UPDATED 9 APRIL – please scroll down for update On Thursday, April 4, three options were unveiled for the quake-damaged cathedral in the centre of Christchurch. These are termed 1) Restore; 2) Traditional; 3) Contemporary. They are the result of conversations and an international Study Tour. While the look of the three is different, essentially
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This post will move from local points to general principles that, hopefully, you can find relevance for in your own context – wherever you are. Outside the park-like green frame that will encircle the new central city of Christchurch, and sited in what will be the car-park for the planned city’s new stadium, is rising
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There are generally more than one and a half thousand people visiting this site daily. Many of you are regulars – and we form a community here. Thank you. Some of us pray for each other, and this place. Others go to a few pages and miss some of what is offered here. In the
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THE PRESIDER’S CHAIR and THE CATHEDRA present particular problems for contemporary liturgy and liturgical layout. The cathedra is the bishop’s chair. We don’t want to place the presider’s chair to give the impression of a throne, or the presider as judge. Presider’s chair, lectern, and altar form three foci for the Eucharist (the font is
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I am delighted to find echoes of my own input in the Christchurch diocesan Architectural Design Guidelines (PDF). My concern about the font can be found in the document. These Design Guidelines are to design new church buildings after the extensive damage through the Canterbury earthquakes. The Guidelines can also be used for repairing and
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Surprisingly and sadly, nothing whatsoever is said in the Christchurch diocesan Architectural Design Guidelines (PDF) about the size and shape of the altar. Nor about whether it be movable or normally left in a central position. These Design Guidelines are to design new church buildings after the extensive damage through the Canterbury earthquakes. The Guidelines
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This blog post complements Architectural Design Guidelines 1 by providing some notes around the Christian tradition of orientating church buildings to face East. In some sense, then, you can regard this post as Architectural Design Guidelines 1a – footnotes on church building orientation. I hope this post interests many even though it is driven by
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In some sense this is the sixth post in a series I had running. Each post in that series was called “church architecture”. I am changing the title as I kick off a new series, because a week ago the Christchurch Diocesan synod “adopted the Architectural Design Guidelines (PDF link) as a framework to guide
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