Sacred Architecture Modern

Unlike any other building, a church is “an accessible public space amid an increasingly, and occasionally frighteningly commercial and privatized world.” Edwin Heathcote and Laura Moffatt highlight the role of church architecture in the modern world in Contemporary Church Architecture, which follows ten years after Heathcote and Iona Spens published Church Builders.

In the new book, the authors document recent advances in church architecture, first with a historical narrative of progressive churches of the twentieth century and then a compilation of twenty-eight contemporary projects.



Heathcote and Moffatt’s chronological history of church architecture assumes an evolution from the “historicism” of the nineteenth century to the seamless, industrial architecture of the modern age. The authors adequately cover projects throughout Europe, aided by drawings and small black and white photos of the more momentous projects. 

Each innovation is praised as a positive advancement of the building tradition, and the authors perpetuate the call for every church commission to be “of its time.” Instead of addressing the purpose of the church in the community, the authors fuse each architect’s work with broader political and cultural movements.

For example, Josef Plecnik’s work in Vienna and Slovenia is considered a felicitous response to the nationalist period in which he was engulfed, while modernist projects in Britain are derided because they lack innovation and too closely imitate the works of Oscar Niemeyer and Le Corbusier. 

In the text, the authors exalt the role of the architect rather than the patron and praise the church buildings most expressive of their time rather than those that are the most noble houses of God.

Originally writen by sacredarchitecture and most pictures collected from pinterest