Brisbane church architecture of the 1960s
Creating modern, climatic and regional responses to liturgical change
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/qre.2016.31Keywords:
Bisbane, church architecture, liturgical change, active congregation participation, immanence and transcendenceAbstract
The twentieth century was a time of massive upheaval in the intellectual, theological and architectural spheres of society. Two world wars, massive post-war population growth and a building boom coincided with the Second Vatican Council and the liturgical movement within the Christian churches, and encountered the modern movement in architecture. This prompted a demand for a re-evaluation of church building design. In Brisbane, new approaches to church building design emerged in the 1960s, with widely divergent results. The architects, denominations and church parishes within the city — although all sought to address liturgical change and emphasise the active participation of the congregation in the services — held different opinions on how the quintessential church characteristics, immanence and transcendence, could be adapted to modern times. Analysing three exemplary Christian churches in Brisbane, this article demonstrates how in each of these designs their architects sought to evoke immanence and transcendence in a decisively new and modern manner, seeking inspiration from progressive ideas in Europe, Britain and America while striving to create buildings suited to the climate of South-East Queensland. Liturgical change, modern architecture and regional climate considerations provided compounding opportunities to rethink church design from first principles.
References
Professor John Macarthur and Dr Janina Gosseye (School of Architecture, University of Queensland) provided advice and review during the preparation of this article.
The terms ‘immanence’ and ‘transcendence’ can be defined such that the purpose of church buildings is for God to be immanent in them and for people to transcend through them. Immanence is the emergence of inherent or spiritual qualities. A church building needs to be immanent of faith, belief and God. Transcendence is to go beyond the grasp of human experience. God is transcendent, as He exists beyond the limitations and materiality of this earth. It is through immanence and transcendence that people worship together and have their own relationship with God. Achieving these this is what makes a church building unique from its residential, secular and civic counterparts.
George Everard Kidder Smith, The new churches of Europe (London: Architectural Publishing, 1964), p. 1.
Changed to Kenmore Uniting Church in 1977.
Peter Hammond, Liturgy and architecture (London: Barrie and Rockliff, 1960).
Hammond, Liturgy and architecture, p. 50.
‘Liturgy’ is most simply defined by its Greek derivatives, leiton (people) and ergon (work). A person is described as doing a liturgy when they perform a good work that benefits the community. Over time, only the unselfish acts associated with religion have retained this term. The liturgy is the defining term of the acts performed as part of worship. The Eucharist is the central act of the liturgy within the Catholic Church. Protestant churches focus more on the lesson.
Hammond, Liturgy and architecture, p. 51; see also Edwin Heathcote and Iona Spens, Church builders (Chichester: Academy Editions, 1997), p. 32.
Cardinal Montini, ‘Liturgical formation’, Worship 33(3) (1959), 136–64.
‘Mass’ is also referred to as ‘the service’; ‘communion’ is also referred to as ‘the Eucharist’ and ‘the Lord’s supper’; ‘sermon’ is also referred to as ‘the lesson’ and ‘the message’. These terms change depending upon denomination.
Steven J. Schloeder, Architecture in communion: Implementing the Second Vatican Council through liturgy and architecture (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1990), p. 20.
Schloeder, Architecture in communion, p. 16.
See Hammond, Liturgy and architecture, and Judith Bennett et al., ‘Vatican II — voice of the church’, http://vatican2voice.org/default.htm.
These screens consisted of communion rails, choir stalls and sometime organs.
Noted by, for example, Hammond, Liturgy and architecture and Heathcote and Spens, Church builders.
Rather than procuring considered pieces of sacred art, there was a tendency to purchase religious art (e.g. statues) from religious furniture and art companies.
Cited in Kenneth Frampton, Modern architecture: A critical history, 3rd ed. (London: Thames and Hudson, 1980), p. 223.
Gregor Paulsson et al., ‘In search of a new monumentality’, Architectural Review 104(624) (1948), 121.
Hammond, Liturgy and architecture. Hammond considered this to be the first church to combine the liturgical and modern architecture movements. Other authors also note this building’s importance, but do not repeat Hammond’s statement.
Robert Maguire and Keith Murray, Modern churches of the world (London: Studio Vista, 1965), p. 14.
Hammond, Liturgy and architecture, pp. 59–60.
However, each nation set about rebuilding differently, some taking the opportunity to express their national identity. For a review of church building designs across Europe, see Heathcote and Spens, Church builders.
Heathcote and Spens, Church builders, p. 63.
G.E. Kidder Smith, ‘Six new European churches’, Architectural Forum 99(6) (1953), 103, cited in Gretchen Buggeln, The suburban church: Modernism and community in postwar America (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2015), p. 4.
Hammond, Liturgy and architecture, p. xv.
Hammond, Liturgy and architecture, p. 11; Buggeln, The suburban church, p. 4.
Victoria M. Young, Saint John’s Abbey Church: Marcel Breuer and the creation of a modern sacred space (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2014).
Louise Campbell, Coventry Cathedral, art and architecture in post-war Britain (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), p. 2. The Western world is inclusive of Europe, Great Britain and America.
The liturgical movement resulted in design brief changes, including dialogue mass (using the language of the laity); mass facing the people (not the east wall); uninterrupted view to the altar (high altar); removal of columns in nave (no side aisle separation); choirs moved so not between the altar and the congregation; sanctuary lowered and framing/screens to sanctuary removed, so less like a stage; removal of distracting side altars; one-room worship space; concelebrated mass (more than one priest able to celebrate mass at once) and longer altars for multiple priests; shorter altars with a Eucharist focus of the altar; candles moved off the altar; altar moved forward towards the congregation, well forward of the east wall; rails between the altar and the congregation removed; congregation seated fanned on three sides and sometimes around the altar, or wider plan; east–west liturgical axis not as commonly considered; square, oval, elliptical plans; ambo and priest’s chairs designed and located so that the priest does not have his back to the congregation; chairs rather than pews; devotional functions reduced (statues, grottos, side chapels, stations of the cross, pilgrimage shines); flexible multi-function spaces; other educational and social spaces, as part of church buildings. See Robert Proctor and Eamonn Canniffe, Building the modern church: Roman Catholic church architecture in Britain, 1955 to 1975 (Farnham: Ashgate, 2014); and Hammond, Liturgy and architecture.
Queensland chapter, Royal Australian Institute of Architects, publication committee, and E.J.A. Waller (eds),Buildings of Queensland (Brisbane: Jacaranda Press, 1959), p. 55; Hannah Lewi, David Nichols, Philip Goad, Julie Willis and Kate Darian-Smith, ‘Making the modern community’, in Hannah Lewi and David Nichols (eds), Community: Building modern Australia (Sydney: UNSW Press), p. 4; and John Macarthur, Deborah van der Plaat, Janina Gosseye and Andrew Wilson (eds), Hot modernism: Queensland architecture 1945–1975 (London: Artifice, 2015), p. 168.
Buggeln, The suburban church; Lewi et al., ‘Making the modern community’, p. 8; Paul Hogben and Judith O’Callaghan (eds.), Leisure space: the transformation of Sydney 1945– 1970 (Sydney: New South Publishing, 2014), p. 131; Tracey Avery, Peta Dennis and Paula Whitman (eds), Cool: The 60s Brisbane house (Brisbane: School of Design and Built Environment, QUT, 2004), p. 19.
Lisa Andersen, ‘Responses in ecclesiology: Examples of Brisbane church building design in the 1960s’, unpublished undergraduate thesis, University of Queensland. Note: Lisa Andersen changed her name in 2001 to Lisa Daunt.
Macarthur et al., Hot modernism. The impact of modern architecture increased with the new university courses and the talented leadership within tertiary institutions, including Robert Cummings and Austrian emigr ´ e Karl Langer. ´
Lewi et al., ‘Making the modern community’.
Macarthur et al., Hot modernism.
Climatic design features include verandahs, eaves, operable windows (including large bays of louvres in later 1960s church buildings) and shaded skylights. These may seem basic, but it is the extent and careful integration of these that sets Queensland church buildings apart, and this is what architects describe when interviewed about their designs.
Department of Architecture, University of Melbourne, ‘Cross section’ no. 80 (June 1959), noted in Macarthur et al., Hot modernism, p. 260.
The illustrations shown alongside this statement were St Stephen’s Church, Coorparoo (H.G. Driver); Mary Immaculate Roman Catholic Church, Brisbane (J.P. Donoghue, c. 1928); Church of Latter Day Saints, Coorparoo (1958); St Peter’s Church of England, Proston (Fowell, McConnell and Mansefield, in association with Lucas and Cummings, c. 1939); and St Matthew’s Church of England, Townsville (Ford, Hutton and Newell, 1957). However, these churches were all conservative, with their ‘modern’ design limited to their simplified form and material selection when compared to their more ornate timber and stone predecessors.
Royal Australian Institute of Architects and Weller, Buildings of Queensland, p. 35.
William Lockett (ed.), The modern architectural setting of the liturgy (London: SPCK, 1964).
Smith, The new churches of Europe, p. 14.
In 1955, Bill Douglas commenced private practice in Brisbane as William L. Douglas Architect, and joined in partnership with Barry Barnes, as Douglas and Barnes, in Brisbane and the Gold Coast in 1957 until the partnership’s dissolution in 1972, when the practice returned to Douglas’s sole ownership (UQFL289, Douglas, Daly and Bottger collection, 1955–88; Andersen, Responses to ecclesiology.
The east altar location and west entry location do not appear to be a formal requirement in the churches discussed in this article. The Church of England and earlier church buildings seem to have adhered to this church design ‘rule’ more strictly. Further research is required to ascertain whether this informed Brisbane modern church design.
Jennifer Taylor 2004, ‘The Australian context’, in Avery, Dennis, and Whitman, Cool, p. 4.
Macarthur et al., Hot modernism, p. 177.
Queensland Chapter, Royal Australian Institute of Architects 1968, ‘Building of the Year Award 1968, Church, for the Presbyterian church, Moggill Road, Kenmore’, Architecture in Australia (Nov.), 949.
Queensland Chapter, ‘Building of the Year Award 1968’, 949.
Kenmore Presbyterian Church, The light in the heart of Kemmore: 100 years of Presbyterian tradition and development in Kenmore and districts (Kenmore: Kenmore Presbyterian Church, 1973), p. 10.
Marion Wilson 1986, ‘Modern church architecture’, unpublished undergraduate thesis, QUT, p. 117.
See Deborah van der Plaat, Andrew Wilson, and Elizabeth Musgrave 2015, ‘Twentieth-century (sub)tropical housing: Framing climate, culture and civilisation in post-war Queensland’, in Macarthur et al., Hot modernism.
Gibson, 22 June 2000, cited in Andersen, Responses to ecclesiology.
Comment from the jury report (J. Dalton, W. Grieg, J. Ralton, G. Peterson, and N. Miller), cited in Royal Australian Institute of Architects, ‘Building of the Year Award’, p. 949.
Kerkin was reverend at Kenmore Uniting Church between 1964 and 1970; Gibson, 22 June 2000 cited in Andersen, Responses to ecclesiology.
Gibson, cited in Wilson, Modern church architecture, p. 117.
Gibson, 22 June 2000 cited in Andersen, Responses to ecclesiology.
Avery, Dennis and Whitman, Cool.
Philip Goad, ‘The Australian house in the 1960s’, in Tracey Avery, Peta Dennis and Paula Whitman (eds), Cool: The 60s Brisbane house (Brisbane: School of Design and Built Environment, QUT, 2004), p. 9.
Residence of the Year, 1966 RAIA, Queensland chapter awards cited in Philip Goad, ‘The Australian house in the 1960s’, in Tracey Avery, Peta Dennis and Paula Whitman (eds), Cool: The 60s Brisbane house (Brisbane: School of Design and Built Environment, QUT, 2004), p. 9, 42 & 45.
Andersen, Responses to ecclesiology; and the work-in-progress listing for Frank L. (Francis Leo) Cullen, 1909-91, ‘Architectural drawings, 1930–1986’, in Frank Cullen, Fryer MSS, University of Queensland.
Hargraves, 12 April 2000, cited in Andersen, Responses to ecclesiology.
Hargraves, 12 April 2000, cited in Andersen, Responses to ecclesiology.
Hargraves, 12 April 2000, cited in Andersen, Responses to ecclesiology.
Henze, cited in Heathcote and Spens, Church builders, p. 40.
Hargraves, 12 April 2000, cited in Andersen, Responses to ecclesiology.
Hargraves, 12 April 2000, cited in Andersen, Responses to ecclesiology.
Hargraves, 12 April 2000, cited in Andersen, Responses to ecclesiology.
