in a past moment oradvance prematurely into a future one. Our reality has been established by theunique interface between linear time, which we know as "chronology," andcircular time, which we know as "process" or "becoming."

The ancient Greeks referred to these two kinds of time as chronos and kairos.Most of us are more familiar with chronos than we are with kairos Chronos islinear and sequential. Chronos measures one thing after another. It marks aplace on an unrepeating continuum, but carries no suggestion of value. Kairos,on the other hand, is a circular measure of time. It denotes where something isin the cosmic cycle of conception, birth, adolescence, maturity, deterioration,and death. The...