Art: From the Ruins

It took only five minutes for Scottish Architect Basil Spence, standing in the bombed-out shell of Coventry Cathedral one day in 1950, to conceive a design for the new cathedral. “I knew my task was to design a new building linked to the old which would stand for the triumph of the Resurrection,” Sir Basil wrote later. “The ruins were the Old Testament, the new cathedral would be the New. The idea of the design was planted in my mind and never changed.” Last week Architect Spence stood again at Coventry, this time to watch the ceremonial consecration of the second great St. Michael’s Cathedral of Coventry, which he had created out of the ruins.

A public-spirited Lady named Godiva and her husband, Earl Leofric, built Coventry’s first great church in 1043; it stood until Henry VIII had it pulled down around 1540. A second—the magnificent Gothic St. Michael’s Cathedral—was completed in 1433, and lasted until the night of Nov. 14, 1940, when 500 German planes bombed it in a raid that forever linked the city’s name to the destructiveness of modern war. Only the outer walls, tower and spire of St. Michael’s were left standing.

The Architect Faints. The new cathedral has been raised to forgiveness and the unity of man—amidst continuous discord.

The first postwar architect, Sir Giles Scott, resigned after three years of architectural and clerical bickering. The Coventry city council refused a building permit, arguing that the city had first to catch up in schools, homes and clinics. Minister of Works Sir David Eccles wrote the Lord Mayor: “Can we be sure that a cathedral would be so useless? We have never had a greater need for an act of faith.” He overruled the council. A competition for design drew more than 600 requests for specifications and 219 final plans. The winner was bearded, eloquent Basil Spence, who fainted at the new?s of his victory.

His reaction was mild compared with that of the public. The proposed cathedral was said to look like a factory, an apartment building, an auditorium, a “cross between a supercinema and a slaughterhouse”—almost everything except a cathedral. Spence immediately received 700 letters, mostly abusive. While construction was held up for 2∧ years of arguing, he received no other commissions, recalls now, “I went almost bankrupt.” Finally, in July 1954, the building was started.

Of the $4,200,000 construction cost, $2,800,000 was provided by the War Damage Commission; all but the $238,000 that is still owed was made up by private donations.

Plain Jewel Casket. Placed almost directly in the center of bustling, industrial Coventry, the new cathedral makes no attempt at a dramatic façade. Its massive pink brick walls form a squat, solid fortress; its only spire is a relatively small, openwork metal fleche, topped by a painfully distorted cross (the building’s detractors call it Radio Coventry). The long, saw-toothed east wall that runs along Coventry’s crowded Priory Street is undecorated except for Sir Jacob Epstein’s imposing four-ton figure of St. Michael staring down in triumph and compassion at the chained Devil. To Spence, the exterior is “like a plain jewel casket with many jewels inside.” The church is entered through an open porch that connects St. Michael’s ruins to the huge glass screen that forms the new cathedral’s south wall. Through the glass, the new cathedral’s altar is visible from the ruins. From inside, icy-white saints and angels—designed by John Hutton and delicately etched on the glass—seem to dance in the clouds over the ruins.

From the entrance, the cathedral’s dominant characteristic is simplicity. The ten pale grey, angled walls visible from the entrance are bare except for a simply inscribed rectangular Tablet of the Word on each of them. No windows can be seen, but the entire nave—from the dark marble floor to the fanlike tracery of the roof—is drenched with a multicolored light that draws the eye toward the altar and the huge Graham Sutherland tapestry (in color, opposite) that covers the north wall behind it. From the altar, the source of light is suddenly, almost theatrically apparent: ten narrow stained-glass windows, 70 ft. high, in the jogs of the saw-toothed walls. Says Spence: “These windows are like a rainbow of promise, but it is right that a worshiper should not be able to see them until he has made his Communion at the altar and turned back in joy. Then God is revealed.”

Unqualified Brilliance. Of all the jewels in Spence’s casket, none shines with such unqualified brilliance as the exquisite baptistry window (in color, overleaf) designed by John Piper, an 80-ft. by 51-ft.

chessboard of 195 separate panels, each with its own colors and design. More than 2,000 sq. ft. of glass move toward a brilliant central mass of golden light. Set deep in its stone framework, the window has a different appearance from every angle. From directly below, all that is visible is a hazy radiance in the air; from across the nave, the light seems to burst in as though propelled from the outside.

The Sutherland tapestry—suffering perhaps from the great expectations built up over the years—is less obviously impressive. Christ in Majesty—presented in a billowing, almost feminine robe—seems lacking in majesty. But the tapestry is rich in arresting still lifes, and impressive as a modern success in a medieval art. It is 70 ft. high, 39 ft. wide, weighs more than a ton. Ten weavers of France’s Pinton Freres spent four years copying every nuance of color and design marked out by Sutherland in his original 8-ft. by 4-ft. gouache.

The cathedral’s chapels have specific roles in both design and function. The Chapel of Unity, across the nave from the baptistry window, has a floor of intricately designed marble mosaic by Sweden’s Einar Forseth and a ceiling arched to the shape of a Crusader’s tent. To Spence, it is the heart of the cathedral’s theme of unity. In another corner, the Chapel of Christ the Servant looks out through plain windows on the reality of grimy Coventry below, attempting to project the cathedral into Coventry’s workaday world. Near by, the Chapel of Geth-semane—fenced off by a wrought-iron grille designed by Spence in the shape of a crown of thorns—is a tiny alcove for private worship.

Considering the furor over Spence’s original design, there has been a remarkable chorus of praise for the final result.

Although the building has its opponents —the Sunday Telegraph called it an “honest failure”—most Englishmen seem delighted with Coventry’s new cathedral.

There is general agreement with Sunday Times Critic John Russell that it represents “inspired conservatism” rather than the radical departures that were at first feared. But Spence’s cathedral—for all its hand-cut blocks and patiently woven icons —is very much of this century. Says Cuthbert Bardsley, the Bishop of Coventry: “Once again, we must express our faith in terms that will be understood by a modern generation.”