Talk:Church architecture/Archive 1

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This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Snmisras, Ericvtheg. Peer reviewers: Saxonnn.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 17:41, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Anyone know
Anyone know the reason why some churches have one tower and others have two?

If you read the article you will see an explanation. It has to do with the pilgrimage made to the church of the Holy Sepulchre where a staircase takes you to the site of the Calvary and another staircase goes down the other side. Above these staircases were towers. (Unless anyone has a better answer Roger Arguile 16:52, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Ghirlandaio
Just be a little patient my friend. I put a Men at Work sign up as I was trying to find my more material. I fear thsat this sort of picky approach makes no friends. I had put a deal of work on in addition which is now lost. I shall start again. Roger Arguile 14:34, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Modernity
The church inserted by Ineffable3000 is not an example of modern architecture. It was merely built recently. I fear that I have deleted it. I would be interested in what reason can be adduced for its insertion and how it adds to the text. I have read the editors' user page and do not detectany particular knowledge or skills in this field. Roger Arguile 15:46, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Second vatican council
The Second Vatican Council needs a mention in the modernity section, this had a profound effect on the design of catholic churches, blurring the boundary between priesthood and congregation - see Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral (and probably Niemeyers Cathedral of Brasília too, although I'm note certain with that one (although it looks like church in the round, so that's a big hint I think). --Mcginnly | Natter 12:23, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. I have added a small para on this. Fortunately I was able to look up the document. It was an important omission and may need extending.Roger Arguile 13:17, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

I changed the wording to clarify that Sacrosanctum Concilium does not "encourage" the priest facing the people so much as it allows for it. In fact, the rubrics indicate the traditional "ad orientem" facing, since when during the "Oratre Fratres" the rubrics have the Priest turning to face the people, then turning back to the altar. "Participatio actuoso" may give some a better understanding of what II Vatican Council meant by what is translated "active participation."Caisson 06 (talk) 19:59, 3 April 2009 (UTC) --- The section on Vatican Two needs work desperately. "A theological principle which resulted in change was the decree Sacrosanctum Concilium of the Second Vatican Council issued in December 1963. This encouraged 'active participation' (in Latin: participatio actuosa) by the faithful in the celebration of the liturgy by the people and required that new churches should be built with this in mind (para 124) Subsequently, rubrics and instructions encouraged the use of a freestanding altar allowing the priest to face the people. The effect of these changes can be seen in such churches as the Roman Catholic Metropolitan Cathedrals of Liverpool and the Brasília, both circular buildings with a free-standing altar."

1. The encouragement of "active participation" goes back to Pius X's motu proprio "Tra le Sollecitudini" (1903) and the idea has nothing to do with circular arrangements or free standing altars or liturgy "versus populum". The passage from SC 124 ("And when churches are to be built, let great care be taken that they be suitable for the celebration of liturgical services and for the active participation of the faithful.") has nothing to do with circular arrangements or free standing altars either, and should be read in light of Pius XII's "Mediator Dei" #78, 192 and 199.

2. The free standing altar is mandated in the Concilium documents, not SC, in order to give due prominence to the altar and not to facilitate versus populum. I can supply more sources for this in the near future.

3. There is no possible way that Vatican Two had any influence on Gibberd's design for the Metropolitan Cathedral at Liverpool or Niemeyer's design for Brasilia. Brasilia was masterplanned in the late 50s, including the concept design for the cathedral; and Liverpool began construction in Oct 1962 -- the same month that Vatican Council II opened.

4. There is literally nothing in the documents of Vatican Two that mandated any of the significant architectural changes (except for the restoration of the altar to it prominence) -- nothing about removing altar rails or baldacchinos, nothing about removing kneelers, nothing about centralized liturgy or circular buildings, nothing about removing the tabernacle from the sanctuary, etc. One may assume these were all done "in the spirit of the Council", or in good faith efforts to shape the building to someone's notion of what the liturgical fashion of the post war years dictated and what they read into the documents, but the claim that any of this has to do with some theological principle of "active participation" supposedly endorsed by Vatican Two is highly dubious.

Clearly this needs to be rewritten, but I am leery of treading too heavily here. I would appreciate it if others suggested appropriate emendations that took into account the above, and I am pleased to discuss possible edits. Durandus | talk —Preceding undated comment added 08:03, 15 February 2012 (UTC).


 * Go ahead and rewrite it! Amandajm (talk) 11:53, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Ecclesiastical Architecture - merge?
I am not sure what, apart from two photographs this article adds to the present one. It could, without loss be deleted. Roger Arguile 12:41, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm inclined to agree, except I would delete the Move Church architecture to overwrite Ecclesiastical Architecture. The article deals with more than just churches as it is. If it's referering to Church (big 'C' the Church - as in the religious body) then it would better named as Ecclesiastical Architecture. Cheers. --Mcginnly | Natter 18:22, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Im all for simple accessible words. Church = Ecclesiastical but the former is more widely used. Roger Arguile 19:01, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

The role of Christian humanism?
Some of the elements of Gothic architecture had a long history that pre-dates Christian humanism, particularly that of Erasmus. Humanism seems to have been a reaction against some of the constraints of church theology and philosophy that were dominant as these cathedrals were going up, and it's hard to see how equality and commonality were playing out in the architecture. Medieval theology tended to place people in a particular location on the social order, an order often expressed in the stone of the churches; humanism attempted to change that order and met with a great deal of resistance (as one would expect) from church authorities. --KJPurscell 23:12, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Merge EOF
J. D. Redding 16:15, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Orphaned references in Church architecture
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Church architecture's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "Pinto": From St. Peter's Basilica: Pio V. Pinto, pp. 48-59 From Architecture of cathedrals, basilicas and abbey churches: Pio V. Pinto, The Pilgrim's Guide to Rome. 

Reference named "BF": From St. Peter's Basilica:  From Architecture of cathedrals, basilicas and abbey churches: Sir Banister Fletcher, History of Architecture on the Comparative Method. From Romanesque architecture: Bannister Fletcher, ''A History of Architecture on the Comparative Method’’. From Gothic architecture: Banister Fletcher, A History of Architecture on the Comparative Method. 

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 00:28, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Removal from another article
duplicate notice at Architecture_of_cathedrals,_basilicas_and_abbey_churches Some of this material may be suitable for this article, though I guess it is already covered - please check.Sf5xeplus (talk) 00:46, 22 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Spitting chips
 * The whole reason why the material duplicated that at the article Architecture of cathedrals, basilicas and abbey churches (now Architecture of cathedrals and great churches) was that some presumably well-intentioned bright-spark copied nds pasted the whole blinking lot as soon as I'd completed the article, without even bothering to say that they were doing it.
 * OK! I have just deleted almost everything that was duplicated, with the exception of one section which is relevant to both, but which I may, after some consideration and possibly jiggling info, remove from the other article.
 * I am frankly astounded that almost the entire article was copied and pasted here without discussion, when it was very clear that the contributor was currently active on it.
 * Amandajm (talk) 07:56, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Reasons for removing the Schloeder quotation
Have just removed the boxed quotation about gothic architecture from Steven J. Schloeder's Architecture in Communion: Implementing the Second Vatican Council through Liturgy and Architecture. for the following reasons;

1) The author may be a practicing architect and theologian but he is NOT an architectural historian and not an expert on medieval archtecture (except in terms of its reception by modern practitioners). If we must include quotations, surely better to take them from up to date experts in the relevant field?

2) The quotation was really just a rather peacocky summary of Erwin Panofsky's theories on Suger's redevelopment of St Denis (theories which are now generally discounted by art historians working in this field). Also failed to make clear that Suger was probably NOT the designer of St Denis, as was once believed, but simply an influential patron.

3) Most importantly, the quotation's central point - that church architecture was an earthly expression of the Celestial City - was not original or unique to Gothic but was a long-established literary topos dating back to at least the 8th century. For example Eriugena (an author oft quoted by Suger himself) talked about Romanesque architecture in exactly the same terms in his poem Aula sidereae.

Given that this is an overview article covering a wide chronological range, to give such space and prominence to this kind of misleading quotation seems inappropriate. StuartLondon (talk) 13:16, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Reverted edits and ownership issues
I have reverted the recent edits of User:Amandajm to the last stable version of the article, because this editor unilaterally decided that an article about "church architecture or ecclesiastical architecture" should deal only about small churches and not with great cathedrals and basilicas. To this end, she removed many of the quality improvements to the article made by User:Orestek, and then came close to claiming ownership of the article in her comment on Orestek's talk page. I have warned the editor about this attitude towards the article, and have tried to impress upon her that it is wrong to change the scope of an article without first getting consensus for it on the article talk page. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:02, 15 August 2011 (UTC)


 * 'Comments
 * What has been done here is inappropriate in terms of the substance of the article, duplicates another article almost in its entirety, and is just plain rude in terms of relating to other editors on Wikipedia.


 * The entire substance of the " quality improvements" by Orestek (with the exception of a couple of different pics) were simply cut and pasted from another article, thereby duplicating masses of information from Architecture of cathedrals and great churches.
 * There was already within this article a good deal of information about the history of the development of church architecture, as against the development of large cathedrals and basilicas, which tend to take forms and have developed somewhat differently to very large cathedral, basilicas etc. This relevant and well-written information was totally swamped by the additions. Anyone coming from the article on cathedrals and reading this article could very easily fail to find the important facts among all the stuff that had simply been copy-pasted.
 * The article called Church architecture is valid as a separate article, only if it does not repeat everything that is said in the Architecture of cathedrals etc article.
 * An article is needed that does exactly what this article previously did, i.e. deal with the architecture of the thousands and thousands of ecclesiastical buildings that are 'not cathedrals, basilicas and large abbey churches.
 * What this present article needs is the insertion of more architectural details of churches (not cathedrals). It needs illustrating with galleries similar to the ones I created for the cathedrals article showing parish churches, not cathedrals.  It needs discussion of the differences between parish churches and cathedrals. It needs illustration, by text and picture, of the differences between "churches" (not cathedrals) in different countries of the world.
 * Yes, I wrote the lengthy article which was cut and pasted, almost in its entirety into this pre-existent article. In terms of "ownership" (which is a BIG NASTY accusation here on Wikipedia), this is not a matter of "ownership". It is a matter of "common courtesy" to other active Wkipedia editors. I find it almost unbelievable that someone could be actively working on a lengthy article only to have the whole lot cut and pasted without any discussion whatsoever.


 * Beyond My Ken's description of this as a "stable version" is inappropriate. What it is is a duplicate article, with some different paragraphs.
 * Beyond My Ken mentions first getting consensus for it on the article talk page. This is my point exactly. Before the article Architecture of cathedrals and great churches was cut and pasted almost in its entirety, there ought to have been concensus on that discussion page. Why wasn't the cut and paste discussed?
 * What we try to do here at Wikipedia is work together. What Orestek has done in failing to discuss this before the cutnpaste is a flagrant breach of that ethos.


 * Beyond my Ken, doesn't it concern you at all, that this article duplicates exactly almost the entire content of another article?
 * Why aren't you demanding that there should have been consensus on the discussion page of the Architecture of cathedrals and great churches article?
 * Thank you for referring to my work as "quality improvements". However, (regardless of the quality) they only constitute "improvements" if they are appropriately used, and here, they are not.
 * Amandajm (talk) 04:21, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

If the subject of this article is really 'Parish Church Architecture' then perhaps it should be renamed as such? Otherwise one might reasonably assume it to be about the architecture of 'The Church' (used in its conventional sense as a metonym for the institutions of the Christian establishment). The lead opens with the words "Church architecture or ecclesiastical architecture refers to the architecture of buildings of Christian churches..." - which further reinforces that interpretation. Cathedrals, abbey churches, etc are still 'churches' - and 'ecclesiastical architecture' encompasses a range of other building types as well. If such buildings are to be excluded from this article then the existing title is misleading. There doesn't appear to be an article on the architecture of parish churches yet - so renaming this one accordingly seems an obvious way to avoid the overlap with Architecture of cathedrals and great churches.StuartLondon (talk) 07:27, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
 * ps. While we're at it any chance of ditching the section on "Christian Humanism"? Academically speaking it's utter tosh. No idea who this David Ross is but his suggestion that the later 12th century "marks the first flowering of dedicated church architecture" is clearly nonsense and ignores 600+ years of architectural history. Carolingian churches? Romanesque churches? Cluny?? Most of the rest of that section reads like an expression of personal faith (by someone who, coincidentally, has fundamentally misunderstood medieval history and theology) - as such it has no place here.StuartLondon (talk) 07:50, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I think it can go. The dedicated section on Ethiopean churches needs to go too, since it is the subject of a whole article. I'll leave it there for the time being and included some of it.
 * I think that your suggestion of renaming this is good.
 * The only problem is whether enough people will find it, if the first word is "parish" rather than "church". I have observed that the precise name effects the number of hits an article gets.
 * Amandajm (talk) 13:04, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Humanism twaddle: Gone! Amandajm (talk) 13:07, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Good grief! The whole article just disappeared! Where has it gone now? When I try to go there, it refers to a non-existent page called "Target article". What does that mean? Amandajm (talk) 13:15, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
 * fixed. whatever happened didn't show in the history Amandajm (talk) 13:19, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
 * The Ethiopian question is relevant given the comments made by Pope Eugenius IV during the Council of Florence in 1438, the downside is that it is under-researched and could fall foul of OR. As I am working in this area I must refrain from further comment on exactly those grounds.

Iconoclasm
I think you need to develop a separate section for the influence of the Reformation, Iconoclasm and Counter-Reformation on church architecture, as the existing detail is sparse to the point of dicontiguity. It's quite possible this could even be linked at the far end into the "galvanised Methodist" style. Another consideration to examine, please, is that the article seems to be excessively English in its approach (not so much a breach of NPOV as simply work in progress). The influence of Luther on Swiss and Dutch Calvinism on the English puritan ideals is quite relevant, and the roots of that in earlier creeds such as the Brethren of the Free Spirit are not irrelevant either. I can be contacted on rahere at smartemail dot co dot uk, with a 1 added after the jester's name. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.29.91.172 (talk) 06:51, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Rood origins
Another point I would have linked to see developed is the huge Rood medallion seen in certain mediaeval continental churches such as Zoutleeuw in Belgium, Aachen Cathedral, and Avioth in France. I suspect an unorthodox connection between them, however, and so I would prefer some more authoritative and less opinionated commentator to undertake the work, to avoid OR opinions. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.29.91.172 (talk) 08:10, 25 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Yes, the article still needs a lot of work and organising. Amandajm (talk) 10:52, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Translations
Note to self: A German article should be created. Cheers, Horst-schlaemma (talk) 13:39, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

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