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Churches for a Changing Liturgy: Gillespie, Kidd & Coia and the Second Vatican Council

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 April 2016

Robert Proctor
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Extract

The relationship of Modernism in architecture with the symbolic needs of church- building was fraught with the dangers of betrayal: whether the architect indulged in personal spiritual expression, or used traditional forms, he could be accused of stylistic excess; if he applied a reductive functionalism, the result could be faulted as failing the brief. After the Second World War, expression and tradition were gradually admitted into Modernism to expand and enrich its vocabulary, and the limits of functionalism were reassessed. Churches were a field in which architects of the Modern Movement could explore their new concerns with poetic form and monumentality, in contrast to the more prosaic jobs in housing, schools, and so on; but few architects had the chance to work on churches in quite the same volume as the more pressing post-war building tasks. One firm of architects with an exceptional opportunity was Gillespie, Kidd & Coia, responsible for a series of Roman Catholic churches in Scotland, ‘the finest body of post-war church building in Britain’, according to Elain Harwood.1 This work has attracted attention from architectural historians before, particularly for its rich and humane interpretation of sacred architecture.

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Architectural History , Volume 48 , 2005 , pp. 291 - 322
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Copyright © Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain 2005

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References

Notes

1 Harwood, Elain, ‘Liturgy and Architecture: The Development of the Centralised Eucharistic Space’, Twentieth Century Architecture, 3 (1998), pp. 50–74 (p. 65).Google Scholar

2 See especially, Stamp, Gavin, ‘Postscript’, Mac Journal, 1 (1994), pp. 50–55 Google Scholar; Watters, Diane M., Cardross Seminary: Gillespie, Kidd & Coia and the Architecture of Postwar Catholicism (Edinburgh, 1997)Google Scholar; Watters, Diane M., ‘Post-War Church Patronage in the West of Scotland: The Ecclesiastical Architecture of Gillespie, Kidd & Coia’, Journal of the Scottish Society for Art History, 3 (1998), pp. 44–51 Google Scholar; Stamp, Gavin, ‘The Myth of Gillespie, Kidd & Coia’, Architectural Heritage, 11 (2000), pp. 68–79.Google Scholar

3 Watters, ‘Post-War Church Patronage’, p. 46.

4 Nugent, Kenneth, ‘Churches and Liturgy’, Mac Journal, 1 (1994), pp. 26–31 (p. 30).Google Scholar

5 Stamp, ‘Myth of Gillespie, Kidd & Coia’, p. 70.

6 See Watters, Cardross Seminary.

7 For further details, see Rogerson, Robert W. K. C., Jack Coia: His Life and Work (Glasgow, 1986); and Mac Journal, 1 (1994).Google Scholar

8 See Ross, Anthony, ‘The Development of the Scottish Catholic Community, 1878-1978’, in Modern Scottish Catholicism, 1878-1978, ed. David McRoberts (Glasgow, 1978), pp. 30–55.Google Scholar

9 John Deffenbaugh, ‘Coia, Catholicism and the Regeneration of Glasgow’ (unpublished dissertation, University of Dundee, 2003), p. 12; Watters, ‘Post-War Church Patronage’, pp. 45-46; Solemn Opening of the New Church of St Martin, Castlemilk, on Sunday May 14,1961. Souvenir Brochure, Gillespie, Kidd & Coia Archive, Glasgow School of Art (henceforth abbreviated to GKC), B6.B.07 (all catalogue numbers provisional at date of publication).

10 A. E. Holder, ‘Extract from the White Paper on Capital Investment in 1948. Ministry of Works Civil Licence’ and commentary, Archives of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Glasgow (henceforth abbreviated to RCAG), PP.40.6; letter from Ministry of Works (H. W. Clark) to A. E. Holder, 15 December 1947, RCAG PP.40.6; letter from Church of Scotland Building Licences Advisory Committee, Edinburgh (R. Mackintosh, Secretary) to James R. Lyons (solicitor), 5 December 1947 (copy), RCAG PP.40.6.

11 ‘Church Building Programme 1953/55. Summary of New Catholic Church and Church Hall Buildings Proposed’, RCAG MY.54.9.

12 For this line of enquiry, I am indebted to Professor Andrew MacMillan, interview, Glasgow, 15 April 2004.

13 For a summary, see Team 10 Primer, ed. Alison Smithson ([n.p.], 1963).

14 For the links with pre-war developments at the Architectural Association, see Saint, Andrew, Towards a Social Architecture (New Haven and London, 1987), pp. 1–4.Google Scholar

15 Interview with Professor Andrew MacMillan, Glasgow, 15 April 2004; on student residences, see Mullins, William and Allen, Phyllis, Student Housing: Architectural and Social Aspects (London, 1971)Google Scholar; Birks, Tony, Building the New Universities (Newton Abbot, 1972), pp. 25–32.Google Scholar

16 ‘Ritus celebrandi Missum’, in Missale Romanum ex Decreto Sacrosancti Concilii Tridentini Restitutum (Malines, 1840), vin, 1; see also, ‘Rubricae generales Missalis’, in ibid., xvi (section entitled ‘De his quae clara voce aut secreto dicenda sunt in Missae’).

17 There are many descriptions of and commentaries on the old liturgy: see for example, Fortescue, Adrian, The Ceremonies of the Roman Rite Described, 8th rev. edn, ed. J. O'Connell (London, 1948)Google Scholar; Croegaert, A., The Mass: A Liturgical Commentary, 2 vols (London, 1959)Google Scholar, where the idea of ‘active participation’ has entered the discourse, e.g. II, ch. 7, ‘Who Offers the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass? IV. In a Subordinate Manner, the Faithful Present (Circumstantes) and Those Who Give the Mass Offerings’, pp. 56-64.

18 ‘There can be no doubt that the Council considers it desirable that the faithful should take part in the Mass, for example, by the fullest possible participation in the ritual, answering the responses and joining in the singing, and so on': Colman O'Neill, ‘General Principles’, in Liturgy: Renewal and Adaptation, ed. Austin Flannery, 7th rev. edn (Dublin, 1968), pp. 19-32 (p. 28).

19 For example, O'Connell, J. B., Active Sharing in Public Worship: A Commentary on the Chief Purpose of the Second Vatican Council’s Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy (London, 1964).Google Scholar

20 Cantwell, Wilfred, ‘Design of Churches’, in Flannery, Liturgy, pp. 120–41 (p. 121).Google Scholar

21 Ibid., p. 133.

22 Ibid., p. 120.

23 McCarthy, Timothy G., The Catholic Tradition Before and After Vatican II, 1878-199 5 (Chicago, 1994), p. 64.Google Scholar

24 ‘Constitution on Sacred Liturgy’, trans. Joseph Rodgers, in Flannery, Liturgy, pp. 2*-29*.

25 Congregation of Rites, ‘Inter Oecumenici: On Implementing the Constitution on Liturgy’, trans. Austin Flannery, in Flannery, Liturgy, pp. 37*-59*.

26 Fenwick, John and Spinks, Bryan, Worship in Transition: The Twentieth Century Liturgical Movement (Edinburgh, 1995), pp. 67–69.Google Scholar

27 Kevin Seasoltz, R., New Liturgy, New Laws (Collegeville, MN, 1980), p. 134.Google Scholar

28 Dix, Gregory, The Shape of the Liturgy (London, 1945), pp. 154–55 Google Scholar; for a Roman Catholic text derived from it, see Jungmann, Josef A., The Early Liturgy to the Time of Gregory the Great, trans. Francis A. Brunner (London, 1960).Google Scholar

29 Dix, Shape of the Liturgy, for instance, pp. 1, 28, 141.

30 Ibid., p. 741.

31 bid., pp. xii-xviii.

32 For a more comprehensive description of the Liturgical Movement, see, for example, Fenwick and Spinks; Ellsworth Chandlee, H., ‘Liturgical Movement, The’, in A Dictionary of Liturgy and Worship, ed. J. G. Davies (London, 1972), pp. 216–22.Google Scholar

33 Giedion, Sigfried, Space, Time and Architecture: The Growth of a New Tradition, 5th edn (London, 1967), pp. 18–19.Google Scholar

34 Hammond, Peter, ‘A Liturgical Brief’, Architectural Review, April 1958, pp. 240–55.Google Scholar

35 Ibid., p. 242.

36 Ibid., p. 244.

37 Peter Hammond, Liturgy and Architecture (London, i960); for a comprehensive survey of British church architecture of the period, see Elain Harwood, ‘Liturgy and Architecture’; see also, Maguire, Robert, ‘Continuity and Modernity in the Holy Place’, Architectural History, 39 (1996), pp. 1–18.Google Scholar

38 Professor Isi Metzstein, interview, Glasgow, 23 June 2003.

39 ‘Le Mystère du baptême I. L'esprit de la célébration’, issue title of L'Art Sacré, November-December 1962; ‘Le Mystère du baptême II. L'architecture et le geste rituel’, issue title of L’Art Sacré, January-February 1963.

40 Hanlon, Thomas, ‘Scotland’, in The Catholic Church Today: Western Europe, ed. M. A. Fitzsimons (Notre Dame, IN, 1969), pp. 297–308.Google Scholar

41 Objections to the new liturgy are largely anecdotal, for instance Andrew MacMillan, interview, Glasgow, 15 April 2004.

42 Drawing, ‘Plan of Church’, December 1964, GKC L6.A.3.103; drawing, ‘Ground Floor Plan’, December 1964, GKC L6.A.3.102; drawing, ‘Sanctuary — Position of Altar & Step’, April 1969, GKC L6.A.3.276; drawing, ‘Proposed Sanctuary Arrangement’, undated, GKC L6.A.3.154; GKC, uncatalogued photographs.

43 Andrew MacMillan, interview, Glasgow, 15 April 2004.

44 Andrew MacMillan, interview, Glasgow, 15 April 2004. Unfortunately no specific cases of interaction between priest and architect are fully recorded; very few letters concerning design exist in the archive, as most conversations took place in person.

45 ‘Of course it was helped in the case of the Catholic Church by a great deal of decentralization which I think is now gone, [...] but when we were working the local priest was responsible, he would go to the Archbishop, and say, well Archbishop, he'd say, please can we build a church [...]. He would have to find the money. The diocese would lend him the money, say £50,000 or £100,000 and he would have to repay that, the church would not be consecrated, fully consecrated, until the debt was repaid. And he was responsible, he would say to the Archbishop, I would like Joe Soap RIBA to design my church, and unless the Archbishop had a very strong feeling against him he'd say, that’s fine, he’s a good architect, and you never saw the Archbishop again, until the church was opened. The client, the priest, would be entirely responsible. They didn't have a building committee the way that you have now': Isi Metzstein, interview, Glasgow, 23 June 2003; Andrew MacMillan, interview, Glasgow, 15 April 2004.

46 For example, letter from Archdiocese of Glasgow (M. Ward, Diocesan Finance Board) to GKC, 29 April 1963, GKC C1.B.01 (Our Lady of Good Counsel, Dennistoun). The same procedure was current in the late nineteenth century, when Peter Paul Pugin exchanged letters with the Archdiocese of Glasgow Finance Board; see Sanders, John, ‘Pugin & Pugin and the Diocese of Glasgow’, Architectural Heritage, 8 (1997), pp. 89–107 (p. 94).Google Scholar Sanders benefited from more comprehensive records in RCAG than exist for the immediate post-war period.

47 Letter from Revd Anthony Flynn to Gillespie, Kidd & Coia (Jack Coia), 4 December i960, GKC G4.B.07.

48 Solemn Opening. St Bride’s Church, East Kilbride. Nineteen Hundred and Sixty Four, RCAG Y.15.

49 Isi Metzstein, interview, Glasgow, 23 June 2003.

50 ‘Obituary’, The Builder, 31 December 1965, p. 1431; souvenir brochures, RCAG Y.14.

51 Souvenir brochures, RCAG Y.14.

52 Letters from Revd J. B. Moriarty to Gillespie, Kidd & Coia (Jack Coia), 8 February i960, 15 March 1962, 15 December 1962, GKC L6.B.01.?

53 Letter from Revd J. B. Moriarty to Gillespie, Kidd & Coia (Jack Coia), 8 February i960, GKC L6.B.01.

54 Letter from Gillespie, Kidd & Coia (Jack Coia) to the Diocese of Motherwell (Revd C. Craigen, Secretary of the Finance Board), 5 July 1954; ‘I have been thinking over Monsignor Rogers’ ideas for the Church, and while it would give an interesting effect it would be rather a ticklish problem to design a Church in the style he suggests. I think that it would be much better for me to come through and spend an hour with His Lordship and discuss the whole situation again': letter from Gillespie, Kidd & Coia (Jack Coia) to the Diocese of Motherwell (J. O'Donnell, Chancellor), 26 February 1957; also, letter from Gillespie, Kidd & Coia (Jack Coia) to Revd Anthony Kilcoyne, 14 March 1957; letter from Gillespie, Kidd & Coia (Jack Coia) to Diocese of Motherwell (Mgr Gerard M. Rogers), 16 September 1957 (all GKC C6.B.01).

55 Letter from Revd James Kilpatrick to Gillespie, Kidd & Coia (Jack Coia), 1 May 1963, GKC C6.B.01.

56 O'Connell, J., Church Building and Furnishing: The Church’s Way. A Study in Liturgical Law (London, 1955).Google Scholar

57 Ibid., for example, illustration p. 138, and pp. 183-87; see also C. E. Pocknee, ‘Altar’, and ‘Candles, Lamps and Lights’, in Davies, Dictionary of Liturgy and Worship, pp. 4-6 and pp. 111-12 respectively.

58 See, for example, Rudolf Schwarz’s St Anna, Düren (1956), lacking candlesticks, canopy and altar cloth, illustrated in Albert Christ-Janer and Mary Mix Foley, Modern Church Architecture: A Guide to the Form and Spirit of 20th Century Religious Buildings (New York, 1962), p. 64; also, see letter from Pocknee, C. E., Church Building Today, 5 (January 1962), pp. 23–24.Google Scholar

59 MacMillan even recalls having to make alterations to a previously completed church (possibly St Michael’s, Dumbarton, 1952-54) before it could be consecrated: interview, Glasgow, 15 April 2004.

60 Ibid., p. 152.

61 Ibid., pp. 153-55.

62 O'Connell, Church Building, pp. 12-14.

63 Canon 1164, quoted in ibid., p. 28.

64 C. Costantini, Osservatore Romano, 23 July 1942, and Pope Pius XII, Mediator Dei, 1947, quoted in O'Connell, Church Building, pp. 30-41.

65 C. Costantini, Osservatore Romano, 30 July 1952, quoted in O'Connell, Church Building, p. 44.

66 Dated from archive: GKC C6.B.01, especially letter from Gillespie, Kidd & Coia (Coia) to Diocese of Motherwell Finance Board (Revd C. Craigen, Secretary), 5 July 1954; letter from Gillespie, Kidd & Coia (ref. WAR) to Revd Anthony Kilcoyne, 18 April 1957; letter from Gillespie, Kidd & Coia (Coia) to Diocese of Motherwell Finance Board (Rt Revd Gerard M. Rogers, Secretary), 16 September 1957. Construction dated from archive, e.g. letter from Diocese of Motherwell (Revd Thomas Winning) to Gillespie, Kidd & Coia (Coia), 9 November 1959, GKC C6.B.02; letter from Gillespie, Kidd & Coia (MacMillan) to A. Mitchell & Sons Ltd, 15 April i960, GKC C6.B.03. Opening details from Solemn Opening. St Bride’s Church, East Kilbride. Nineteen Hundred and Sixty Four, RCAG Y.15. Contemporary articles on this church include: ‘Public Buildings’, Architectural Review, 129 (January-June 1961), pp. 36-47 (pp. 40-41); ‘7 New Churches’, Architectural Review, 138 (July-December 1965), pp. 246-58; ‘Église Saint[e]-Bride à East Kilbride, Écosse’, Architecture d'aujourd'hui, April-May 1966, pp. 42-43; ‘An Austere and Monumental Church in Scotland’, Architectural Record, January 1967, pp. 133-36.

67 GKC J5.A, uncatalogued drawings and prints; Rogerson, pp. 79-80. See also Neil Gillespie, ‘Act of Faith’, Architects’ Journal, 12 April 2001, pp. 28-37.

68 Solemn Opening. St Bride’s Church, East Kilbride. Nineteen Hundred and Sixty Four, RCAG Y.15.

69 ‘St Bride’s: An Appraisal’, RIBA Journal, April 1966, pp. 170-79 (p. 171).

70 Ibid., p. 172.

71 GKC, uncatalogued photographs; see also contemporary publications as in note 67 above.

72 GKC archive, e.g. letter from Frances Vickery, Glasgow (J. G. Vickery) to GKC (Mr McCallum), 22 November 1961, GKC C6.B.04.

73 These movements are well illustrated by diagrams in Fortescue, e.g. pp. 115-18.

74 Myerscough, Michael, ‘The Holy Eucharist’, in Liturgy, pp. 33–45 (p. 36).Google Scholar

75 Letter from Gillespie, Kidd & Coia (Isi Metzstein) to The Architectural Review (J. M. Richards), 23 June 1965, GKC C6.B.07.

76 Dated from archive, GKC M5.B.01, e.g. letter from Gillespie, Kidd & Coia (Andrew MacMillan) to Glenrothes Development Corporation (R Tinto, General Manager), 27 March 1956; letter from Gillespie, Kidd & Coia (Andrew MacMillan) to Revd P. Grace, 27 March 1956; GKC M5.B.03, e.g. letter from Gillespie, Kidd & Coia (J. A. Coia) to Revd P. Grace, 18 June 1958. Publications include: ‘Church and Presbytery at Glenrothes New Town’, Architects’ Journal, 5 February 1959, pp. 231-38; ‘St Paul’s Church, Glenrothes’, Architect and Building News, 27 May 1959, pp. 691-92.

77 Andrew MacMillan, interview, Glasgow, 15 April 2004; Isi Metzstein, interview, Glasgow, 23 June 2003.

78 Maguire, Robert, ‘A Church in Scotland and a Chapel in South Wales’, Architects’ Journal, 21 May 1959, pp. 773–77 (p. 776)Google Scholar; Mills, Edward D and Lockett, W. E. A., ‘Plans of Churches Here and Abroad’, Church Building Today, 1 (October 1960), pp. 8–13 (p. 13).Google Scholar

79 Conversation with Isi Metzstein, Glasgow, 20 August 2004.

80 Andrew MacMillan, interview, Glasgow, 15 April 2004.

81 Dating from archive. St Martin’s, Castlemilk: GKC B6.B.01, e.g. letter from Gillespie, Kidd & Coia (J. A. Coia) to Mgr J. Ward, 16 December 1957; GKC B6.B.07, souvenir brochure. St Mary’s, Bo'ness: GKC N4.B.01, e.g. letter from Gillespie, Kidd & Coia (J. A. Coia) to Revd P. Lyons, 16 March 1959; GKC N4.B.03, copy of letter from Clerk of Works to John Wight & Co., 23 January 1961. See ‘Two Churches’, Architects’ Journal, 31 October 1962, pp. 1031-42.

82 Dated from archive: letter from Gillespie, Kidd & Coia (Gerry Barrett) to Revd H. A. Deery, 1 November 1962, GKC C1.B.01; letter from Archdiocese of Glasgow Finance Board (Revd Ward, Secretary) to Gillespie, Kidd & Coia, 19 April 1963, GKC C1.B.01; certificate of completion, 31 May 1965, GKC C1.B.02. See Dan Cruickshank, ‘Our Lady of Good Counsel, Glasgow, 1965-1995’, RIBA Journal, July 1995, pp. 36-45.

83 Harwood, pp. 66-68; Frederick Gibberd, Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King, Liverpool (London, 1968); ‘Competition: Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King, Liverpool’, Architects’ Journal, 1 September i960, pp. 313-33

84 William White, ‘The Altar and the Liturgy’, RIBA Journal, July 1967, pp. 281-85.

85 Harwood, p. 66; Gerard Goalen, ‘The House of God’, Church Buildings Today, 2 (January 1961), pp. 3-5.

86 Dated from archive, e.g. letter from Gillespie, Kidd & Coia (ref. DS) to William McGhee & Sons, 9 March 1961, and letter from Gillespie, Kidd & Coia (ref. RS) to J. McSparran & McCormick (Solicitors), 25 July 1961, enclosing plans for submission for planning permission, GKC H2.B.02; letter from Gillespie, Kidd & Coia (Isi Metzstein) to Revd T. Glen, 6 December 1963, GKC H2.B.04.

87 GKC, uncatalogued photographs.

88 GKC, uncatalogued photographs.

89 E.g., ‘L'Église Notre-Dame à Pontarlier’, L'Art Sacré, May-June i960, pp. 12-15; ‘Des projets pour la France. L'Église Sainte-Colombe à Villejuif’, L'Art Sacré, May-June 1961, pp. 18-19; Hammond, pis 49-52.

90 Senn, Rainer, ‘The Spirit of Poverty’, Churchbuilding, 9 (April 1963), p. 23.Google Scholar

91 Andrew MacMillan, interview, Glasgow, 15 April 2004.

92 André Biéler, Architecture in Worship: The Christian Place of Worship (London, 1965) [originally published as Liturgie et architecture. Le temple des chrétiens, esquisse des rapports entre la théologie du culte et la conception architecturale des églises chrétiennes, des origines à nos jours (Paris, 1961)], pp. 78-82.

93 Hammond, pp. 89, 111-12.

94 There was a third, Protestant, church to use this plan at East Kilbride, with much steeper raking and a very different sanctuary layout; this building appears never to have been published. GKC, uncatalogued photographs.

95 Date of design from archive: letter from Gillespie, Kidd & Coia (Andrew MacMillan) to Cumbernauld Development Corporation (Mr Davie), 8 March 1961, GKC G2.B.01.

96 Approximate dating from archive, e.g. application for planning consent for church and presbytery, 16 October 1970, GKC H2.B.05; Certificate of Practical Completion issued to Reema (Scotland) Ltd, 11 June 1972, GKC H2.B.07.

97 Andrew MacMillan, interview, Glasgow, 15 April 2004.

98 Crichton, J. D. and others, ‘Baptism’, in Davies, Dictionary of Liturgy and Worship, pp. 44–64 (pp. 47-48).Google Scholar

99 O'Connell, Church Building and Furnishing, pp. 117-20; see also, special issues of L'Art Sacré in note 37 above, where the history of the rite of baptism is described.

100 O'Connell, Church Building and Furnishing, pp. 118-19.

101 This interpretation was confirmed as an original intention by Andrew MacMillan, interview, Glasgow, 15 April 2004.