If they actually build this monstrosity in L’Aquila, Italy, the Roj Mahal in Los Angeles will no longer be the ugliest church I have ever seen.
I think the locals might actually have to pray for another earthquake.
And now for something entirely similar…
Coat of Arms by D Burkart
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A Daily Prayer for Priests
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since Sat., 25 Nov. 2006:
It is a liturgical potato!
When do they take the sheet off the display so we can see what it really looks like? No, really, when do they take off the sheet? Please tell me that they take off the sheet!
And what’s with the glass cross? Not only is it not a crucifix, you can barely see it when looking directly at it! I guess they designed it so no one can see it and therefore it won’t offend anyone.
It is things like this that make me think that what we need from the Pope is a solemn definitions of butt ugly and why we don’t do that sort of thing with our churches.
I sure don’t want to see the inside.
The social hall, to be added later, will appropriately resemble a helping of steamed carrots.
The shape of the church on the top photo reminds me of Mothra from the Godzilla movies.
What is that?! It looks like a giant larvae of Mothra getting ready to hatch and eat the whole planet! How can this happen, Father? Doesn’t someone higher up have to approve designs, etc.? What, are all the beautiful churches and cathedrals offending someone? Did someone decide we need something truly horrid looking so no one will think we’re too high and mighty, or what?!
Looks like the architect was going for an old movie theme in the design – is it Jabba the Hut from Star Wars or the pink sea snail from Dr. Dolittle? I’ll opt for the first. Maybe they will use a new translation for the liturgy in it? I can just hear it – “the Force be with you” and the response – “and with your Jedi”!
I would have named it Our Lady of the Armadillo.
Someone left their dog poo under that glass. Could you please clean it up?
These guys need to get their heads out of their butts and think about what this lump of concrete is going to look like to passers-by on the street level: uninviting, unattractive, mute, secretive. This is anti-evangelization.
What a collosal WASTE of money! A shape like that costs far far more to build than a larger traditional building. The money would be much better spent on a nice traditional sort of building and more put into beautiful artwork–or if they want to go modern–how about a Catholic library so that people have access to more quality church teaching?
Honestly, a building like that is expensive to build–terrible stewardship!!!
Michael, to be honest, I hadn’t even noticed the cross until you mentioned it. It’s nearly invisible… I wonder if that’s the point.
The only “explanation” for this is the horrible devastation of the 2009 earthquake — so many beautiful churches destroyed. See pictures here: http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/04/the_laquila_earthquake.html
Surely they mean to cover the outsides with some beautiful mosaics…or paintings….or something?
I thought the 70’s were gone. Seems like Italy is still in the 60’s!
Three possible patron saints for the Church: Duodenum, Jejunum and Ileum.
A big white armadillo.
Someone’s been spending too much time reading science fiction.
It’s like the architect looked at the metal jelly-bean in Chicago and thought, “Now THAT’S something I’d like to pray in!”
Seriously, can we all please, please, please, please, please stop hiring architect who are just making fun of us?
My thought is was one of the sand worms from “Dune”.
Where are the windows? The lighting bill for that – that building – will be huge. I hope the congregation is wealthy enough to run it.
you beat me to it Brian Day – I was wondering if the Shadout Mapes is the sacristan.
It doesn’t surprise me. When one looks at the artwork portrayed in Italian religious magazines, they all mostly focus on modern art that is very unpleasant. I have wondered over the years if they have become desensitized and now enjoy an ugly aesthetic.
It is no joke, it is so ugly and looks nothing like what a Catholic Church should look like.People will have to worship in this thing for decades to come, until it crumbles. The people in the Parish should not allow this. Stand up, donate nothing and make waves before it begins. This type of garbage has been proposed before and been “undone” by the members of a parish. If every Church in the world looked like this how would we be able to define our worship spaces? Where is the stained glass that tells stories of the Saints? Where are the marks that make it distinctly Catholic. I wish the Holy Father would put out some guidelines that must be observed or step in before this is built. It takes away from the people to force them into something like this. More will hate it than like it. That is enough reason not to build it..Period.
It looks like a bug larva or a snail-either way it is butt uuugggllly!
Why do modern architects have allergies to beauty? Why does everything have to be ‘functional’?
Also like the ‘Jabba the Hut’ and ‘dog poo’ descriptions, too-another way of describing it?
Michelangelo and Bruneschelli [sp?] would be shaking their heads in shame and be kicking their modern counterparts in the behind, saying, ‘Do it over!’ !
Sheesh….
In the second and third pictures, it looks to me like a flat, white biretta, without the tassle.
It’s the BLOB!
Brian Day and Tim Ferguson–that was hilarious. My only worry is how they will deal with inclusive language and Fremen.
In Christ,
This design is very appropriate for a Van Gogh Museum, but not a church.
Agree with a previous comment—this looks right out of Star Wars!!!
It is a liturgical potato!
-Comment by lofstrr
Let’s make french fries! If this place will ever be perfected, it will be by deep frying. This is a real piece of something all right. To call it a church is a sacrilege, to actually use it as a church is all kinds of sacrilege.
It appears like such architecture is made to “glorify” the architect rather than God. I don’t know who designed the hundreds of gothic cathedrals and churches, but I know Who they were built to give glory to.
Look! The three stooges are in the bottom picture!
Reminds me of one of those year round domes for tennis or a driving range. And why do none of the three gents (two priests and maybe the architect?) look happy?
It is just plain UGLY
It is either
(a) A sandworm from the Planer Arrakis
(b) A Bug Brain from Starship Troopers
My other thought is that the architect was on an acid flashback from the 60’s.
Looks like a giant sea cucumber.
Hideous.
Sometimes you just have to wonder what supposedly sensible people are thinking. Or if they’re thinking.
its the creature from the original Star Trek that was destroying and digesting entire planets, run for your lives, REALLY, RUN, maybe it will digest the polyester nightmares and happy clappy types and leave the rest of us alone :D
Nah, yer all wrong… it’s a womb without a view.
I’m hoping that it’s merely a pupa or chrysalis, out of which will emerge a beautiful butterfly of a church.
This is hideous, but the LA Cathedral is still the ugliest Church building
Uh, this is from the Onion, right?
S. …per omnia saecula saeculorum.
M. Mua’dib.
I’m surprised nobody else mentioned it, but the first thing I thought of when I saw those photos was a man-eating, tennis-playing blancmange! I guess that’s what you get after years of Monty Python bishops…
That’s it, it looks like a giant liver. Paint it brown and call it St Cirrhosis.
I’m begging you, Father. Please start an online contest for “Ugliest Church In Christendom”.
It’s tent! A practical, anti-earthquake, collapsible, and portable canvas tent held up with ribbing. – That must be how it was presented.
Hideous. Where is the spine of these bishops and priests? Too many feel that they must embrace the latest architectural fads. How is this deconstructionist design even remotely a catechesis in stone?
It is not as if there are now design firms working in traditional idioms out there – or parishes/dioceses willing to use them. For example: http://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2010/04/new-gothic-style-church-for-mandeville.html
Embarrassing!
It does look like some kind of larva, or perhaps a pupa.
Jeffrey Pinyan: Your book is amazing! Thank you for providing such a wonderful resource!!!!
On a smaller scale, but I’d like to make another proposal in the ugly church contest, the Seattle University Chapel. The outside and sanctuary are terrible, but most horrifying to me is the treatment of the Blessed Sacrament. Yes, that’s the tabernacle sitting on the ground, underneath a dead tree (which holds the lamp).
Outside:
http://www.seattleu.edu/missionministry/chapel/galleries/front/
Sanctuary:
http://www.seattleu.edu/missionministry/chapel/galleries/altar/
http://www.seattleu.edu/missionministry/chapel/galleries/mainsanctuary/
Blessed Sacrament Chapel:
http://www.seattleu.edu/missionministry/chapel/galleries/blessed/
“About the Chapel
Architect Steven Holl chose “A Gathering of Different Lights” as the guiding concept for the design of the Chapel of St. Ignatius. This metaphor describes Seattle Universitys mission and it also refers to St. Ignatius vision of the spiritual life as comprising many interior lights and darknesses, which he called consolations and desolations.
Holl conceived of the chapel as “seven bottles of light in a stone box,” with each bottle or vessel of light corresponding to a focal aspect of Catholic worship. Light passes through each bottle in a specific area of the building to define physical and spiritual spaces with pools of clear and colored light.”
We have these buildings all over the place here in the frozen wilds of Michigan! They usually have a sign outside like, “Mulligan’s,” or “Eagle’s Nest,” and they house indoor driving ranges. “Teed-Off” is what I would be if this were my parish!
@ Warren, Rimshot! :-)
So what’s it trying to say? Saying it’s hideous can be mistaken for a comment on mere aesthetics.
The form of a Church is intended to convey a message. What message might this convey?
Formlessness? Being blown around by the wind? The “creativity” of the designer?
Maybe the Blancmange has an opinion?
This is a much better design:
http://salesianity.blogspot.com/2010/04/beautiful-new-church-for-our-lady.html
I’m so glad that I’m not the only one who thought “larvae” when they saw this thing. Perhaps it will hatch into a Gothic Cathedral when it matures.
It looks like a giant albino slug!
The poor people of L’Aquila have suffered enough. They don’t deserve to have their hearts broken by erecting this monstrosity.
The Raj looks downright spectacular compared to this.
This thing looks like a partially decayed whale carcass. Not sure what the intention is here because it’s obviously not to spread the faith and inspire contemplation of the Divine.
This might simply be a temporary “church”. I’ve seen similar -though less ugly – inflatable buildings in disaster zones.
Should this in fact be a design for a new church then God help us.
Ghostbusters comes to mind
“the choice is made, the traveller has come!”
Someone thought of a marshmallow man..is what happened
OK, who thought that the Monarch’s cocoon from “The Venture Brothers” was good inspiration for a church?
Is that “1 APRILE” or “3 APRILE” in the background of the first photograph? Can’t quite make it out, hope it’s the former!
If someone had an email address for the Bishop or whoever is in charge we could all send along our disgust and it might actually change some minds…
The reason that any type of edifice can be built is that there are sufficient funds to build it. If the parishoners of this parish refuse to donate to the project – and explain why they are not donating – then possibly the project will not progress. The insane priests and bishops who approve these types of sacrilege must be stopped. And yes: I do mean that they are insane. After so many years of free-spiritedness in the Church, with the result of so many people leaving the Church, they think that they should continue in the same new-agey manner. We, the faithful, want to take back the Church of Christ. God help us!
They may be getting a call from the Mummenschanz lawyers alleging theft of their set design…
Have they not heard of Duncan Stroik in Italy?
But maynardus — no Scotsmen!
I feel sure that Cardinal Biggles had a hand in this somewhere . . . .
…
More like St. Sta-Puft Parish in the Archdiocese of Candyland, amirite?
Those weren’t just any old blancmanges; they indeed were from the planet Skyron in the galaxy of Andromeda, here for Wimbledon.
You’d all better not hope they put in stained glass windows, because if they do it will become an Ohmu from “Nausicaa of the Valley of the Winds”, and chances are good its eyes would be red…
Vincenzo, you’re the best. I kind of like the idea of jawas as pygmy monks. Utinni!
A question I wonder at is whether it is possible to use a contemporary (that is, of this day) design aesthetic, modern construction methods, contemporary furnishings, contemporary interior design, etc. and achieve a satisfactory result of a church building.
At a point in history, Gothic architecture was cutting-edge technology (because it allowed such height and light into the interior space).
What most conservatives seem to think satisfactory is actually nostalgia. Most of the “beautiful” churches in the Americas in their estimation are buildings which, at their construction, were imitative of European churches already antique. I will grant you that many, many “modern” church buildings are unsuccessful in their ability to inspire, or too similar to office buildings or schools to seem like a special place. That’s mostly because they’re constructed on the cheap with minimal intentionality paid to their purpose. But there are successful modern designs, too. I’m thinking of the Jubilee Church in Rome, Hallgrímskirkja in Iceland, Le Corbusier’s Notre Dame du Haut, Bruder Klaus Chapel in Germany (probably the most inspiring interior I’ve had the pleasure of), the conical church in Sicily whose name escapes me but I’m pretty sure Rev. Zuhlsdorf will be able to conjure…
is it the modernity of the building or style to which you object, or their execution? Because if so, how sad that there can be no further progress in art and architecture that can inspire the human spirit.
Kudos to Vincenzo for the best contextual portrayal of the Shroud of Larvae-Pupae.
Since God is the author of beauty, it is obvious this is not the work of God.
O’ Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us!
Father,
I Can’t believe you missed this reference! The Python Architect Sketch
(Also good against Freemasons too)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2PyeXRwhCE
It looks like a deer pellet; only in beige. (Or, perhaps that is giving it too great a compliment?)
I take it that the guy in the middle is the “distinguished” architect!
This is most unfortunate. I’ve only seen one of these sort of buildings work well, St. Stephen’s in DC. St. Stephens, is supposedly modeled on Jonah’s whale, and it works because of the appropriate use of glass, and decoration, but this is not up to that standard. They need to start over.
Surely this is moronic jesting!
Now I guess the two on either side of the (ahem) architect are “Pete” and “Repeat” ?
You know, a few things come to mind: 1. An hotel for “tribbles” from Star Trek. 2. Topo Gigio wouldnt even live in a joint like that.
3. What would Doug Savage’s chickens say about this?
Lord, please forgive me–wait a minute FORGIVE THEM!!!
It’s a very pale cheap croissant. NO, wait, it’s a cocoon. NO, wait, it’s a pile of dirty laundry in a cheap laundry bag. NO wait, it’s a bag of kitty litter with lumps. Okay, I give up. What is it?
lhatch – Thanks! (Who are you?)
Thanks for posting the blancmange, Father.
Well, at least this is a design for a building that cannot be ruined by an earthquake.
Thank you, Vincenzo. The most pious uplifting thought came to mind when I saw this – “What the hell…?”
Catholics. Sheesh.
It may look like a lot of things, but the one thing it DOES NOT look like is a building that will uplift hearts and minds enabling them to better give glory and honor to Almighty God. Living in LA Diocese we have seen the demon like conspiracy fulfilled in the structure that some call a cathedral….these gross structures not only are visible eyesores but work with a feverish intent to numb the faith in souls….
@ Jeffrey Pinyan: My name is Lorenzo Hatch, a 2nd year graduate theologian studying for the Diocese of San Angelo, Texas at Assumption Seminary. Earlier today, I was heading to class with a confrere who happened to had your book laying in the passenger seat. I picked it up and started to read it. I immediately started to sing its praises and inquired where he got it. He told me that a parishioner of the parish that he is assigned to do ministry gave him that book. I was immediately jealous and started to inquire as to where I could obtain a copy. I did notice that you were a devout reader of WDTPRS and was pleasantly surprised to have noticed you commenting on this entry. We definitely need to get your book in the hands of more people… (of course me being one of them). Thanks for all you do and if you ever want to keep in touch, I can be reached at: hatch [dot] lorenzo [at] gmail [dot] com.
Vincenzo does it again! Nice work. This pale slug of a something befits the sand people, for sure.
It reminds me of the sort of architecture featured here: http://unhappyhipsters.com/
… perhaps it will wind up on that site and receive its own too-true caption once it is built.
It’s lonely in the modern world…
“And the earth was void and empty, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the spirit of God moved over the waters.” (Gen. 1:2)
Lord, send out your Spirit, and renew the face of this church.
Looking at the walkways I get the impression of it being surrounded by water.
It is not as if there are now design firms working in traditional idioms out there – or parishes/dioceses willing to use them. For example: http://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2010/04/new-gothic-style-church-for-mandeville.html
That is an incredibly poorly executed gothic design.
The point of gothic was to let light into a building and create volume and a sense of upward movement. In a time before steel skeletons, the big ribs and buttresses of gothic buildings held relatively thin walls that could support massive expanses of glazing. This was meant to be radically different from the fortress-like civic buildings and short and dark vernacular buildings one would elsewhere find in a medieval town.
The drawing you link to shows small windows atop larger on the narthex, small windows on the nave, big windows in a tower where there is no need for them, a very awkwardly placed clock right over a lancet window, and a poorly executed, kind of silly porch that pulls the facade of the building lower right where traditional gothic design would try to be imposing. It also shows no use of sculpture, which is so central to the gothic tradition.
Don’t mean to get competitive, but Seattle University and L’Aquila have nothing, and I mean nothing, on this:
http://www.paroquia-sfxavier.jazznet.pt/folha/igreja.htm
The new parish church proposed for Restelo, in the Patriarchate of Lisbon.
Take particular note of the minaret. The architect, a noted freemason has boasted about how he included masonic symbols in the structure. Classy. Even the patriarch has spoken out against the design, construction has begun, but apparently nothing can be done to stop it, seeing as the land and the design were all offered by the city (mayor at the time was a noted atheist and freemason as well).
The architect, a noted freemason has boasted about how he included masonic symbols in the structure. Classy. Even the patriarch has spoken out against the design, construction has begun, but apparently nothing can be done to stop it, seeing as the land and the design were all offered by the city (mayor at the time was a noted atheist and freemason as well).
One thing that can be done is to refuse to use it.
Doesn’t it look a little like the car museum outside Nice, in France?
@L’Aquila: why?
@Filipe: LOL! Somewhere a magical unicorn is missing it’s horn …
@L’Aquila: why?
@Filipe: LOL! Somewhere a magical unicorn is missing its horn …
>>>I think the locals might actually have to pray for another earthquake.
It’s a horrible design for a church, to be sure. But after the catastrophic earthquakes in Haiti and Chile, I think suggesting that the locals “pray for [an] earthquake” is really in very poor taste.
There’s one hopeful note, anyway. Remember, the blancmange DID win Wimbledon.
Look on the bright side. Keep track of how much you paid for it, and when the schism comes, offer it to the heretics and keep the old one. After all, this one has a higher monetary “value,” right?
@ PostCatholic:
Is it the modernity of the building or style to which you object, or their execution? Because if so, how sad that there can be no further progress in art and architecture that can inspire the human spirit.
Oh, it’s definitely the execution, whether you operate from traditionalist or modernist grounds. The Blancmange is a definite eyesore, an aesthetic nightmare. It makes me wistful for the “mega-church” big concrete box, that’s how bad it is. But more to the point, it’s an expression of the architect’s ego and salesmanship rather than of Catholicism. We don’t have to have something neo-Gothic … but surely we can do better than this!
BTW, thanks everyone for the many SF and MP references! We definitely have to laugh at something like this … else we’d have to cry.