Art: Father’s Nightmare

One big complaint of post-War functional architects in the U. S. has been their lack of opportunity to design churches to look like what they are: auditoria. Chief obstacles have been the clergy’s caution and a widespread public conviction that ecclesiastical architecture is divorced from the common clay of other 20th Century buildings, should reflect age-old architectural traditions.

No moldy traditionalist is Father James J. A. Troy, Wartime army chaplain, who took over the new and churchless St. Austin’s parish in Minneapolis two years ago. He had already built five smalltown, debt-free churches in Iowa, some unconventional but none radically modern. This time he wanted a church that would look as useful as he thought he could make it. To designs submitted by numerous firms, Father Troy had but one answer: “Yes, they are very beautiful, but not my nightmare.” Archbishop John Gregory Murray put no stone in his way when the well-known local firm of (Carl J.) Bard & (J. Victor) Vanderbilt came forward with a design that Father Troy recognized as his nightmare.

Its mass suggested by the main rural exposition building at Brno, Czecho-Slovakia, St. Austin’s was designed as a simple parabolic vault with the parish house springing out at right angles from the apse. As simple and logical inside as out, the church’s altar of native Kasota stone is focused by radiating rustication. The auditorium’s only gadget is useful: a glass enclosed gallery where mothers may sit with infants likely to cry. Dedicated three weeks ago, St. Austin’s design has done nothing but please its congregation of 300.