The “Public Language” of Church Architecture

Church buildings should be designed with consideration of how the general public will relate to the space they define. Church architecture is one language by which the witness of the church may be made known. Church buildings may be valuable to a community both as a space for communal activity and as a symbol of what community stands for.

In a few pages of his classic book The Shape of the Liturgy, Gregory Dix described what it might have been like to come together for Christian worship in second-century Rome. It is very, very early on a Sunday morning, which was a working day in Rome. The setting is a somewhat generous home—typically a series of spaces surrounding the central atrium which might be open or covered. The tablinium, which is a couple of steps up, is the place of the bishop and elders. Others mostly assemble in the atrium, which has its pool, the impluvium, and the cartibulum, a small, blocky Table. There are many elements of the event that endure to this day and others that we might well recover.

It is noteworthy that the architectural setting had a humane and domestic character instead of a monumental one. This was quite fitting for the Christian concept of worship; the assembly was a sort of family reunion. In sharp contrast to most other religions of the time, Christian worship was very much a communal occasion and not an exercise in personal piety.

Another interesting thing about the place is that though it had architectural dignity, it was what we would call a “secular” place; the architecture itself had no ecclesiastical features. For as Justin Martyr said in the year 155 when Rusticus, who was the prefect of Rome, asked him where the Christians worshiped, “The God of Christians is not circumscribed by place, but is invisible and fills all heaven and earth. He is worshiped and glorified by the faithful anywhere.”

A third noteworthy characteristic is that the place was one of functional variability; it was not used exclusively for worship. Clement of Alexandria wrote, “We have no temples and no altars.” Typically, the structure was sturdy and durable; but the artifacts of worship, the lamps for reading in the early dawn, the books, fabrics, and vessels were portable and kept in storage between times.

These are qualities that we can, and I think should accept as continuities between the way early Christians conceived their places of worship and the way we conceive ours. Nevertheless, there was one very radical difference between worship in those early centuries and ours. Theirs were hidden from the public eye. Even when it was no secret, it was private. Neither the liturgy itself nor the structure that surrounded it was open to the public. There are circumstances like that in our world too, and those Christians who must worship in secret must feel a particular kinship with the early Christians.

But our condition is quite different and much happier. We may have if we wish, public worship; and we may build whatever we need and can. Their service and their public witness, charisma, and kerygma, were apart from the liturgy and outside the place of assembly; ours need not be separate.

Buildings and Symbol Systems

What are the implications of all these similarities and differences for those who design and fund the buildings of the church?

What I have to say emerges from the fact that architecture is not only a useful shelter but language. It is a silent language, a symbol system through which Christians can communicate. They speak of themselves, for one thing, reminding themselves Sunday by Sunday about the body of Christ—who they are and what they hope to be. And they speak to other people—the public—about the household of faith and what it is that binds this household together as believers and as disciples.

We are not, by the grace of God, a secret society. We address the public. One thing we have to say is that we receive life as a gift from the Father, and through the Son, forgiveness. It is only reasonable then that Christians respond in the way they design their structures. People who receive gifts of grace and love respond, if they are grateful, with a kind of vivid joy. And so there ought to be a kind of liveliness and joy in the language of our architecture.

There are a million ways of accomplishing this, and I can’t begin to tell you how. But I can say something about what a church building must not be. It must not be a dull, banal, prosaic, commonplace, architectural nothing. It must not be ugly. It must not seem to be something done only out of duty, or stinginess, a cowardly workaday drudgery. It should be a gift not in payment for but in response to a gift. A beautiful thing.

And of course, it must not only be a gift of the congregation to itself, but it must also be a gift from the family of God to others. For if we have received the gifts of life and forgiveness, and if we want to acknowledge the relentlessly loving God, we must be relentlessly loving in turn to the people about us—even in the way we build our buildings. Bonhoeffer described Jesus as being “the man for others” and said that it was only proper that his followers should also be for others.

So, if there is ever the impulse to say, “After all, it’s only a building for ourselves so let’s keep it down and not get too excited about it,” think again. Architecture speaks, and the language is public.

On the other hand, if there ever is the impulse to say, “Let’s build a great monument with a fine tower, so people all around can see it and say, ‘That’s where the Disciples go to church; they surely let themselves be known,’ ” think again. Is that tower just another self-serving billboard?

A Design for Others

The best way I can propose that Christians acknowledge God’s gifts is to approach the work as a few of the congregations we have worked with have. They have said to themselves: “We want a building that isn’t just for us; we want a building through which we can supply some of the unfilled needs of the community we belong to. It will be so planned and so available that it can be used for other purposes besides ours. And this will be our gift to the people around us.”

What that meant, of course, is that they didn’t build what we usually think of as traditional, single-use “sanctuaries.” They grafted onto the oldest tradition instead and built places that could have varied uses. A Catholic parish agreed that if they were in earnest about being hospitable to non-Catholics, they ought to avoid the typical array of Catholic devotional accouterments. So there are no holy-water stoups fastened to the walls (though there is a great vessel of running water at the door); there are no sculptured or painted stations of the cross (which exist instead only as signs in the floor along one wall); the only crucifix is one brought in on a staff when Mass begins; the stained glass is beautiful, but has no pictures of iconographic symbols; the tabernacle can be veiled with a screen; and the liturgical furnishings are movable, including the altar-Table. It is a place just about as secular as the house where the early Romans assembled. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t a fine place for the Mass. We call the place not a church, nor a sanctuary, nor a nave. And it surely isn’t an auditorium. We call it a centrum—a fine hall for various kinds of assemblies of people, including liturgical assemblies.

A couple of other centrums we have designed have been used as banquet halls, even for such things as political dinners. Why not? They are noble rooms and anything that happens in them is made nobler by the environment. So a double gift is given: a place for the public event and an environment that bestows upon the event a dignity it wouldn’t otherwise have.

What the church says in this public language is what it ought to be saying: “We are the people for others. And even our buildings are intended to be vehicles of service to others.”

Symbols of Roots and Responsibility

Here is another sentence from the public language: Christians live in history, between memory and hope. Our present life is part of a thread that traces back to Jesus and beyond, and it will be spun on from us and through us into an unpredictable future. We have roots in the past, which we treasure.

Architecture supplies a visual and useful symbol of rootage and continuity. Human history is not at the end chaotic, aleatoric, a matter of chance and accident. We may not have very complete or secure knowledge of the order of time, but we do believe in order, and in destiny. And we do believe that when God gives us the stewardship of a piece of land and the means to build a piece of the world, we must do it responsibly.

What does “responsibly” mean? It means that we build coherent structures that are meant to survive because we believe in history. Buildings that can be symbols of our sense of time or our hope, and a good heritage for future generations.

We tend to look at old buildings in two ways. Sometimes we think of them as trouble; irritating, intractable, outworn candidates for the headache ball. And then there are those we cherish. They wear their datestones like medals of honor. What’s the difference? Generally, the first kind of buildings wasn’t really good even when they were new, and they got worse. The second kind was done well and beautifully. So, we adopt them as symbols of our roots and history.

But, one may ask, why should we strain ourselves to build well when the future is so insecure, change is so certain, and it is such a burden to do things well? San Antonio is a great city to supply an answer. For here in San Antonio, we have five missions built by the Spaniards 250 years ago. They built simply, durably, and beautifully. Today those missions are the treasures of the whole populace. They supply a heritage even to people who haven’t been in the city very long and aren’t Roman Catholics. They are occasions for wonder and pleasure, and a sense of rootage in a transient and fractured society. And what if they are no longer place of worship? Those ancient Spaniards gave a gift to more people in that architecture than any of them might have thought possible.

Accommodating Change

As Christians, we live in a context of change. We pray for change daily when we pray “thy kingdom come.” We bivouac, we live in contingency, we look for reformation, for renewal, for growth, and for change. How then should the language of architecture deal with this and at the same time deal with permanence, durability, and roots?

If we start with the conception of the early Christians and of the centrum, rather than with the conventional single-use ecclesiastically oriented place of worship, incompatibility disappears.

A centrum is a piece of secular, earthy (not other-worldly) architecture. It is essentially a beautiful assembly hall, intended for people, but not shaped around any one particular configuration of people and furniture. There aren’t any ecclesiastical motifs in the architecture. It’s just a nice part of the world, and a durable, permanent one capable of accommodating change.

Consider what is likely to change. Even if the centrum’s major use—perhaps for the time its only use—is worship, we know the patterns of worship will change. The numbers of people vary, the kinds of liturgical or paraliturgical events vary. And each condition of use has its own proper configuration of people and furniture, changing with the occasion and changing with the passage of time.

So in a centrum, we may accommodate change—even invite change—because almost all the furnishings (as in the early Roman house-church) are movable.

It is these things, these artifacts, that make a place convenient to worship. And their portability and changeability is the symbol that our life as Christians is provisional, contingent, a life of becoming as well as life of being. The people and the artifacts turn the place into a place of prayer.

Minnesota senator Hubert Humphrey once said, “The beginning of all practicality in politics is a vision of things as they ought to be.” I think the statement is equally valid if you substitute the word architecture for politics. For like politics, architecture is a reflection of people’s self-understanding, and architecture, like politics, is the art of the possible. The beginning of all practicality in architecture is a vision of things as they ought to be. I’m going to suggest such a vision.

Somewhere in America

Imagine a fine big room that is vacant except for chairs arranged on three sides of a platform which is made up of sturdy, but movable modules. Someone brings in some plants and flowers in pots and vases. Some of these are put beside a pool of running water near the main entrance, some at other places around the room. The custodian hoists a great banner behind the platform. It is vermilion and white and has two words on it because it is Pentecost: “Fire! Fire!” He wheels out a cart full of hymnbooks and places this cart just outside the main doors. He opens the doors wide.

Some people come, take their books, and find seats. Ushers appear. More people come. The organist begins to play. A procession forms. Two people bring in a rug and roll it out on the platform. Four men carry in, shoulder high, a fine Table. Two candle bearers bring lighted candles and set them down. A deacon brings a colored tablecloth with a Pentecost motif. Another one comes with a fine book on a pillow and puts it on the Table (the service book). Then the choir comes in, each with a candlestick (because it is Pentecost), and they part at the door and spread the candles all around the perimeter of the room. Then comes a cross-bearer, with a staff and cross that is set in a position where it hovers above the heads of the people. And behind come the ministers who take their place.

The verbal part of the service then begins. But the service really began when the room began to be transformed (converted?) by the people and things that make it a place of Christian celebration. The movement and action aren’t over yet. When the time comes to read the Scripture, another small procession begins—two candle bearers and the bearer of a fine and large Bible. Nothing trivial is to happen here, like reading the Scripture from the back of the service folder. And when the Communion service begins, an elder brings a white linen to spread on the Table over the colored cloth, and the Communion elements are then brought to the Table too. At the end of the service, while the people are still singing, the procession reverses, and the centrum again becomes just another very fine part of God’s world, available for other worthy purposes.

So, architecture is a witness to being and becoming, certitude and contingency, the general presence of God in the world and the special presence of Christ in his body, the church.

A Noble Speech

There are a great many other things that this kind of approach to the language of architecture can reveal about the church. But now I ask you to think about the two words, public language, in a different context. I take my clue from the language of speech.

We have seen in the last decades some remarkable changes in the texts of worship. For instance, the Roman Catholics switched from Latin to English or other local speech in the liturgy. That’s the sharpest change perhaps and a very admirable one. But there have been others: an Episcopal priest wrote a book of prayers titled Are You Running with Me, Jesus? One of my sons came back from camp a few years ago with a new Table prayer: “Rub-a-dub, thanks for the grub! Yeah, God!” and another came back singing, “Be present at our Table, Lord” to the tune of the Gillette razor jingle.

Perhaps you may have the same fears as I—that the public language of our worship is being depreciated. The intent has had a certain validity. The artificialities of the public language of worship had separated religion into a discreet category of life. The language had no currency. So it has been contended that worship had no relevancy.

Something similar has been happening in the architecture of worship. The artificiality of the Gothic and Georgian was held under siege by a generation of so-called modern architects. Georgian and Gothic are pretty well gone, and good riddance. But the old styles were followed by uncertain, sometimes brash, sometimes capricious new forms. “Get with it, get hep,” many of them seem to be saying, and saying it too loudly. And more recently there has been a current that seems to use domesticity not as a paradigm but as a model. “The church is like a family,” they seem to say, “obviously the church building must be an oversize rambler.” Not long ago I was in a big new structure where the interior surfaces were wallpapered. And we’ve all probably seen new church buildings filled with the same modish chrome and plastic chairs that we see in restaurants and hotels. I’m all for using chairs, but not just any stackable commercial chair.

There is a difference between the everyday language and a public language. The everyday vernacular is surely acceptable for conversation and for private prayer. But liturgy is not conversation, and it is not private prayer. It is proclamation, or praise, or common prayer. Public language has its own style, cadence, and dignity. It is not esoteric, but it verges on poetry.

Some may object for fear that I am backsliding to the ecclesiastical jargon, the “language of Canaan,” with its circumlocutions, its pious embroidery, and its indirections and pecksniffery—the kind of speech that substitutes “he died” with “he forsook the fragile tabernacle of this world.” We’ve all heard this kind of quaint euphemism that weakens thought and camouflages reality. Architecturally, we do the same thing when we take the Latin cross—which is an image of the instrument of execution on which Jesus died—and camouflage it with sweet decorations or distort it into something elegant and pretty until it is no longer a symbol of the real tragedy and terror.

What we must have is a public language, both of speech and architecture, that is direct and real, noble and gracious. Listen to this: O God, for as muche as without thee, we are not able to please thee: Graunte that the workyng of thy mercie, may in all thynges direct and rule our heartes; through Jesus Christ our Lorde. Terse, unsentimental, rhythmic, full of feeling.

This is not the everyday vernacular. It is a public language, as good today as in 1549. The thee’s and thou’s have no inflated value, of course; you is just as good.

The virtue of Bishop Cranmer’s prayers is not that they are ecclesiastical jargon, they aren’t; they are a public language. For public language exists also in the secular world. For example: “Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” That’s public language just as surely as Cranmer’s. Public language in speech and architecture is quite distinct from the vernacular. It is secular, but it is not commonplace prose.

Bridges Are Needed

Can we make the architecture of our church buildings a public language? Neither ecclesiastical nor trivial, but direct, real, earthy, secular, vigorous, and at the same time noble, gracious, and beautiful? How shall it happen?

Clearly, it won’t happen by accident. It won’t happen if we try to get by with half-skilled, half-educated, half-sensitized, and halfhearted designers. The distinction is much too subtle for mediocre sensibilities. We need the very best professional help we can get. There is one way toward the goal.

But there are aspects of this work that we can’t expect many architects—even the best designers and most responsible professionals—to bring, ready-made, to the work. We won’t find many of them very sophisticated in church finance. We won’t find that they know much about church policy and the processes of decision-making in church affairs. And we may find that they have not thought any more deeply about worship and theology and Christian piety than the typical minister has about the subtleties and complexities of architectural aesthetics and technology.

A bridge is usually needed. And that bridge is the consultant. A consultant can widen the people’s horizons regarding architecture and deepen the understanding of the architect in the areas of churchmanship, worship, and theology—and in the relationship of these things to architecture.

The issue before us, of course, is not so much how we get where we want to be; there are various routes. But we must clarify our visions. And I think that if we are careful about that, we will find that we are rediscovering and recovering some of the most ancient patterns of church life and grafting onto the most elemental traditions of our faith.