Here's some discussion of the religious content, in Texas Monthly:
Kelly, who died in 2015 at age 92, was a master of geometry and color.... Kelly’s rainbow-bright Austin sanctuary contains elements familiar to a religious building, but its creator took some liberties. Three sets of geometric stained-glass windows splash color across the building’s cruciform layout. A totemic sculpture stands roughly where the altar ought to be. On the walls, fourteen black-and-white marble panels depict abstract interpretations of Christ’s road to Golgotha. Austin, according to [Carter Foster, the deputy director for curatorial affairs at the Blanton Museum of Art], is a study in devotional architecture that, like its creator, avoids specific religious commitment. “It’s a chapel in form but not in function,” Foster explains. “He’s referring to art history as much as any ideology.”...
[T]he artist set specific requirements for the building... it would be considered a work of art, not a religious building.... UT has no religious affiliation...
To see the exterior, go here.
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Also in Texas (Houston), also non-denominational, another world-class work of art...The Rothko Chapel.
www.rothkochapel.org/
I initially read the title of this post as 'How to BURN a church on a stat university campus".
I need a break from the internets.
Woops! Reading the story now that I see the hyperlink below Althouse's nice photos, I see the story made a big point of mentioning the Rothko Chapel in Houston.
Looks like an expression of the H Richard Niebuhr quote, “A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross."
Reminds me of the joke about what you get when you cross a Jehovah's Witness with a Unitarian... somebody who knocks on your door to engage you in a conversation about nothing in particular.
It's nice, but it's more about being a church than a church.
God bless him. Wow that is ugly.
Throw in some prayer rugs and a minaret and you've got something.
Franklin BBQ is my cathedral in Austin.
I mean it's like a James Lileks' update--Interior Desecrations: The Gallery of Regrettable Churches.
Church, my kiesta. Betcha he/she never attended or was a member of a church.
Gay.
Are there any patent attorneys here familiar with a Viewmaster?
Oxford and Cambridge both have some very nice chapels on the premises and, to my knowledge, their presence hasn't hurt their academic standing.
I suspect it could use an exorcism. There's something a bit - off - about this.
"fourteen black-and-white marble panels depict abstract interpretations of Christ’s road to Golgotha"
That sort of thing does not belong in something this bland, unless they are deliberately meaningless. The stations of the cross are there to instruct after all, to hit you in the gut, not simply to decorate.
I recall being present once, decades ago, when a priest was brought in to bless a new datacenter (back when you could do things like that). As he was sprinkling holy water a capacitor in something blew with a pop. No doubt that blessing was needed.
Those satanist dingbats, theatrical Anton LaVey types, with their all-black themed black masses and pentacles and whatever, have it wrong. Satan will even more readily hang out somewhere colorful and attractive and even quasi-religious.
Among Dallas/Ft Worth Universities, the Texas Christians still compete with the Southern Methodists. But neither one admits God is real. The best they will go for is "God is dead." He was real once, but that ended.
Good job! Even the Muslims wouldn't want it, regardless of where it points.
Buwaya reminds us: Those satanist dingbats, theatrical Anton LaVey types, with their all-black themed black masses and pentacles and whatever, have it wrong. Satan will even more readily hang out somewhere colorful and attractive and even quasi-religious.
Yes. ...for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.II Corinth. 11:14
The false church is more dangerous than a witch's coven.
"Austin, according to [Carter Foster, the deputy director for curatorial affairs at the Blanton Museum of Art], is a study in devotional architecture that, like its creator, avoids specific religious commitment." I hope the Pope is wrong about there being no Hell. There's got to be someplace to put those who "avoid specific religious commitment."
"avoid specific religious commitment"
The Pro-Choice Church, selective, opportunistic, and congruent... follow the prevailing profits, feelings, and leverage.
is there a Bingo hall in the basement ?
buwaya said...
Satan will even more readily hang out somewhere colorful and attractive and even quasi-religious.
It's delightfully Medieval that you claim to know where Satan likes to hang out.
"even quasi-religious" - LOL.
"And when I arrived near their huts, I saw the sick man whom we were going to cure, who was dead...his eyes rolled back in his head, and without any pulse…as best I could, I beseeched our Lord...And after making the sign of the cross and blown on him many times, they brought me his bow and they gave it to me along with a basket of prickly pears...at nighttime they returned to their houses and said that the one who had been dead and whom I had cured in their presence had arisen revived and walked about and eaten and spoken with them..." -- Álvar Nuñez Cow Head
So buwaya, do you really think there's an entity known as "Satan", or are you misusing the term or name to refer to some mental aberrations?
Caldwell T IV, there was an exhaustive discussion on Satan a week ago here on Althouse. Perhaps you could search for it.
Looks like the generic new-hospital chapel. Even architecture has a stylebook.
The "tumbling squares" wall was based on the North Rose Window at Chartres Cathedral. Kelly was impressed by how modern the angled squares looked (on that 13th century design).
well, I've attended mass in firehouse halls, under trees in Africa and in ancient cathedrals of Europe, so attending mass in a building that looks like a business lobby shouldn't be a problem.
" ..There's got to be someplace to put those who "avoid specific religious commitment."
I think it's called Limbo.
"It's delightfully Medieval that you claim to know where Satan likes to hang out."
Well, I am a medieval man really. Fair cop.
"So buwaya, do you really think there's an entity known as "Satan"
Yes I do.
"well, I've attended mass in firehouse halls, under trees in Africa and in ancient cathedrals of Europe, so attending mass in a building that looks like a business lobby shouldn't be a problem."
I've attended plenty of masses in business lobbies, on the street, on provincial roads, on football grounds, in cemeteries, and for a couple of years there in Manila, in a shopping mall. Even some remarkably ugly modernist churches. None of those places was pretending to be something else though.
But there is something fake about this thing, that isn't right.
Oh Ye of little faith ! There's a definite influence of the opening title sequence of the Brady Bunch.
It keeps the services short if there's no where to sit and nothing to read.
I'm looking at Google maps, and I can see the building under construction, but isn't the building a cross when viewed from above??
Most Texans avoid Austin.
The University of Texas’ religion is Progressivism. We sacrificed our football team on its altar.
Really love that first photo. The emptiness at the center of the groin vault really does seem to point to a spiritual idea.
There's a poem by Larkin where he goes into an old, unused village church and wonders about who was the last believer who made a prayer there. I wonder who will be the first believer to offer a prayer in this church.......Every so often, when someone significant in my life croaks, I get the urge to sit in church and pray. I like the old churches whose walls have absorbed the prayers of generations of true believers. There's a difference between a Bach Passion and a performance of Jesus Christ Superstar.
I actually like this structure from the inside with the stained glass lighting and all. But the faithful need to be places to sit.
"So buwaya, do you really think there's an entity known as "Satan"
Please allow me to introduce myself.
It's the architectural version of "It's Pat!"
Compare and contrast: https://tinyurl.com/y8zsfrap
You really, really should.
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