St Mary’s church, Belford, Northumberland is something of a pace-setter. Its website has a series of photographs of its trim interior. It is a sign that worshippers value their building.
After all, the design of churches tell tales. They announce the kind of Maker that worshippers pay homage to. Architectural lay-out is one aspect of good design. (And this can make for difficulties with neo-gothic pillars.) Lighting is another. So is the arrangement of the furniture. Achieving a good design that tempts a visitor into thinking there must be something in a faith that produces a harmonious church interior is part of evangelism. Colour scheme, lighting heating, seating, soft furnishings, add up to one thing – a harmonious church interior. At least, that is what a discriminating visitor hopes to see.
The 1958 church of the Ascension, Plymouth by Potter and Hare has been much praised. In charge of St Michael’s, Workington, the base for Derwentwater conference centre, is Frances Ward. Cutting-edge facilities are available in different sized rooms. St Bartholomew’s church (Roman Catholic), St Albans shows new thinking in 1964.
When cinemas came into being, the question of design found itself begging for an answer. The answer was a silver screen. Every seat was part of a design that ensured total visibility by a whole audience. The theatre with a proscenium arch was the basis. It probably accommodated a Wurlitzer.
A neo-gothic design lifted out of the Middle Ages and sited in a new housing estate is an exercise in nostalgia. It is a sigh of relief that the faith we believed in the days before our own is still amongst us. A ‘gather round’ pattern assures visitors that congregational input is taken seriously.
Dignity has to be a commanding feature. It is incompatible with trailing cables and all the appurtenances of a music festival. An old-fashioned lay-out with Riddell posts is preferable if it signifies quietude and hush and a presence beyond the merely human.
Arts and Crafts brought respect to the raw materials of wood, metal and clay. That respect is readily lost in our age of mass-production. We cannot wait for another William Morris to come to our aid but the appropriate place for churches to be in this matter is out at the front, showing the rest what can be done. If so much trouble was taken in the design of the Tabernacle, it is hardly the case that casual observance is enough for the churches in which Christians gather or go online to worship today.
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