The forms of the sacred” “

The conference on “Architecture and liturgy in the 20th century – comparison between European experiences” was held in Venice from 7-8 October. Organized by the national Office of Ecclesiastical Cultural Properties of the Italian Episcopal Conference in collaboration with the Patriarchate of Venice, the conference was a continuation of the two study days dedicated to “Art and Liturgy in the 20th Century”, they too held in Venice in 2003. The objective pursued in these meetings, explain the organizers, is “an ongoing dialogue between the Church and the world of art and architecture, that seeks – now and for the future – signs and languages capable of expressing new forms of ‘communion’ between the contemporary artistic sensibility and the Revelation of the faith that is each time enacted anew in the sacred space through the liturgical act, so that its eternal actuality be experienced by the living congregation of the faithful”. Sacrosanctum Concilium, the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy of Vatican Council II, was promulgated on 4 December 1963. The fundamental questions addressed by the conciliar reform were: centrality and uniqueness of the altar, listening to the Word of God, and conscious and active participation of the faithful. From the reports presented to the conference in Venice we have selected some indications relating to the way in which architecture has tried to adjust to the post-conciliar liturgical reform. SPAIN. “During the years of the Franco regime – explained PALOMA GIL, professor of planning at the college of architecture in Valladolid -, religion was one of the mainstays of the regime, and that’s why churches were excessively cautious in beginning to abandon the solemn stereotypes that had distinguished them during this period in order to transform themselves, very slowly, into those more open and welcoming places that a part of the clergy had been calling for. Up till the mid-1950s, liturgical ceremonies took place in ‘enclosures’, almost as if they were scenic spaces. They functioned well to communicate the solemn, traditional and nostalgic values of churches as buildings constructed by man to honour God. In 1963, with the directives of the Council, the meaning of the fundamental elements of the church was defined: altar, tabernacle, lectern and baptistery, and also the relation between the altar and the space designed for the faithful. The liturgical changes required the creation of ‘Houses of God’ in which people could feel themselves accepted by Him. In the end, churches as places for the assembly of the faithful seemed feasible in the bare style of modern architecture. At the end of the century, at a time of perhaps unprecedented architectural confusion, Rafael Moneo’s project (1996-2002) for the ‘Catedral de los Angeles’ shines forth as a lone example: a project in which, with unusual precision, all the parameters of architecture are reconciled”. GERMANY. “In the period following the Second World War – recalled WALTER ZAHNER, of the diocese of Regensburg -, many churches in Germany had to be rebuilt or constructed ex novo. Many church buildings that followed the traditional plan of the sacred space were built. Simultaneously, however, churches that embodied the ideas of the liturgical movement that prepared the way for the reforms of Vatican Council II began to be realised from the mid-1950s on: churches that correspond more closely to the idea of the community gathered round the eucharistic table. One of the most costly and most striking church buildings of recent years, the Herz-Jesu-Kirche in Munich, built in 2001, was constructed from scratch and adapted to the needs of the liturgical reform. The so-called ‘ communio-form’ of church, ever more frequently requested by communities and discussed by liturgical experts, has been increasingly adopted in the construction of new churches or the adaptation of old ones over the last decade. In realising this form of church, account is taken of the value attributed by Vatican Council II to the service of the Word and to the eucharistic celebration: lectern and altar are placed in the same space and accorded the same importance, like the two poles of an ellipse (e.g. St. Anton at Passau, adaptation 1998)”. FRANCE. “The need for churches aroused by galloping urbanization – said JEAN-PAUL DEREMBLE, professor of history of art at the University of Lille III – has been imbued with the conciliar spirit, although it has not always succeeded in grasping it in full and providing a qualitatively appropriate artistic form for its expression. The cathedral of Evry is undoubtedly the most complex example in which the gap between the architectural sign and the liturgical proposal can be gauged. In the churches built in Paris, the contradiction between the desire to implant the church with discretion in the contemporary urban context and the need to maintain the traditional symbols has prevented a full artistic, and sometimes even missionary, expression from being found. Conversely, the problem of adapting old buildings to new liturgical needs has given rise to some experiences that are far less spectacular but easier for the faithful to come to terms with”. “The support for the contemporary creation of religious architecture – concluded Deremble -, either in the context of new architecture or in that of the re-adaptation of old buildings, has nonetheless permitted some buildings of the highest quality, in a passionate search for the reconciliation between old and new. The example of the cathedral of Lille, built over a period of three centuries, shows how much the ‘Church’ has a need for a contemporary ‘church’ in which the living forces of the creation may meet”. ITALY. “The congress held in 1955 in Bologna, a diocese then led by Cardinal Lercaro – said GIORGIO DELLA LONGA, professor in the Faculty of Architecture in the University of Roma Tre, in reviewing the progress of religious architecture in Italy – marked a turning point: it was an event of European dimension, both thanks to the dialogue that sprang from it and that continued at the national and international level with the involvement of other dioceses and universities and with the publication of ‘Chiesa e quartiere’, and thanks to the building activity promoted on the basis of the public competitions announced on the occasion of the congress and continued with the involvement of some masters of European fame, with the aim of giving a qualified response to the lack of churches in the new housing estates in the city suburbs. The Bolognese experience inspired other initiatives; especially worth mentioning are those of the diocese of Milan, first under Cardinal Schuster, and especially with the revival of building activity promoted by Cardinal Montini and implemented by the ‘Committee for the construction of new churches’ chaired by Enrico Mattei. This was undoubtedly the happiest period of Italian ecclesiastical architecture – and art – of the 20th century, with the involvement of major protagonists of architecture and the best artists of the time. This brings us to the years of Vatican Council II. A response to its provisions was given by the competition of the Vicariate of Rome for four new parish centres and similar architectural competitions held by Ascoli Piceno, Cattolica and Ravenna – involving a significant search for a reorganization of the ecclesial space”. In the years that followed, however, “a sense of disorientation was manifested by the shoddy architecture of the new churches of the 1970s and 1980s. A gauge of the state of disarray reached was the competition, open to architects in the European Community, promoted by the Vicariate of Rome almost thirty years after the previous one, as part of the programme ’50 churches for Rome 2000′. Given the enormous number of entries, the Roman competition revealed in a disconcerting way the occasional search for a ‘form of the sacred’ completely divorced from the previous development of church architecture: it seems clear that the event of the conciliar liturgy still has difficulty in being recognized in all its value and implications”. SWITZERLAND. “Swiss ecclesiastical architecture – explained FABRIZIO BRENTINI, art historian – was already characterized by a strong liturgical sensibility in the neo-baroque phase. A decisive turning point was the building of the church of St. Karl (1933-34), at Lucerne, with a semicircular choir. The architect, Fritz Metzger, was also responsible for the second decisive step in the development of liturgical building: in the churches of St. Franziskus at Riehen and St. Felix und Regula in Zurich, the longitudinal plan was abandoned in favour of a trapezoidal or oval one. The building boom after the Second World War produced many mediocre examples. Exceptions are the churches of Walter M. Förderer and, even more so, the church of St. Peter at Meggen designed by Franz Füegg. They present, on the eve of Vatican Council II, even in the space of the choir, liturgical innovations that would represent the norm in Switzerland right down to the 1970s”. In the 1990s “in Switzerland too there was much discussion of multifunctional ecclesiastical buildings, but the architects themselves, especially Peter Zumhtor and Mario Botta, with their small chapels, gave the coup de grace to this conception. Worth reporting is a building no longer used for the liturgy: the ecumenical motorway chapel designed by Pascale Guignard and Stefan Saner at Erstfeld (1999), to facilitate meditation and prayer for all believers of all religions: no religious symbol at all is present inside it”.