Our call for papers was issued in February 2011. Proposals are no longer being accepted.
Modern architecture for the Roman Catholic Church in the twentieth century could be experimental, transgressive or progressive, comforting or shocking; sometimes it appeared within a culture of intense theoretical and theological dialogue between architects and clergy, and sometimes it challenged orthodoxy and innovated at the fringes of the Church's complex structure. At various significant moments, modern architecture was either repressed and quenched, or welcomed and widely adopted. Architects could be concerned with the symbolic potential of modern architecture to evoke newly emphasised ideas in theology. In church architecture throughout the twentieth century, the liturgy was a central focus of development, as space and ritual were intimately connected. Monastic life was subject to modern interpretations of ancient ideals. Mission stations far from Rome might echo modern architecture's development of a 'critical regionalism'. Conventionally, the Second Vatican Council has been seen as a pivotal moment in the shift towards a modern form of church space, but increasingly scholarship is revealing the Council to have been only one marker of broader trends. More recently, architects have sought continuity and reattachment to the past instead of innovation.
This symposium seeks to present new research on specific manifestations of these larger historical currents. Paper proposals might address the following themes:
- Church architecture and liturgy, at any point in the twentieth century;
- The effects of patronage on architectural production;
- Catholic theology, soteriology and eschatology and architecture;
- Approaches to the past in twentieth-century Catholic architecture;
- New materials and building techniques and their effects on Catholic space;
- New spatial forms of pilgrimage, monasticism, or popular devotion;
- Symbolism and modern art in Catholic architecture;
- Politics, identity, nationality and ethnicity in Church buildings;
- Architecture and ecumenical engagement.
Keynote speaker: Prof. Richard Kieckhefer, Northwestern University (tbc).
Symposium dates: 9 and/or 10 December 2011. Venue: Mount Street Jesuit Centre, London.
The Symposium organisers are: Raymond Quek (Architecture, Nottingham Trent University), and Robert Proctor (Mackintosh School of Architecture, Glasgow School of Art).
