People of today and tomorrow need this enthusiasm [of wonder] if they are to meet and master the crucial challenges which stand before us. Thanks to this enthusiasm, humanity, every time it loses its way, will be able to lift itself up and set out again on the right path. In this sense it has been said with profound insight that “beauty will save the world” (§16).
~Pope St. John Paul II, Letter to artists, titled: “The Saving Power of Beauty”
The latter half of the 20th century brought its share of poor church architectural design, moving away from the ornate splendor and magnificence of the cathedral, toward (in many instances) the sterile, bland, and nondescript.
Fortunately, recent years have brought a renaissance in sacred architecture, with architects such as Duncan Stroik and James McCrery designing a collection of beautifully-designed, traditional churches. That trend is also manifest in the growing number of traditional renovations recently, a number of which can be seen below.
Enjoy:
1. St. Theresa’s: Sugarland, TX
Before
After
2. St. Louis Church, Memphis, TN
Before
After
3. St. Peter the Apostle, Lake Charles, LA
Before
After
4. Holy Name, Brooklyn, NY
Before
After
5. St. Genevieve Catholic Church
6. St. Mary’s: Fennimore, WI
7. Holy Trinity, Westminster, CO
Before
After
8. St. Mary’s, Durand, IL
9. St. Bede: Holland, PA
Before
After
10. St. Coleman, Washington, Ohio
Before
After
11. Jesuit High School Chapel, Tampa, FL
Before
After
12. Unknown parish, U.S.
13. Monastery of the Infant Jesus of Prague, Traverse City, MI
Before
After
Do you have before & after renovation photos of your parish to share? Send it to us and we’ll feature it in part 2.
Please feel free to share this article:
Before and after shots of St Elizabeth Ann Seton parish in Houston, TX (see link).
Aesthetically and liturgicallg–minded folks might wonder if these are in fact only halfway to really being majestic spaces due to comprimises of money and the use of the Novus Ordo and facing the people.
More importantly, your use of the photos is problematic. Technically, those are all copyrighted. You need permissiom, but the Internet is such that you can’t be stopped. Fine, but it is low to post photos without linking or citing. I have done it too, but I always tried to post the original date and location, as far as I knew it, if the photographer was unknown. I really should have linked the original article as a footnote, but oh well.
#12 is St. Bernadette’s in Linville, NC. For more and better pictures, visit http://www.stbernadettelinville.org
“Unknown Parish” is St. Bernadette, Spruce Pine, North Carolina (Diocese of Charlotte).
Here’s the link to Seton: http://seascatholic.org/photoalbums/church-before-and-after
This warms my heart – St. Leo’s (Lunenburg, VT) was covered with beautiful murals which, in the 1960s, were painted over by a misguided priest. The church has since been desanctified and put up for sale.
“Aesthetically and liturgicallg–minded folks might wonder if these are in fact only halfway to really being majestic spaces due to comprimises of money and the use of the Novus Ordo and facing the people.”
Matthew, I disagree. I’m sure every one of them would have loved a billionaire benefactor to raze the old building and start from scratch, but budget constraints are real.
I do think a couple of them, specifically #1 and #3, look like they’ve built a stage that just doesn’t fit with the unfortunately bland building and low roof lines. Maybe it’s just bad photography. But I do think simpler colors and cleaner lines can still be beautiful, if that’s the type of shell you’ve got to work with. But I greatly admire all of their efforts to embrace tradition, and to focus on the tabernacle.
As for the EF snobbery, just give it a rest.
How about Immaculate Conception in St. Anna Minnesota where my family goes to Mass? It needs no renovation, like many churches in Central Minnesota, and looks as it did in 1902. And how are we to post up the pics you called for.
These are beautiful! I’m a priest in northern Michigan. Here are pictures of my parish- does anyone have ideas as to what we could do to improve it, and what companies do these sort of renovations? I wouldn’t even know where to start. (Contacting those architects from across the country?) Also, we’re poor, but it’s nice to daydream! (lol donations are gratefully accepted!)
-The presider and deacon’s chairs face sideways now and are being re-upholstered, the Divine Mercy picture is now in the confessional, and the baptismal font is at the entrance of the Church (a lot of these are from before my time here).
Would love to hear ideas!
https://www.facebook.com/StJosephEvangilizationCommittee/photos/a.297696363668825.59310.289757047796090/876028255835630/?type=3&theater
My parish is currently in the process of making renovations like the ones pictured. We’ve been working with RefFern Art Studios out of Savannah Georgia. He’s a fantastic artists who can pretty much do anything you want!
Father Chenier, I understand about money. That’s a problem for most of us. These modern designed churches don’t easily lend themselves to traditional looks. Two simple solutions that the men of the parish might have the skill to complete are these. Bring back a communion rail. It can be plain wood rather than marble, but it separates the nave from the sanctuary and implies to all that the sanctuary is a special holy place. Second, on the back wall add a large gothic wall panel around the crucifix, flanked by two smaller gothis panels for(the the Blessed Mother and St Joseph. I would also consider a privacy screen on either side. I should not be able to see into your study there on the left. Does your diocese store the goods from closed parishes, that you might be able to use to beautify your church?
I don’t use Facebook, so I can’t see the pictures, but I’d be happy to if you have a different link to images.
The #6 after is also The Annunciation Church in North Aurora, Illinois.
If you’d like to see more, go to the Facebook page for “De-Wreckovation: The Restoration of Beauty in the Catholic Church”
https://www.facebook.com/groups/635890476515259/
We post a number of projects around the world all the time.
aren’t these more along the lines of restorations ?
now let’s get rid of the picnic tables and return to the Sacrifice of the Mass on a holy altar.
Sorry, The only one I really don’t like in the “before” picture is Holy Name in Brooklyn. In the rest, just looking at the photos, I like the “befores” better. I did go to the Univ. of Dallas and participated in their “Rome” semester so I have seem some ancient, historical, and “classical” art and architecture firsthand, but I still prefer the “befores.” There’s something to be said for what I would consider an austerity of the more modern look. Maybe it’s the influence of “Cistercian austerity” from the priests/clergy Cistercian professors at UD. Or maybe it’s just personal taste. Or it could be growing up in the Vat. II era and being more used to the new school look. I generally consider myself to be Old School, but not here.
All the remakes are an improvement over the deplorable destruction of these churches!! There is only so much you can do with a modern hall type church though! I am just sick when I visit the church I received all my sacraments at…instead of a high, white, marble altar…there are large banners and drapes and a plain wood table and ferns!! If I never see another banner in my lifetime it will be to soon!! I know I sound like an old curmudgeon,so I might as well tell you about my parish church that I attend now. It was built in 1975-1976 so you can understand…our pastor saying it was supposed to represent a ship like the ark…if you look at the ceiling, it looks like an upside down ship and it does!! The outside looks like a space ship!! Really!! During Advent,in the place of the statues of the Blessed Mother and St.Joseph were, you guessed it…BANNERS …on each side of the Tabernacle!! We all need to keep praying with Our Lady to restore the beauty,reverence,holiness and tradition of her Son’s Church.
The before picture of Holy Name Brooklyn NY is accurate minus the plain bare altar, BUT the after picture does not reflect the beauty of our new renovation. Our church this Christmas is a pure “knockout” because the Altar, including the two side altars, are filled with Red & White Poinsettias. Abnsolutely esquisite!!
I hope someone from Epiphany of the Lord Catholic Community in Katy will post the before and after of their main church. The tabernacle used to be on one side but the new pastor put it in the center and added beautiful stations of the cross. I hope the ‘risen Christ’ above the altar is replaced by the Cross similar to the one in the Chapel for daily Mass. Soon.
Creating beautiful churches is very important but to be quite frank I’m not sure in some of the these pictures the before /after pictures
Are much different and in some cases the after pictures are worse!! The most important thing is reverence and the centrality of the Eucharist , fake gothic is not moral interior design and in some cases comes across as kitch and fake,simplicity integrity and true devotion is all that is asked and is recognised by prayerfull people
Why are so many renovations without communion rails? Makes no sense to me.
I think that all of the afters are better, but they nearly all reveal a very real problem with these sort of “traditionalizing” of modern churches. Very often the Church’s teachings about the sacred space for the mass are ignored. For example, several of these added additional side altars, something prohibited by the Church documents. Look at how many attempted to shoehorn an incompatible “traditional” style into the space, like the neo-classical backdrop shoved into a low space with peaked roof. The desire to “sacred-ize” our many horrendous spaces does not excuse the need for good design.
Unfortunately, the American idea of “traditional” is rooted in the 19th century, the very era of church building that heralded the downfall of the sacred place. The triple altar arrangement with Mary and Joseph flanking is a modern notion. It might be shocking to most people, but main altars engaged to a reredos is an idea not only foreign but unacceptable to most of the history of Catholic Church building. But since it has gotten caught up in the versus populum / ad apsidem kerfuffle, that is often lost as people embrace it as a rejection of versus populum.
The problem is that the bad liturgical design of the 18th and 19th centuries is still better than what came later and these renovations are all improvements, but we need to do much better with our Churches than either.
Before Vatican II, my church in NYC had a large Crucifixion picture behind the altar. Now there is a large picture of the Ascension, which is Biblically inaccurate. In the Bible, Jesus Face shone like the sun, and his robes were white. In the altar picture Jesus is dressed in red and blue clothing and His face does not shine like the sun. The altar is a large table covered with a cloth, and the tabernacle candle is not red, but clear. A few blocks away is another Catholic church, Our Lady of Pompeii, which has retained his original look, and that is the church I prefer.
St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Mandan, North Dakota went through a beautiful update/restoration in about 2010. It is so lovely and should be featured on the next one! I don’t have photos but I’m sure it wouldn’t be hard to dig some up!
Church doctrine speaks to the notion of the worship space being the best artistic expression possible, within the resources available to the parish. It says nothing about copying gothic and renaissance forms and styles. In fact, they are not expressions at all of current times and places, but merely applied copies of past efforts. There is no integrity in copying historic bits and pieces. Gothic architecture was based in structural engineering being invented to create flexible spaces more filled with light and volume than Roman arched basilicas allowed. Renaissance forms did not merely copy Roman form. They use classical forms (some from pagan Greeks that Romans stole) in new ways that gave their humanist basis new expression.
It is commendable to see historic buildings restored, but modern buildings can be great artistic expressions as well, just not using past forms and details. It is better to work within a modern vocabulary, and do it well, as an expression of our own time and place than to ape things from the past, especially if ours is a living faith.
One of my favorite before and after sanctuary renovation is St. Peter the Apostle, Lake Charles, LA. I have been there during the spring and the ambiance is fantastic! Thanks for sharing.