American Catholics and the Church of Tomorrow : Building Churches for the Future, 1925-1975 / Catherine R. Osborne.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Osborne, Catherine R., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Catholic church buildings--United States--History--20th century.

Catholic church buildings.

Modern movement (Architecture)--United States--History--20th century.

Modern movement (Architecture).

Modernism (Christian theology)--Catholic Church--History--20th century.

Modernism (Christian theology).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (310 pages) : illustrations

Place of Publication:

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, [2018]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

In the mid-twentieth century, American Catholic churches began to shed the ubiquitous spires, stained glass, and gargoyles of their European forebears, turning instead toward startling and more angular structures of steel, plate glass, and concrete. But how did an institution like the Catholic Church, so often seen as steeped in inflexible traditions, come to welcome this modernist trend? Catherine R. Osborne's innovative new book finds the answer: the alignment between postwar advancements in technology and design and evolutionary thought within the burgeoning American Catholic community. A new, visibly contemporary approach to design, church leaders thought, could lead to the rebirth of the church community of the future. As Osborne explains, the engineering breakthroughs that made modernist churches feasible themselves raised questions that were, for many Catholics, fundamentally theological. Couldn't technological improvements engender worship spaces that better reflected God's presence in the contemporary world? Detailing the social, architectural, and theological movements that made modern churches possible, American Catholics and the Churches of Tomorrow breaks important new ground in the history of American Catholicism, and also presents new lines of thought for scholars attracted to modern architectural and urban history.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter One. The Biological Paradigm

Chapter Two. Modeling the Church

Chapter Three. Theology in Concrete

Chapter Four. Pilgrims of the Future

Chapter Five. The Secular City

Chapter Six. "What Is a Church?"

Conclusion

Abbreviations

Notes

Selected Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Previously issued in print: 2018.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 22. Okt 2019)

ISBN:

9780226561165

022656116X

OCLC:

1028979643