Stones that unite

The liturgical building is, now more than ever, an integral part not just of the geographical, but also of the historical and social context: that is the thesis that emerged from the 4th international conference on “Architecture and Liturgy in the Twentieth Century. European experiences compared”, held in Venice on 26/27 October. The church building “was analysed not as a self-sufficient building type, but as architecture within the city and in relation to the city”. It is able to “shape itself anew to help revive its own function in response to historical, cultural and social changes”. “Especially since the end of the war, the relation between city and society has been strongly characterised by the presence of churches and parish centres as points of aggregation, both from an urban and social point of view. In a multicultural reality like our own, the value of the role played by these sites is confirmed as primary, often in the absence of other similar focal points on the territory”. Austria, Belgium, Portugal and the Czech Republic were the nations at the centre of reflection. THE DIFFICULTIES OF CHANGE. “The economic situation of most Austrian dioceses is good, and for the time being no one is thinking of closing or selling off churches or chapels”, in contrast to what “is happening in other countries”, remarked Conrad Lienhardt , expert in liturgical architecture from the diocese of Linz ( AUSTRIA ), in justifying the Austrian interest in the planning and realization of religious buildings. “The history of liturgical architecture in Austria – he pointed out – reflects not only the altered relations between Catholic Church and State, but also the changes within the Church itself, its different social significance and the tensions between rebellion, resignation and restoration”. Lienhardt recalled the “popular liturgical movement” in the 1920s and, in the post-war period, the role of Clemens Holzmeister, who gave “a considerable impulse to liturgical architecture” in Austria. “Remarkable works” can also be found among more recent liturgical buildings, but Lienhardt drew attention to the “doubts about the form of the space for liturgical celebrations” that can be observed today and that “are attributable to the changed conditions of our society”. The social changes in question generate tensions “between the idea of modernity and the founding concepts of religious space”, according to Jose Manuel Fernandes , lecturer in the department of architecture of the University of Lisbon. In PORTUGAL, he explained, “the religious architecture of the Catholic Church assumed a specific connotation in the twentieth century, an expression of the values, changes and conflicts that have characterised the life of the country”. RECENT REFLECTION. In the CZECH REPUBLIC the roots of modern liturgical architecture can be traced back to the twentieth century, and more precisely to the period after 1918, the year of the birth of Czechoslovakia. “Some exemplary buildings, following international ‘liturgical prescriptions’, arose in Prague in the Twenties”, recalled Karel Rechlik , director of the diocesan museum in Brno, observing that this process was interrupted by the Second World War and then by the years of the Communist regime. But with one exception: “At the end of the Sixties solitary churches were built at Senetá?ov, Tichá and Frenštátu, in response to the new architectural ideas and liturgical needs of Vatican Council II”. After 1989, on the other hand, churches and chapels have been built in large quantities, and those built more recently are “convincing both from an artistic and spiritual point of view”, despite the “dark periods” that had brought “a decline in architectural quality and a lack of clarity in theological and liturgical ideas, exclusively dependent on the builder’s criteria”. BALANCE AND OPENNESS. The Council marked a turning point also for BELGIUM , permitting the emergence of “genuine modernity”, as explained by the Benedictine Frédéric Debuyst of the monastery of Clerlande. “This astonishing delay – he pointed out – would however give rise to some salutary consequences. The new perspective proposed by the Council, and actively promoted by Belgian bishops and theologians, would permit the country to overcome at a bound all the intermediate stages in which some other nations had remained trapped, and to take a leading position” in architectural renewal. A liturgical movement that “has suffered no deceleration right down to our own time”, and “constantly encouraged by the bishops”, has tackled “such essential questions as the living assembly, the dual polarity of the Word and the altar, and the profoundly unitary nature of the sacred space”. Thanks to this movement, Belgian churches of the late twentieth century can be regarded as “religious buildings able to offer a really balanced and, at the same time, very open overall situation”, able to reconcile the needs both of the liturgy and of architecture.