Here is a thought experiment: you are hired by Cdl. Mahoney of L.A. to design a Cathedral, his recent one having been completely destroyed by a meteor. You are given carte blanche on the design, and $500 million budget. His only requirement is this: it must not be in a recognizably historical style, be it Gothic, Romanesque, Baroque, etc., but you have unlimited freedom otherwise.Matthew replied:
What do you do?
Mark--expect a sketch and a possible posting in the near future. I'd thought about virtually the same question when I was in LA last.Andrew Cusack posted Matthew's drawings for a new Los Angeles cathedral. Click to see them.
The current Cathedral in Los Angeles, California, is a design that only a postmodernist could love, and is notorious, among other things, for its pagan "Earth Spirit" sculpture.
Matthew's designs are a very refreshing return to architectural beauty.
In the meantime, the rest of us are praying for that meteor. (Although, I think in order to execute something that wasn't blasphemously ugly, we'd either have to hope it comes after Cardinal Roger is gone and there's a Catholic metropolitan of LA (or perhaps if it came when Cardinal Roger is inside it...?)).
ReplyDeleteHis Excellency may yet have a conversion.....!
ReplyDeleteIf you're going to gripe about the cathedral in Los Angeles, at least spell His Eminence's name right: it's Mahony. (N.B., he's a Cardinal, so he's not His Excellency.)
ReplyDeleteI stand corrected. Nobody spells my name correctly, either.
ReplyDelete