Saint John’s Abbey Church: Marcel Breuer and the Creation of a Modern Sacred Space by Victoria M. Young

Abstract

Reviewed by: Saint John’s Abbey Church: Marcel Breuer and the Creation of a Modern Sacred Space by Victoria M. Young Fr. Harry Hagan, osb Victoria M. Young. Saint John’s Abbey Church: Marcel Breuer and the Creation of a Modern Sacred Space. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2014. 240 pp. $34.95. In the early 1950s, St. John’s Abbey was facing an overwhelming need for more space. Quickly the community saw that its homemade solutions were inadequate to meet the extraordinary vision that had been growing among them for some time. Dr. Victoria Young deftly sets this story into a larger context and then creates a sense of the people who set out to expand and realize this vision by building a world-class liturgical space that would serve the prayer of St. John’s and become a witness to the Catholic Church in the United States and beyond. Young opens with the consecration of the church in 1961—the year before the Second Vatican Council began. In various ways, the book makes it clear that the Catholic liturgical reform codified by that council did not suddenly appear but had been developing for some time. The first chapter, “Bricks and Brothers,” sets St. John’s into its larger Benedictine context and then into its midwestern context. Young nicely summarizes the modern liturgical movement which gathered momentum with Pius X calling for the faithful to take an active role in the liturgy [End Page 149] (19). She shows how Benedictines both in Europe and in the United States played a central role in this movement that sought the full, active participation of all in the liturgy. St. John’s itself served as a leader, especially through the work of Virgil Michel, osb (1890–1938) and Godfrey Deikman, osb (1908–2002). The second chapter, called “The Twelve Apostles,” opens with Abbot Baldwin and the monks proposing a competition for a hundred year master plan which would include a new abbey church. The document states: “We feel that the modern architect with his orientation toward functionalism and honest use of materials is uniquely qualified to produce a Catholic work” (32). Young notes that “function had become the lynchpin of a new architectural philosophy with architect Walter Gropius’s founding in 1919 of the Bauhaus in Weimar, Germany” (32, 72). Yes, but Louis Sullivan, the great Chicago architect (1856–1924), famously formulated this “linchpin” as “form follows function.” One could even argue that it reflects two midwestern trademarks: practicality and simplicity. Midwesterners, though their love for the tried and the true may cloud the issue, have a genuine affinity for the elegant simplicity of practicality realized by modern architecture. No one should be surprised that with the leadership of Cummins, Inc.—a maker of diesel engines—Columbus, Indiana, has become a museum of modern architecture. Abbot Baldwin and the building committee invited twelve architects for interviews. None of the five Europeans could come; still Young surveys their work to give a sense of Europe’s vitality. Of the seven American based architects, five came for visits. Marcel Breuer, Walter Gropius, and Richard Neutra had roots in the German-speaking world; Joseph Murphy and Barry Byrne were based in the Midwest. Young gives particular attention to Byrne, a prominent architect of the Prairie School deeply involved in the Catholic liturgical movement; he had built St. Columba Church (1949) in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and was designing a new church for St. Benedict’s Abbey, Atchison, Kansas (1957). Although there is no real narrative suspense, Young provides an interesting report of each visit along with what impressed or concerned the committee. In the end, she shows how they came to see Breuer as the best candidate. While their reasons were many, Young, like Isabelle Hymnen before her, underlines Breuer’s willingness to listen and collaborate with the monastic community (63). Also he brought an international dimension to this midwestern project. “Building the Spiritual Axis,” the third chapter, tells the story of the church’s design, development, and execution. It reveals how Breuer with [End Page 150] the monastic community created a sacred path that begins with the justly famous bell banner and then moves through the...