Medievals touched, kissed and asked for the prayers of the saints portrayed in stone, paint and stained glass, who were rendered with such verisimilitude that they seemed alive, like part of the family. Inside the church was a marvelous democracy of beauty that, like heaven, was available to poor and rich alike. By the 19th century, as the church tried to suppress some superstitious practices, the familial relationship of the faithful to their churches began to devolve into a more formal, less lively relationship with the structure itself.

Living in churches

In 1898, centuries after the heyday of the medieval pilgrim, Frederick Evans, a former bookseller, discovered his life’s calling: photography. In time, he built such a reputation as a photographer, particularly of the cathedrals he loved, that when he turned his camera’s eye to Westminster Abbey, custodians moved the pews and furnishings so he would have enough room to work.

Like the pilgrims before him, Evans would live in a cathedral for weeks at a time. He would walk the church, through the nave, down the aisles, around the cloisters and into its far corners from early morning until sunset, observing the subtle changes in light and atmosphere. One can imagine him, lugging his equipment, framing potential images in his mind and waiting until the light descended into the darkness in just the right way before clicking the shutter and capturing a holy world. Evans sought to create “a record of emotion rather than a piece of topography,” as he wrote in 1904. To do that, he had to become thoroughly familiar with the complex play of light and darkness that is the hallmark—beyond stained glass or flying buttresses—of the Gothic cathedral.

An overwhelming, beautiful new book

With a tenacity that would have drawn Evans’s admiration, the German photographer Achim Bednorz logged some 93,000 miles over the past five years to take the 1,000 photographs that grace Ars Sacra, an overwhelming, beautiful new book (h.f.ullmann, 2011). This massive encyclopedic survey covers Christian art and architecture in Europe from its beginnings in the catacombs of third-century Rome to the present day. Bednorz, who has photographed Christian architecture for nearly four decades, illuminates the inherent sanctity of the buildings and works of art he knows well and imbues their images with a sense of awe. His task, like that of Evans and every artist, was to understand how things look in order to re-present them in a way that transcends the material world.

Ars Sacra is organized chronologically, enabling readers to track cultural shifts and structural innovations. Overviews of soaring church interiors are coupled with illustrations of minuscule details that recall the story of the cathedral artisan who, when asked why he would carve a bird high in the rafters where no one could see it, replied, “God can see it.” This God’s-eye view is extended by the decision of the editor, Rolf Tolman, to emphasize the most significant developments of a given period, highlighting, for example, Romanesque sculpture, Gothic structural technology and Renaissance painting.

This is a book for the ultimate armchair traveler, although, since it weighs in at nearly 25 pounds, a table is needed, too. Hauling this tome from study to dining room and back renewed my appreciation of the literal and metaphoric heft of the visual arts, a precious legacy and wellspring of Catholic devotion.

A creature of light

Architecture, like photography, and like faith, is a creature of light. The world as most of us know it would cease to exist without light, which gives form to its visible dimensions. “Even a room which must be dark needs a crack of light to know how dark it is,” noted Louis Kahn, the modernist architect. Time is also shaped by light, its passage apparent in light’s evanescence—shifting, coming and going—a fleeting quality that moves us because it mirrors our brief time on earth. Light cannot be understood apart from darkness; knowledge of one depends on the other.

During the Advent season, as the days shorten, we fill our churches and homes with candles that focus attention on the light in the darkness, while acknowledging just how dark the dark can be. We reflect on the birth of light, the new light—Christ—remembering that Christ came into the world of visible realities to illuminate what cannot be seen. All the beloved symbols that accompany our celebration of Christ’s birth—the star, the crèche, the straw, sheep and camels—remind us that redemption is embodied and takes place in a world, now illuminated, that we can see.

View a slideshow of images from Ars Sacra

Photo courtesy Achim Bednorz
This article was first published in the December 19, 2011 edition of America Magazine

Paradoxically, temporary commemorations like the one made for Matthew Diaz sometimes achieve universality by their specificity. They express raw emotion that typically is lost by the time a permanent memorial is erected. Ripped open by tragedy, we give ourselves creative and spiritual permission to explore life’s big questions—Why I am here? Where am I going? How will I be remembered?—that do not often come to mind on ordinary Tuesday mornings. These sharp but evanescent insights illuminate our deepest yearnings to know ourselves and to know God.

9/11’s Immediate Memorials

Beginning on the afternoon of the attacks, posters of missing persons blanketed New York City; they were made in response to the initial belief, soon dispelled, that victims were walking around in an amnesiac state or lying unidentified in hospital beds. The photocopied posters were remarkably consistent in design—an 8.5 inch by 11 inch sheet, with a family photo, minimal identification and some contact information—yet they represented an invention of mourning and remembrance at its most compelling. It was easy to identify with the missing, poised over barbeques, at weddings, on vacation, because variations of those same pictures are glued in our own photo albums. They were us.

A second wave of posters gave additional data about birthmarks, scars, earrings, shoes and tattoos to aid forensic identification, intimate details that increased their familiarity further still. The images evolved a third time, now marked “Remember me,” “Pray for me,” or other words of release, into posthumous Everyman memorials that were both germ and zenith of the vast photographic collage that would emerge from that day.

In a gesture that proved to be a cathartic gift to the nation, The New York Times published “Portraits of Grief,” more than 2,200 thumbnail profiles of 9/11 victims that ran daily from Sept. 15 to Dec. 31, 2001, and continued sporadically into 2003. Taking their inspiration from the posters of the missing, the profiles featured stamp-size photographs and impressionistic biographies that revealed those lost—traders, firefighters, new parents, gourmet chefs, literary escapists and fanatical golfers—sometimes in all their lovable idiosyncrasy. The “Portraits” section evolved into a national shrine of sorts. Reading them became a daily ritual for many. As my brother said at the time, “I have to read them. Every day, I meet more great people.”

Michael Arad’s Response

Shortly after the attacks, the architect Michael Arad created a temporary installation on the rooftop of his East Village apartment to express the emptiness he felt. The work consisted of water that flowed into two square-shaped cavities, giving the effect of two black voids floating on top of a ghostly pool. Those rooftop seeds of grief and hope, transmuted in Arad’s winning memorial design of 2004, became the double inverted fountains of the National September 11 Memorial and Museum. Arad’s essential idea was that the most fitting response to the loss of so many souls and the skyline itself would be absence, not presence, a void, not a solid. Although the design team eventually included ideas from the landscape architect Peter Walker and others, the fundamental memorial concept was in place within weeks of the tragedy.

Not all temporary memorials have equal weight—teddy bears and key chains are not the stuff of high art—but they all point to what is to come. Unlike permanent monuments that are built to outlast the people who built them, temporary commemorations show vulnerability. They express a deep need to mark an event, like Jacob planting the Bethel stone. Such memorials shout, “They mattered! And I matter too!” Even permanent memorials are not a final step, but rather one more stage in the process of reconciliation.

Names are also important, as is the way they are presented. Maya Lin taught us this when she insisted this the names of fallen Vietnam veterans be listed on the Washington, D.C., memorial in the order of their date of death, instead of alphabetically, which would have had the heartless anonymity of a phone book. Given past commemorative debates, the task of arranging the 2,982 names of those who died was a challenge for the designer of the national memorial at the World Trade Center. (This number includes the six people killed in the truck bomb explosion in the parking garage of the north tower on Feb. 26, 1993.)

As Arad explained, the aim was to “place the names of those who died that day [Sept. 11] next to each other in a meaningful way, marking the names of family and friends  together, as they had lived and died.” The names are organized by “meaningful adjacencies” that reflect where victims died, their work affiliations and their personal relationships. In those last moments, when all the trappings, accomplishments, and hierarchies were stripped away, people who barely knew each other formed bonds that were stronger than death.  When reading their names, we must remember that love was their ultimate truth.  For all that was lost that day, love itself was not betrayed.

A name-finder on the memorial’s Web site combines aspects of the “Portraits of Grief” and the posters of the missing, providing a photo, life dates, birthplace and professional affiliation. Like an inscription on a headstone, these brief bios tell us something, but not nearly enough to convey the fullness of a life. Taken together, however, these snippets form a democracy that emphasizes what we all share: namely, a creaturely destiny to become part, sooner or later, of an eternal continuum. Here, in the midst of names and portraits, I find Matthew Diaz, who is smiling broadly. He is far from those black shoes, having gone up the high mountain.

Finished and Unfinished

Unlike their ephemeral cousins, permanent memorials generate controversy because what is being argued is history itself. The finished monument does not tell us what happened but instead represents how the majority thought an event should be remembered.

The commemorative process is strikingly similar, no matter what the event or site: the overwhelming consensus that an event should be memorialized is followed by debate, sometimes acrimonious, from which the memorial design emerges. On the dedication day, sometimes only a few weeks later, the controversy is forgotten, the design extolled; most accept the monument narrative as “the way things were.” One might say that what is finally built is mostly a marker of the soul-searching process that brought it into being. Inevitably, the monument will fade into the fabric of the landscape and attain the peculiar invisibility of the familiar.

The New Memorial

The 9/11 memorial consists of two massive pools, each an acre in size, which are placed in the twin towers’ footprints. Water cascades down their sides and disappears into a still lower pool. The names of those who died are inscribed in bronze panels that surround the pools and stretch in either direction as far as one can see. The names are stencil-cut, allowing visitors to look through them to the water below, or to run their fingers over each name, one of the most ancient forms of homage. At night, light will shine up through the letters, transforming each name. Matthew Diaz and all of those who died that day will become exceedingly white and shining, like snow, provoking reflection on what is to come.

While the horizontal name panels locate the victims and those who mourn them within the human collective, the vertical axis—the one stretched between the seemingly bottomless depths of the pools and heaven above—engages our individual, spiritual selves. By placing temporal concerns in a larger, timeless context, memorials remind us that our true nature is not of this world. But it is also not apart from the world.

As we approach the dedication of the permanent memorial in Lower Manhattan, a milestone event that will mark the closing of one chapter and the opening of a new one, it is important to remember those promises we made to ourselves in the autumnal days of 2001: to meet more great people every day, simply by deciding to see their greatness; to treat ourselves and others with kindness and compassion; to stop and consider the beauty of the world; to do those things that frighten us most, whether offering an apology or moving away from habits or habitual situations that keep us stuck; to give thanks, often.

The new 9/11 memorial, a massive double baptismal font of sorts, beckons us to immerse ourselves and emerge into a new life.

Photo courtesy Michael Arad.

This article was first published in the August 29, 2011 edition of America Magazine.

So far, he’s lost 36 of the 100 pounds he’s promised to shed for the “Building a Church, Pound by Pound” capital campaign for the new St. Raphael the Archangel Church in Old Mill City, Illinois. Parishioners have pledged money for every pound their pastor loses. Some have begun dieting themselves and collecting additional pledges. With that money, matched by a donor, St. Raphael’s stands to raise at least $110,000 and get healthier, too.

“Everything about the church we are building is unique,” Jamnicky says of the new structure, which will incorporate the exterior and interior of two closed churches. “And everything we’re doing to raise funds is unique, too.”

Despite difficult economic realities, parishes continue to undertake church building programs, whether it is to renovate and repair old buildings, build a new home for consolidated parishes, or open a new church in a growing community. And these building projects are typically the largest a parish will ever undertake.

In addition to the nuts and bolts of construction and renovation, the demands of liturgy, aesthetics, education, and funding call for multiple layers of decision-making and coordination.

Such projects rely on the clear vision of the parish and the efforts of community members who feel called to this challenging but ultimately satisfying ministry. Above all, building a new church is an occasion of grace, one that invites the entire community to renew its faith along with its place of worship.

Foundation work

A church is a community—and not just one building—composed of spaces that support assembly, worship, administration, education, and fellowship. Good design happens from the inside out, so before breaking out the tool belts, a parish has to put on its thinking cap and reflect on its ritual, devotional, and hospitality needs—and understand how these spaces relate to each other.

“My first advice is to help a community understand that this is a time of renewal for the parish, both spiritual and liturgical,” says Franciscan Father Gil Ostdiek, a professor of liturgy at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. “By asking themselves, ‘Who are we as a people of God? What do we do when we gather?’ the community can free itself to think more expansively.

“Of all the languages of liturgy, space is the most subtle and least attended to, and yet provides a powerful symbolic communal identity,” Ostdiek says. “Many of the spaces we have inherited are out of alignment with the shape of the rite and its performance, but people are reluctant to change [these spaces] because they are basic identity symbols.”

Guided discussions about liturgy and its architectural implications can help parishioners grasp what goes into creating sacred space. Practical conversations about the design and construction process will help the community select the right architects, liturgical designers, and contractors, as well as evaluate design schemes and budgets.

“With our pastor, Father Francis Peffley, the building committee visited 28 churches to see what we liked, what worked, what didn’t. We spoke to pastors and parish administrators, and learned from others’ experiences,” says Betty Childers, who with her husband, Kevin, headed up the capital campaign for Holy Trinity Church, a 1,200-seat church serving 3,800 families in Gainesville, Virginia. These observations shaped a requirements document that was sent to potential architects.

Typically, a parish figures out what it can realistically afford and then finds an architect who can work within its budget. “I wouldn’t distinguish between a client with a limited budget from one with a huge budget. In some ways, a limited budget encourages creativity,” says architect Craig Rafferty of Rafferty Rafferty Tollefson Lindeke, a firm that has designed dozens of churches.

This sentiment is echoed by Jesuit Father Gilbert Sunghera, who consults on church design through the University of Detroit Mercy. He helped an immigrant parish envision what was possible and within their means. “We simply found an architect who knew how to work creatively on a tight budget,” he says.

Budget isn’t the only thing to think about when deciding on an architect. “We interviewed seven or eight architects, but only one stood out as a man of faith, and everything in our church reflects that,” Childers says of Jim O’Brien of O’Brien and Keane, designers of Holy Trinity.

On the other hand, “Non-Catholic architects come in with a lot of questions that help us explore the issues in new ways,” Sunghera says.

Building codes

Church law gives the final decisions about architects to the local bishop. Some bishops work only with certain architects, while others “have firm ideas . . . making it more difficult for a parish to request something different,” says Rafferty.

American churches also must conform to guidelines set forth in the General Instruction of the Roman Missal and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ “Built of Living Stones: Art and Architecture for Worship”

“Many dioceses and archdioceses have their own guidelines and policies. Local customs should not be overlooked,” says Father Richard S. Vosko, a design consultant for 40 years.

Many dioceses require parishes to hire liturgical consultants to lead planning and coordinate between parishioners, project committees, and design teams. Vosko says that a liturgical consultant engages the parish in the planning process by asking questions and worshiping with them.

“You browse around offices and classrooms to learn about their programs. You observe traffic patterns—both auto and human—and reactions to colors, textures, smells, and silence. You ask them to describe what they are expecting when they go to Mass.”

Parish leadership is critical. Successful projects rely on building and finance committees made up of individuals of diverse skills who can work well together as well as inspire the larger community. The diocesan review committee often asks the pastor for input from the parish.

“I train the building committee to talk to other parishioners, the Sunday school, the Knights of Columbus, women’s clubs,” says liturgical consultant Carol Frenning. “Helping them become experts in their own parishes builds ownership of the project.”

Money matters

While everyone is eager to build the church itself, it can be more cost-effective to focus first on the school, parking, hospitality rooms, and other facilities that are needed to expand the parish and its financial base.

St. Henry Church in Nashville completed a major renovation and expansion of its campus in two phases, starting with its school. “If we couldn’t afford something right away, we made certain that it could be accommodated in the future,” says St. Henry’s parishioner Bob Loedding, who served on the project’s building and finance committees.

“We learned some good lessons in the first phase that helped us in the second one,” Loedding adds. The parish retained the original contractor but found a new architect and liturgical consultant who were more sensitive to St. Henry’s culture. They also adopted a “soft sell” method for raising money.

“We weren’t contacting parishioners individually and putting pressure on them. We received pledges of $6 million, which exceeded the $5 million we thought we might raise,” he says.

Holy Trinity’s capital campaign was the parish’s first, and the first in the diocese of Arlington, Virginia. Headed by parishioners Betty and Kevin Childers, who had never raised money before, the campaign had an initial goal of $2 million—but $5 million in pledges was raised in 16 weeks.

“When Father Peffley asked for our help, I had just been laid off,” says Betty, who once worked in corporate business development. “That window of time, when we were running the capital campaign, was the best of my life. It was challenging, but from a spiritual perspective, there was incredible growth.”

Does it match?

Unlike most buildings, churches provide the rare opportunity to pause and look closely at the materials, lighting, and construction of a structure. While the scope of projects varies, the altar, ambo (lectern), baptismal font, and the tabernacle with its stand are the key objects in a church.

“These four components must speak to each other in terms of their materials, details, and finishes,” says Martin Rambusch, principal of the Rambusch Company, one of the oldest private liturgical design companies in the country. The firm designs as well as builds church interiors and furnishings. “The design-build approach allows a project to succeed liturgically, visually, and economically because the thread of design is carried from start to completion.”

Creative solutions to furnishing a church can be found in unlikely places. Architectural firm Gray Organschi wanted to salvage a diseased beech tree on the wooded site of the Jesuit Community Center in Fairfield, Connecticut. Because the firm has a woodworking specialty, they were “equipped to transform the tree trunk into a stunning altar and ambo for the chapel,” says Sunghera, who oversaw the project.

Inevitable project delays can also offer unexpected grace. When the long-awaited crucifix for Sts. Anne and Joachim Church in Fargo, North Dakota arrived, it was so large that it was laid temporarily in the apse. After Mass, the community was invited to come to the altar area. “Allowing our children to touch the crucifix was meaningful,” remembers parishioner Roxane Salonen. “To be that close and see it in a way we never would again was compelling.”

Art appreciation

While the marriage of art and faith has long been an uneasy one, the church has sought to reform and refine its understanding of sacred art over the centuries. The Second Vatican Council’s Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum concilium, calls for art that is “truly worthy, becoming, and beautiful,” and its approval by those “who are especially expert.” Historically art has been an integral part of a church’s transformative power.

The quality of most religious art continues to plummet, however, dragged down by the easy availability of ersatz reproductions from catalogs and the general lack of art literacy. Exacerbating the situation is the perception that original art is expensive and a fear that less traditional work will cause controversy.

“When people ask me what kind of sculpture I make, I tell them I make statues that old ladies kiss, sparing me the contemporary-versus-traditional art argument,” says liturgical artist Anthony Visco, who understands his work as a vocation. He created an extensive art program for the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in La Crosse, Wisconsin in collaboration with Duncan Stroik and River Architects, designers of the shrine complex. “We’ve lost a sense of metaphor, our powerful signs and symbols,” Visco says.

To increase familiarity and comfort with the process of selecting art, liturgical consultant Carol Frenning conducts retreats for building committees that include a discussion of art and ritual. “Lacking professional training in the visual arts, most people base their judgments on a ‘feeling,’ ” she says, “yet people are hungry for ways to talk about art and make decisions about it.” Once a parish understands its needs, it can more easily find art that fits with its cultural identity—the art in a suburban church of young families is going to express a different spirituality, for instance, than an inner-city parish dedicated to social justice.

This includes art that will be visible from outside the church. “Art tells your story to the world and can invite passersby into the church,” Frenning notes. “You can use art as a tool of evangelization.”

One example is the monumental Christ the Good Shepherd sculpture, a 30-foot-long, 8-foot-tall bronze by John Collier that stands outside the bishop’s offices in Greensburg, Pennsylvania. The work depicts Jesus, who is holding a lamb and walking his sheep, being confronted by a wolf. Figures of Abel, David, and Moses, shepherds from the Old Testament, follow Jesus and hold crosiers.

The sculpture is located at the intersection of a busy thoroughfare—where it can’t be missed—and provides an arresting but comforting reminder that the church’s role is to protect and nurture Christ’s people.

That’s dedication

When a church is at last completed, its dedication is an occasion of celebration, acknowledging the community’s spiritual renewal, commitment, and hard work. The dedication rite is a living proclamation of faith. “The ritual is really about the dedication or re-dedication of the people of the church,” Vosko says.

“Everything was a first—the first candle lit, the first incense burned, the first Mass said,” says Roxane Salonen of the dedication of Sts. Anne and Joachim, constructed over 15 years. As the three-hour ceremony unfolded, she noticed how the sawdust smell of new construction gradually mingled with the scent of candles and incense. “At the end, it smelled like a church. A transformation had happened.”

This article first appeared in the April 2011 issue of U.S. Catholic magazine (Vol. 76, No. 4, pages 12-17).

This weekend, I visited a house that was for sale, actually going to see the house instead of merely sizing it up online.  It wasn’t a house, but a decommissioned church in Providence.  Actually, it was a former triple-decker that was converted into a church for a Maronite congregation and now seeks to return to its residential roots.  This identity turnaround makes you believe that every building, much like every individual, has its own sense of what it wants to be. The brick structure sits solidly on America and Europe streets—the street names nicely emphasizing its immigrant origins.  It has a magnificent entrance, flanked by pebbled granite columns and, at the roof’s apex, an empty niche just waiting to be filled.  Lighter stone insets in the upper façade look like hands reaching up to heaven, or streams of spirit coming down to earth, depending on your point of view.

According to the effusive real estate listing, the church would make a spectacular residential conversion! features 14-foot ceiling totally unobstructed by poles! and full interior build out needed! That last could be a warning or an invitation. I didn’t get into the church, but peeking through the keyholes got my imagination racing, egged on by Meghan Daum’s hilarious Life Would Be Perfect If I Lived in That House.

A church—now that would be perfect for me.  Why have I been wasting my time looking at houses when a church is what I need? This tiny church on America Street could be home—upstairs for me and, on the first floor with those unobstructed views, for an as-yet-undetermined facility for contemplation, for the arts, or for a good cuppa joe.  Maybe all three!  I saw the future, and it was a church.  For once, I’m not speaking metaphorically.

Photo (c) Susan Dupré

Seeing the Mall fully activated, fully full, democratically so, tearful and hopeful, was an inspiration. The meaning of the Mall’s monuments, those enduring symbols of the nation’s aspirations, sacrifice, and hope for change, was renewed during these last several days–it was great to see them in action.

Given Obama’s interest in architecture, let’s hope that he illuminates the profound connection that exists between our quality of life and the places we inhabit. Here’s a brief recap of presidential architectural forays written by David Brussat for the Providence Journal. Aside from his comments about Daniel Libeskind (Dave and I have agreed to disagree on some contemporary structures), this is a fascinating read.

“BARACK OBAMA spilled the beans at a campaign rally last March 21, in Salem, Ore.: “I can tell you that when I was young I wanted to be an architect, but, um, I . . . [shout from offstage] . . . That was good! Architect of change! I like that!”

If only Obama had not been interrupted by that blockhead, we might know what sort of architect he would have been. Maybe, if we are really lucky and Obama really is smart, we can have not only change we can believe in but change we can see.

Today, many Americans are dissatisfied with their built environment. Obama must try to change architecture from the modernism of the past half a century to a new traditionalism for the future. Is he likely to do so? The tea leaves give us few clues.

On the one hand, given the chance to frame the backdrop of his acceptance speech in Denver last August, Obama chose a classical stage set. He took some ribbing for its supposed pomposity, and classicists furrowed their brows at the colonnade’s prefab clunkiness. But the set contributed to the exaltation of what was then the apogee of his career.

Furthermore, in 2004, when the Obamas wanted to upgrade from a condo to a house, he and Michelle bought a Georgian Revival built in 1910. It was located by his wife, who was a member of the board of the Commission on Chicago Landmarks.

On the other hand, Obama once attended a lecture (or so claims the lecturer) by Daniel Libeskind, a modernist known for buildings that look like they are about to fall down. If Obama did attend a Libeskind lecture, maybe it was just for laughs.

Let us hope so. Since Thomas Jefferson designed Monticello, the Virginia State Capitol at Richmond and the original buildings of the University of Virginia, no president but Franklin Roosevelt has shown much interest in architecture aside from the occasional monument or federal building. FDR designed a modest hideaway on his Hyde Park estate called Top Cottage in 1939, and several buildings in Dutchess County, N.Y., and Warm Springs, Ga. Other than Jefferson, FDR is the only U.S. president known to have designed a house of his own.

One of FDR’s most enduring legacies has to do with architecture. Among the more notable of his New Deal agencies, the Works Progress Administration, or WPA, designed thousands of post offices, bridges and other structures in traditional styles that ignored the emerging craze for the International Style (early modernism). Many of them survive today because of the intrinsic structural and aesthetic merits of traditional over modern architecture. Its merits represent a sustainability whose resurrection would be much more effective at addressing climate change than the high-tech “gizmo green” fad that is favored by the architecture profession.

The federal government was the last major institution of American society to shift from traditional to modern architecture. Corporate, collegiate and institutional America went first. While the classicism of the Lincoln Memorial (1922) was uncontroversial, that of the Jefferson Memorial (1941) was attacked by modernists then on the rise in the profession. The last major federal buildings of classical style were erected by FDR during the 1930s. Tuesday’s inaugural parade passed them on the way up Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House.

The presidential motorcade also passed the first major federal building built in a classical style since then: the Ronald Reagan Building (1998). In fact, the grace of Pennsylvania Avenue arises from the City Beautiful movement, launched by the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Obama’s own Chicago.

The worst building on Pennsylvania is the J. Edgar Hoover Building, FBI headquarters, designed in a Brutalist style similar to that of Boston City Hall. If Obama has the eye of an aesthete, as anyone who claims he originally wanted to be an architect surely must, he probably turned his eye from the FBI building to the Department of Justice (1935), a classical building right across the street. If Obama wants to doff his cap to FDR, let him revive New Deal classicism. That would not only create many thousands of jobs, but a physical symbol of the Obama administration to which the public could easily relate.

Three blocks north of the White House is K Street, Lobbyists Row, the worst concentration of modern architecture in the nation’s capital. Part of Obama’s agenda is to push America’s body politic away from K Street toward Pennsylvania Avenue. Using architecture to tell the good guys from the bad guys might help him surmount the predictable resistance.

It is possible that change of great magnitude will want an aesthetic component. It might need a symbolism capable of representing its spirit to the public. Jefferson understood the importance of having an architecture that reflects the nation’s aspirations. Obama should embrace his inner architect by initiating a national conversation about architecture. If he does, he will do far more for his country than he could ever have done as an architect.”

-David Brussat, Providence Journal, January 22, 2009

Inspirational speaker Nicole Johnson uses my book, Churches, to deliver a powerful message of hope for everyone who feels invisible and taken for granted. I don’t know Nicole, but what she took away from Churches and how she brought the lessons of the Gothic cathedral builders to bear on today’s problems, blew me away. Watch, and be inspired! For more on Nicole, visit Fresh Brewed Life, hope for the daily grind.

Building a bridge is a monumental undertaking, and there is something inherent in projects of this size and scope that makes people want to participate in their creation. In the case of the sleek, new I-35W crossing over the Mississippi that opened in Minneapolis this week, Twin City residents engaged in a day-long discussion that determined aspects of the bridge’s design, eighteen hundred schoolchildren made mosaic tiles that adorn the bridge, and thousands watched in wonder as this heroic ten-lane highway bridge rose, incredibly, in eleven short months. To celebrate the bridge and spirit of collaboration, FIGG, the bridge’s designer and engineer of record, has published Bridging the Mississippi: The New I-35W Bridge.  Rich with color photos, plans, and graphics, the book provides a step-by-step overview for the general reader of the bridge’s design, planning, and construction. All book proceeds will be donated to two Minneapolis organizations that further the cause of education.  For more information, and to order the book ($20 plus shipping), visit FIGG.

Note: The complete interview with Nick Benson appears in Monuments: Life in Memory.

JD: How much stone cutting did the World War II Memorial involve?

NB: There are 4,682 letters in total—a lot of lettering—in twenty-two inscription locations. The letters vary in size from three-quarters of an inch tall to more than 19 inches.

JD: What kind of granite was used?

NB: It’s a North Carolina granite called Kershaw. One of the reasons [memorial designer] Friedrich St. Florian chose it is because it has an incredibly large grain. Even from a distance, you can see the character of the granite. Finer granite, especially with such large, bold architectural forms, would get lost.
JD: Will the lettering be stained?

NB: Yes. The stain is painted into the interior of each letter with a brush, very pain-stakingly. The stain penetrates the stone, but is transparent so that you can see the quality of the granite through the stain itself. It’s important not to turn this three-dimensional sculptural form into typography. You want these inscriptions to be beautiful, sculptural elements that will partake of the architecture scale of the monument, so you can’t think of the lettering graphically—black on white. Which is what everyone does today. Big mistake.

JD: Do people read inscribed letters as they would text in a book?

NB: They do. The key thing about carved letters in stone, what’s called the “lapidary letter,” is its sculptural quality.

JD: What cuts do you ordinarily use?

NB: I mostly always use V-cut. There are many different types of cuts. People have done all kinds of crazy things—square cuts, pillowed bottoms, double-edge cuts—with the interior treatments of the letter. But, again, you have to do what’s going to work best with the monument. The same goes for the letter design. The actual process of carving the stone is not a terribly difficult skill to learn. You can become a competent carver in three or four years, a fine carver in one or two, but a very good carver in three or four years. The difficulty is in the design of the letter itself.

JD: How do you move forward in a situation where a single mistake can be fatal?

NB: That’s where the skill comes in. You have to know what you’re doing. You’re taking out such small amounts of stone at any given time that it’s not as if you’re going to mistroke and blow out the center of an O. It doesn’t work that way. The strike of the piston and hammer against the chisel is fairly light, and you’re taking off small bits at a time.

JD: How long have you been cutting stone?

NB: Twenty years. My dad taught me. He got me into the shop more than twenty years ago. I started in 1979. I was fifteen and needed a summer job. I wasn’t interested in taking over the family business. My father was hard on me and got me moving quickly, making finished work for him, and carving at the shop level which is a particularly high level of craftsmanship. He has the highest standards of anybody you’re going to find, bar none.

JD: When you look at a block of text are you conscious of individual letters or the entire composition?

NB: Both.

JD: Which comes up first?

NB: The entire composition is key, but the proportion of the letter, the design of the particular letter form itself, is extremely important too. Equally important is the cadence of the text, how the negative space is used, word spacing, line spacing—all of that is absolutely crucial to good inscriptional carving. And very complicated and subtle. That’s the type of thing that people don’t see. The inscription will be easy to read, the letters will look pretty, and they won’t give it a second thought.

JD: When it’s done well, stone cutting is invisible. Do you think of it as art or craft?

NB: I’m an artisan, not a fine artist. I am practicing a very specific craft. In the realm of that craft, there is a certain amount of leeway for artistic interpretation within relatively specific rules. The inscription work on this monument was made to be highly legible, easily read, with no strange idiosyncrasies that would have people scratching their heads and wondering.

JD: My son, who is studying Chinese, told me that in China if a woman has a choice between a handsome man and one who writes beautifully, she will always choose the man with the beautiful handwriting.

NB: I’m not surprised. They’ve got such a reverence for calligraphy over there, and everyone has some skill with the brush. People here appreciate calligraphy, but it doesn’t receive the same reverence. Maybe at some point, people will start studying penmanship again. Wouldn’t that be nice?

JD: Do you judge people based on their handwriting?

NB: Not at all, because when I was a kid, my handwriting was atrocious, nearly illegible.

JD: What happened?

NB: Study, study, study and perseverance. Hermann Zapf, the great type designer, said, “My friends would go out and drink and dance while I stayed at home and bravely drew letter form.” You’ve got to put in the time.

From an esthetic standpoint [the Sunshine Skyway Bridge] may well rank as the most impressive piece of large-scale bridge design in this country in half a century.

-Paul Goldberger, October 16, 1988, New York Times

Completed in 1987, the bridge’s 1,200-foot (366 m)-long span is the world’s longest cable-stayed precast concrete span. In its entirety, including the side spans and approaches, the bridge is 21,878 feet (6,668 m) long and crosses 4.1 miles (6.6 km) of Tampa Bay. It carries I-275, part of the Eisenhower Interstate System that celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2006. Twin 40-foot (12 m)-wide roadways run on either side of the brilliant yellow cables and provide unobstructed views of the water. The roadways for the bridge’s upper level are constructed of 330 95-foot (29 m)-wide precast concrete segments that are threaded with high-strength steel cables. This precast superstructure, in addition to being economical, provides continuous structural lines that contribute to the bridge’s graceful appearance. The twenty-one steel cables that support the roadway are splayed out in rows from two slender central pylons which soar 242 feet (74 m) above the deck. The cables are attached to every other deck segment, with each cable supporting two segments on either side of a pylon.

The award-winning Sunshine Skyway Bridge makes clear the feasibility and economy of long-span cable-stayed bridges. In linking the communities of St. Petersburg and Clearwater in the north with Bradenton and Sarasota in the south, the bridge has fused the area surrounding Tampa into a whole, energizing it with new economic growth and civic pride.

# # #

Excerpted from Judith Dupré’s Bridges (Black Dog & Leventhal, 1997).
To purchase this book from Amazon, click here.

FIGG Engineering Group melds leading-edge engineering and construction technologies with sensitivity to local communities, the environment, and aesthetics in bridge designs that are cost-effective, socially and environmentally responsible, as well as works of art. The company has pioneered a bridge-design charette process that allows owners to listen to what the community wants and involve the public in the design of these landmark bridges. FIGG has built bridges in 35 states and abroad, and won 237 design awards, including three of the five Presidential Awards for aesthetic achievement awarded to bridges by the National Endowment for the Arts. For more information on FIGG Engineering Group, visit www.figgbridge.com