Cathedral of Christ the King, Johannesburg, Brian Gregory (begun 1958)

I don't often discuss churches built in the Modernist idiom but on occasion I come across one that's really worth noting. This is usually because said building is in actuality quite traditional in plan with its Modernist element being primarily stylistic.

Modernist planning and Modernist aesthetics are two very different things as we saw at Central Presbyterian Church in Houston, Texas. The Cathedral of Christ the King in Johannesburg, South Africa is one of these buildings. Its plan is very much that of a typical Christian basilica of the kind constructed in many styles throughout Europe. Its appearance takes advantage of the full range of Modernist tropes but arranges them in such a way, within a preexisting conceptual framework, that the building feels timeless rather than dated.














The basic form is that of a basilica with transepts fronted by a prominent narthex. There is a small fleche at the crossing rather than a tower. The nave is designed as a series of bays filled with a concrete framework into which colored glass has been inserted. At aisle level and at the windowless east end the walls are brick.



















The sanctuary is dominated by a ciborium with attenuated wooden columns supporting what the architect described as a "hyperbolic paraboloid dome." This feature looks rather like an abstracted crown thereby recalling the cathedral's dedication to Christ the King.

It would be easy to speculate about the motivations of the architect in designing such a buolding but fortunately we have his own conclusive statement on the matter. "An attempt has been made in the design and structure of the Cathedral to provide, within the budget laid down, a building on a dignified scale as befits the important centre and large congregation which it serves. The structure has been treated simply and in such a way that throughout the coming years there shall be a minimum of maintenance necessary. Though marbles from Italy have been used these have been limited to the sanctuary, altars and aisles, but the general decorative effect has been achieved with untreated natural materials such as the glass and granite faced concrete, the brick of the walls and the natural wood finishes of the seats and ceilings."

Lamentatio Sanctae Matris Ecclesiae Constantinopolitanae, Guillaume Dufay (c. 1454)

Dufay's Lament for the Sacred Mother Church of Constantinople was written as a response to the fall of the city on this day in 1453. Interwoven with the French text is a tenor cantus firmus in Latin making use of Lamentations 1:2 and thereby connecting the Fall of Constantinople with the Fall of Jerusalem in 586 B.C.

 

O très piteux de tout espoir, fontaine,
Père du fils dont suis mère éplorée,
Plaindre me viens à ta cour souveraine
De ta puissance et de nature humaine
Qui ont souffert, telle dure vilaine,
Faire à mon fils qui tant m’a honorée,
Dont suis de bien et de joie séparée,
Sans qui vivant veuille entendre mes plaintes.
À toi, seul dieu, du forfait me complains
Du gref tourment et douloureux outrage
Que voit souffrir plus bel des humains
Sans nul confort de tout humain lignage.


Tenor: Omnes amici ejus spreverunt eam
Non est qui consoletur eam
Ex omnibus caris ejus.

Most merciful source of all hope,
Father of the son whose weeping mother I am,
I come to complain at your sovereign court
Of your authority and of human nature,
Which have allowed such harsh cruelty
To be inflicted on my son, who has so honoured me;
Whereby I have been parted from happiness and joy,
Without any living being who will hear my complaints.
To you, only God, I appeal from the sentence,
From the grievous torment and painful injury
That I watch the fairest of men suffer,
With no consolation from your human speech.


Tenor: All her friends have betrayed her:
Among all her lovers
there is none to comfort her.

The Precious Blood of Christ

"The blood of Christ is that life-blood which Jesus shed when He died for sinners upon the cross. It is the blood which flowed so freely from His head pierced with thorns, and His hands and feet pierced with nails, and His side pierced with a spear, in the day when He was crucified and slain. The quantity of that blood may very likely have been small; the appearance of that blood was doubtless like that of our own: but never since the day when Adam was first formed out of the dust of the ground, has any blood been shed of such deep importance to the whole family of mankind." --- J.C. Ryle

Man of Sorrows, Maarten van Heemskerck (1498-1574)

Jura Parish Church, 1776

In the last of my How Should We Then Build? series I posted drawings of a hypothetical church I had designed to accommodate the principles I espoused in the series. Recently, I came across some photographs of Jura Parish Church (1776) in the Scottish Inner Hebrides. The resemblance of my own design to this building is remarkable, proving that designing after the vernacular manner allows for the creation of functional buildings with a timeless quality- buildings for any place and any circumstance that never go out of fashion.

Christ the Word is the Christ of The Word

"Others tell us the final authority for Christians is not Scripture, but Christ, whom we must regard as standing apart from Scripture and above it. He is its Judge; and we, as His disciples, must judge Scripture by Him, receiving only what is in harmony with His life and teaching and rejecting all that is not.

But who is this Christ, the Judge of Scripture? Not the Christ of the New Testament and of history. That Christ does not judge Scripture; he obeys it and fulfills it. Certainly, He is the final authority of the whole of it. Certainly, He is the final authority for Christians; that is precisely why Christians are bound to acknowledge the authority of Scripture. Christ teaches them to do so.

A Christ who permits His followers to set Him up as the Judge of Scripture, One by whom its authority must be confirmed before it becomes binding and by whose adverse sentence it is in places annulled, is a Christ of human imagination, made in the theologian’s own image, One who attitude to Scripture is the opposite to that of the Christ of history. If the construction of such a Christ is not a breach of the second commandment, it is hard to see what is.

It is sometimes said that to treat the Bible as the infallible word of God is idolatry. If Christ was an idolater, and if following His teaching is idolatry, the accusation may stand; not, however, otherwise. But to worship a Christ who did not receive Scripture as God’s unerring word, nor require His followers to do so, would seem to be idolatry in the strictest sense." --- J.I. Packer

Death Delightful or Dreadful

Death! 'tis a melancholy day
To those that have no God,
When the poor soul is forc'd away
To seek her last abode.

In vain to heaven she lifts her eyes,
But guilt, a heavy chain,
Still drags her downward from the skies
To darkness, fire, and pain.

Awake and mourn, ye heirs of hell,
Let stubborn sinners fear,
You must be driven from earth, and dwell
A long for-ever there.

See how the pit gapes wide for you,
And flashes in your face,
And thou, my soul, look downwards too,
And sing recovering grace.

He is a God of sovereign love
That promis'd heaven to me,
And taught my thoughts to soar above,
Where happy spirits be.

Prepare me, Lord, for thy right-hand,
Then come the joyful day,
Come death, and some celestial band,
To bear my soul away.

 --- Isaac Watts

The King of Glory

"If Christ be glorious, it is all the heaven I ask for. If he shall be King of kings, and Lord of lords, let me be nothing, if he shall but reign, and every tongue shall call him blessed, it shall be bliss to me to know it; and if I may be but as one of the withered roses which lie in the path of his triumph, it shall be my paradise." --- C.H. Spurgeon