I guess you could call this the ultimate bad vestment. But it seems that the former cathedral of the Episcopal Diocese of Western Michigan(AKA Far And Away The Ugliest Church Building In The Entire History Of Christianity From The Ascension Of Christ Into Heaven Until The Present Day) has been
memorialized in a book.
18 comments:
It looks like a maximum security prison.
Every so often I have to drive by it and cannot IMAGINE what they were thinking.
Leggos and toilet paper tubes.
Scrooge McDuck's money vault.
From my perspective it is a maximum security prison.
Crematory!
Well I read the article so I see what they meant, but boy did they mess it up. Looks like a 3 year olds junk project, cereal box loo roll tubes et voila I builder a castle at nursery!
What is it with western Michigan and really bad church architecture? Muskegon has that neo-fascist St. Francis de Sales parish. Yikes!
I'm afraid I've seen worse.
Just off the top of my head, in Bay County, FL, I know of two Protestant churches that are in competition. One I call the "Worship Depot"; it looks like someone took a Home Depot and converted it into a church without changing the architecture at all. The other I call "the Hotbox". It's covered in tin and has no windows and only the main door out front. No windows! I have no idea what goes on inside, but that just sounds creepy in a church.
Pictures of the inside, before it's 2007 sale, indicate thoughtful and quite beautiful architectural expression of the liturgical renewal's emphasis on the people of God gathered by Word and Sacrament.
The unfortunate fortress-like aspect of the exterior seems to be the unintended consequence of trying to turn a building into a symbol, in this case a crown. One tower for the bells might have been a better choice.
Pity the diocese lost it.
The more pictures of the exterior I see, the more it seems to say "unfinished government storage facility." You could imagine the last scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark taking place inside ...
And yeah, the new attachment screams "Circuit City." Episcopalians don't have the market on ugly architecture cornered.
The first thing that came to my mind was "Hydro substation". But what is that small structure in the left foreground? Is it an incinerator? A small heating plant for the church?
If they had a Cathederal in Mordor, I supose it'd look like this.
In my opinion the architecture is very foreboding. It seems to conflict with what the modern, liturgical-movement inspired interior tries to accomplish: welcomeness; the priesthood of all believers; everyone together in unity and family.
No doubt this diocese, like most in TEC, is theologically heterodox. But I wonder if it went into better hands going to some non-denominational church that has "services" that look like a U2 concert?
JGA
While nowhere near This ugly, there's a church 3 miles from our house that totally lacks in anything architecturally spiritual. We thought it was a sort of prison at first. J. wondered where they were putting the watch tower so they could shoot people who tried to leave early....heh heh.
SB Smith
Texas
There is a special place in hell for bad architects ... and it looks quite a bit like this.
Combination Episcopal Church and nuclear power plant.
You know who built this hideous cathedral, don't you? I was the Rt. Rev. Charles E. Bennison, Sr. Bennison, Sr. is the father of the current Bishop of Pennsylvania. Under Bennison, Jr., Philadelphia's Episcopal Cathedral was gutted. It's really terrible what happened to it.
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