More Civilizing with Domes

The Chicago Tribune has a tolerable essay on the West Baden Resort, near French Lick Indiana. The former Jesuit Seminary (closed 1966) has a unique past as a Mineral Springs, casino, high-end resort, Seminary, college, and now again a Casino.

Did the Dome civilize French Lick? Not exactly, but it was a noble effort, perhaps more thwarted by the Jesuit meandering attention span than aided by glorious architecture. But what glory!

There is a much smaller, but similar story in Colfax Iowa, of a Franciscan Monastery, Mineral Springs, and now halfway house. I will find some pictures.

A Stone's Throw Away from a Masterpiece

I was all set to take a shot at the Art Institute of Chicago, loading up with a post about the teardown of the George Maher designed wing (thoe old Goodman Theater) that is making way for the toe of the heinous Milenium Park, then going on to smite them for being the "artistic" advisors to the iconoclasty that nearly ruined Holy Name Cathedral (you cannot ruin the majestic ceiling)..and thus has tormented the Archdiocese for nearly 40 years of destruction of the sacred, when...somehow or another, the Art Institute has pulled in the Lorenzo Ghiberti bronze doors from Florence’s Baptistery.

These are really something else (understatement) and haven't really travelled much (understatement again) over the years and they are coming to town on July 28. Aside from Chicago, there is nothing much like Florence for art and architecture. I'll take the doors at Our Lady of Pompeii vs. the 12 hour + flight to Florence, but welcome the Florentine Masterpiece to the Windy City and recommend all visitors stop over at the Shrine to Our Lady of Pompeii to see a beautiful Chicago flavored version of the Florentine Original..

Civilizing the Suburbs one Dome at a Time

Frederick Hogdon is listed as the architect of City Hall at Highland Park Illinois. Classical Revival in its 1920's splendor, completed in 1930 (at the beginning of the Depression), when the City Planning on the North Shore Train Lines was at its most impressive. I need to go inside this facility (of course it is locked) and see for myself why it has a Dome, but I am sure that the lack of Domes on modern City Halls contributes to the general lack of Civilization in Civic Life.

North America's Oldest Church?

From religionand spirituality.com:

The oldest church in North America may lie beneath a small town in Newfoundland, Canada, according to information pieced together from the research of a historian who died before publishing her seminal work. The late Alwyn Ruddock claims an Italian friar accompanying explorer John Cabot built the church during his second trip to the continent in 1498, according to Evan Jones, a University of Bristol researcher who investigated and pieced together Ruddock's notes.

"To describe Alwyn Ruddock's claims as revolutionary would not be an exaggeration," Jones said. "If Ruddock is right, it means that the remains of the only medieval church in North America may still lie buried under the modern town of Carbonear," LiveScience.com reported June 16 in a story carried Thursday on Dreamland.com

Ruddock apparently found evidence that while Cabot sailed south to explore the eastern coast, an Italian friar named Fra Giovanni Antonio Carbonaro, who sailed with Cabot in 1498 with a number of other friars, stayed behind and established a religious colony at present-day Carbonear. "It appears that Ruddock believed the Newfoundland church was named after San Giovanni a Carbonara," which carried over as a place name, Jones writes.

Ruddock, a University of London historian, was one of the world's top experts on Cabot's voyages until her death in late 2005.

Msgr. Knox Slideshow

"Father Knox, are not limericks unfit
for a priest to compose?" "Not a bit!"
He'd reply to his foes,
"What makes you suppose
That the Lord is deficient in wit?"

Fr. Milton Walsh makes a fine slideshow of a pilgrimage he has made to several important places in the life of Msgr. Ronald Knox. Fine shots of some simple and some very grand chapels in England.

Click here for the presentation.

Buy Fr. Walsh book on the life of Knox or

Buy Evelyn Waugh classic biography (packaged with a biography of Edmund Campion)

St. Paul of the Cross Park Ridge

Here is St. Paul fo the Cross in Park Ridge Illinois. Built, suprisingly, in 1951. This may be one of the last Churches in Chicago that in the All-American Style of Joe McCarthy's reflections on European architecture combined with Colonial/Georgian. Again, comes out as purely Chicagoan.
Park Ridge was a relatively new suburb at that time, 1951. Still has a very nice downtown, busy shops and theater. Generally, the Catholic Churches in the Suburbs are not as brawny as the Chicago neighborhood churches, as evidenced by this subtle beauty. Anyone know the architect? It was not on the cornerstone. Sure looks like Joe McCarthy, from a pre WW2 design.
Penalized 1 point for being locked up tighter than a holding cell, in one of the most pedestrian and pleasant suburbs in Chicago...all this with literally hundreds of people walking by the Church Campus, perhaps, like me, imagining the interior of the Church.

More Trials of St. Boniface

The status of the Henry Schlacks Germanic St. Boniface is in play again. Per the Chicago Journal plans for turning this church into senior condos have fallen through.

I continue to suggest to the Archdiocese the following use plans for Historic buildings:

1) Churches remain Churches

2) Schools remain Schools

3) Hospitals are generally not architecturally significant

4) Get cash up front from developers

Here is a nice site on St. Boniface Parish History

More Temples of Commerce

Here is a piece in the New York Times about the Wanamaker Organ in the former Wanamaker Department Store (now Macy's) in Philadelphia. I was about to skip out of the article, and noticed this fine shot of the Palazzo Interior of the department store. Thinking it looked familiar, AIA notes the Architect as DH Burnham of Chicago.

Built by the Los Angeles Art Organ Company for the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair, the Wanamaker Organ was designed by renowned organ architect George Ashdown Audsley, author of The Art of Organ-Building. This heroic instrument had more than 10,000 pipes, and its construction was on such a lavish scale that costs soared to $105,000, bankrupting the builder.

This Philadelphia Temple of Commerce may only be matched by DH Burnhams Chicago Temple, Marshall Fields.

Great Ornament at the Shedd

Forget the slimy aquatics at the Shedd Aquarium; Check out the Grand Ornament. Dan Mitsui over at the Lion and the Cardinal has some great shots of the Graham Probst Anderson's Shedd Aquarium showing fine ironwork and other bastions of traditional architecture (vs. Dirk Lohans tumorous 1991 addition). I always cringe at the Second City inferiority complex of claiming such buildings are "Beaux Arts". Chin up Chicago Cultural Establishments, the building is Chicago Style and awesome, needing no Frenchified qualifiers.

Here is a shot or two. Dan has more on Flickr.

Here is John Shedd's (2nd President of Marshal Fields) Mausoleum from a comment section on Dan's Blog

Fr. Hugh McGuire Guild

St. James, the grand Patrick Keeley Irish muscle flexer on South Wabash, has established the Fr. Hugh McGuire Guild dedicated to the restoration of this awesome Church. Here are some shots, more details later.

Liturgical Buildings and Protestants

Here is a clip from Msgr Francis Mannion:

"It is no accident that the Protestant congregational churches have historically set art and architecture in a rather secondary and subservient role in public worship. Catholicism will be led inevitably in the same direction if it fails to renew its theological conception of the complex structure of the liturgy."

Well maybe..but with all due respect to Msgr. Mannion, how to explain the Dresden Frauenkirke, shown here. At least as exuberant as a Roman Catholic Church, did the Frauenkirke builders not understand the Lutheran Liturgy, or is the Liturgy a bit more complex than a two sentence proclomation.

For example, the Tiffany stained glass at the Presbyterian Chapel at Lake Forest College (albeit this shot from a secular frame) is glorious in is craftmanship. Is there something about "tinting the light of Christ" that the Presbyterians missed?

Looking for a shot of the flashy Tiffany windows First Congregational Church in Kenosha, a church that (at one time) strictly regulated devotional imagery. By the 1902 window installation, reduced devotional imagery was not being practiced at First Congregational.

Anglicans, Episcopalians? The Stripping of the Altars did not work out all that well, resulting in Anglo Catholics on one side, and Quakers on the other. So I pass this over to the esteemed Dr. McNamara and/or Matt Alderman:

Denis, Matt...what is it the connection between the built liturgy and Protestants?

Forgotten Architectural Styles I: Hungarian Art Nouveau

Here's a fascinating collection of photos of the now increasingly endangered synagogue of the Serbian (formerly Hungarian) town of Subotica, a stunning piece of Hungarian art nouveau definitely worth one's study. Art Nouveau is increasingly coming back into the limelight as a favorite historic style, as Gaudi and his more conventional contemporaries in the singularly misnamed Modernismo movement are given their moments of reappraisal in the sun. However, the Subotica synagogue shows such sophisticated and innovative reworkings of folk art and architecture were hardly an isolated western European phenomenon, nor is their significance confined to history--the simplified, curvilinear forms and humble brick and stucco construction of this particular house of worship could easily be adapted to modern construction processes to create a marvelous building in an unusual style that nonetheless has deep historic roots.





On a sadder note, Subotica's synagogue is now almost all but empty. Most of the city's 6,000 Jews were shipped to Auschwitz and never returned. While many are calling for its restoration as a work of cultural and artistic importance, nobody is quite sure what they should do with it if it is ever returned to its former glory.

Catholic Mass/Presbyterian Church

OK, maybe 220 years ago, we would be knocking each other on the head for this, but the Presbyterians in Wilmette are showing a real knack for the Catholic Mass.

The First Presbyterian Church of Wilmette performed Mozart's Missa brevis in G this morning, and performed it beautifully and reverentially. I am not familiar enough with Presbyterianism and the teachings of Calvin and Knox to get much historical perspective on this, but logistically it worked pretty well, considering having a Catholic mass sandwiched in a Presbyterian service is a bit unconventional.

Speaking of unconventional, Joe McHale, grandson of Joe McCarthy mentioned that his grandfather most likely built 1st Presbyterian under an assumed name, and it does have all the trappings of the Great Chicago Ecclesiologist.

More Chicago Spaces

By now you have signed up for Dr. McNamara's Sunday afternoon tour of the South Shore Churches (St. Michael's, Our Lady of Peace, St. Philip Neri), but our friend Suzanne Morgan is showing Hyde Park's glory as well on Saturday.

"Hyde Park's Magnificent Sacred Spaces (trolley, 32) Suzanne Morgan, President, Center for Religious Architecture Rich in history, these three sacred places exhibit the unique features of architecture and worship. Highlights include St. Thomas the Apostle Catholic Church, the first modern style Catholic Church in America, KAM Isaiah Israel Temple, harkening back to Byzantine designs of Palestinian origin, and Augustana Evangelical Lutheran, illustrating the sacraments and symbols of the Lutheran tradition. 1:00pm/ 3 hrs."

If you sign up for both, I think you only have to pay once. And yes, St. Thomas the Apostle is by the brilliant Francis Barry Byrne, on of the first modernists (from a time when modernism did not mean ugly and dysfunctional) This is quite a tour!

UPDATE: If you have seen too much fine architecture and want to see what is wrong with the Modern, try this tour.

Seventeenth Church of Christ, Scientist 55 E. Wacker Drive Open - Saturday, May 19 Hours - 10:00am - 2:00pm Program - Drop in; tour guides available Harry Weese designed this church edifice, completed in 1968 and constructed of pre-cast concrete. While it is a well-recognized building, most are unaware that it is a church with a seating capacity of 800.

ABC 7 Follows up on SSB Story

Perhaps the best local news coverage in Chicago, ABC-7, with perhaps the best news anchor, local or national, Ron Magers has made a series of videos of the Driehaus properties on Erie Street in the Gold Coast. Well done, pleasant music, and a great follow up to our original photos of the Driehaus Prize, also taken at the properties mentioned on the newscast.

Here are outstanding video tours of:

John Murphy Auditorium

Ransom Cable House

Nickerson Mansion

Backstage with the Bishop

Restore and Renew, a $10 Million campaign for Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago has kicked off and is making great progress.

Reverend Dan Mayall, Pastor of Holy Name Cathedral and Most Reverend Timothy J. Lyne, Auxillary Bishop of Chicago, along with hosts Keith and Mary Armato cordially invite readers of and contributors to the Society of St. Barbara to learn more about the "Friends of the Cathedral", a group dedicated to the effort to preserve and restore the Cathedral for future generations.

Please email me at the Society of St. Barbara (or just show up) May 20 at 3PM at the Cathedral for "Backstage with the Bishop" a one of a kind presentation and tour of Holy Name Cathedral with Bishop Timothy J. Lyme. Reception, Cocktails, Hors D'oeuvres, and Mass.

The Catholic Renaissance continues in Chicago.

We All Knew It: High Ceilings Are Good in Churches

The wisdom of the Church has been known for millenia, and now science has "proven" it: high ceilings are good for expansive, creative thinking.
A recent study at the University of Minnesota suggests that ceiling height affects problem- solving skills and behavior by priming concepts that encourage certain kinds of brain processing. "Priming means a concept gets activated in a person's head," researcher Joan Meyers-Levy told LiveScience. "When people are in a room with a high ceiling, they activate the idea of freedom. In a low-ceilinged room, they activate more constrained, confined concepts."

The labeling for their somewhat abstract concepts, "freedom" and "confinement," comes from a speculative paper on how lofty cathedral ceilings might encourage a different religious experience from the low ceilings of a modest chapel. Theirs may be the first empirical study to make use of these terms in describing concepts that influence behavior. Meyers-Levy and Zhu will publish their results this August in the Journal of Consumer Research.

This study was meant to apply to business methods, recommending that "managers should want noticeably higher ceilings for thinking of bold initiatives." What could be bolder than establishing a connection with God through the sacramental system of the liturgy? Let's end the age of ecclesiastical architectural mediocrity!

Lion House fit for the King

Beautiful Ceiling on Dwight Perkins' Lion House at Lincoln Park Zoo. Reminds me of tamed down version of the lively ceiling on Corpus Christ Church on South Side.

Great Chicago Spaces with Dr. McNamara

The Mayor's Office of Special Events, The Society of St. Barbara and Denis McNamara are proud to announce a Rare Tour of 3 South Shore masterpieces of Chicago Ecclessiology.

South Shore Churches (trolley, 32)
Denis McNamara, PhD, Director, Liturgical Institute
Visit three historic churches, featuring interior tours of St. Michael's, William Brinkman's towering brick masterpiece; St. Philip Neri, Joseph McCarthy's Prairie/Gothic miniature skyscraper and Our Lady of Peace, McCarthy's Italian Renaissance style in blue marble. 1:45pm/ 2 hrs.

Register Here


Thanks to Mayor Daley's Office, the Archdiocese of Chicago, and the Parishes of St. Michael, St. Philip Neri, and Our Lady of Peace for their support in organizing these tours.

Exuberance at 360 N. Michigan

Another nice shot from Flckr and University of Minnesota (Left) . The London Guarantee Building at 360 N. Michigan, flows with Wrigley, Tribune and 333 N. Michigan for a Chicago 4 Pack of Powerhouse Buildings.

Alfred S. Alschuler 1922-3. The City says it is Beaux Arts, I suppose, Classical Revival, perhaps. Brawny Chicago Style-definitely.