The Architecture of Community: Churches

This is the fourth in a series of articles investigating building types and uses that create community. The previous articles addressed public libraries, schools and public markets.

 Articles begins below photos

Frederick, MD on the evening of the 28th Annual Candlelight Tour of Historic Houses of Worship
(all photos ©: K. Philipsen, ArchPlan Inc.)

Historic Frederick Home

Illuminated historic storefronts on Market Street

Festive W. Patrick Street

The small Maryland town of Frederick, looks good on any day of the year. On this balmy and clear 26th day of December, however, it looks truly breathtaking. This is the day of the annual historic church walk, now in its 28th year showcasing why this town is famous for its steeples. It is hard to imagine any town of this size possessing a greater number of active, historic churches in such a small area.

Evangelical Lutheran Church, Church Street

In teachings of the history of cities and urban design it is often noted that houses of worship used to be the most impressive structures in human settlements, until banks and insurance componanies came along and the elevator was invented. Without getting further into this line of reasoning (certainly palaces and sports arenas always competed with churches), one can safely say that in Frederick churches remain the most impressive structures, and their steeples are the what shapes the city's skyline.

Walking among the throngs of people who mill about throughout the festively illuminated downtown with its many small mom and pop stores and lovely decorated storefronts, one gets the impression that happiness really resides in Small Town USA. Everything looks picture postcard perfect, including the smiles on the faces of adults and children.

The churches which sit on so many blocks here, rarely occupy the corners, but rather sit tucked in between, sometimes mid-block, sometimes a bit set back on account of their larger size. They look well-kept and many glow against the dark blue sky of the late dusk. Today their doors are wide open, beckoning with lines of candles in paper bags, with the sound of song, organs and harps emanating from the naves and with glockenspiel wafting through town. And then there is soup, cookies and coffee being served to guests in the basements and the additions of those historic houses of worship.  People who don't know each other sit down for a moment of rest and companionship at the long tables. Who would not smile?

Trinity Chapel, United Church of Christ,
Church Street

The architecture of these churches varies widely. Some are modest and smallish, some are grand, some bright, some dark, some are painted white and some are natural brick, some stone. Church steeples come in various shapes as well, even in a twin version. The naves are long and narrow or short and wide, some churches even have a cross nave. Some hide their organ, some present it as the focal point right behind the altar. But in all cases the churches are made for people to come in, sit down, and share –share prayers, listen to a sermon, sing together, stand up, kneel, sit in unison – the churches are made for the individual to melt into a community. Churches make communities but it were  the communities that made the churches. The 18^th century settlers who came from Pennsylvania, and those who moved west from Baltimore, had different denominations, but one of the first things they did upon settling was build a house of worship.

It is possible that there was always an element of competition among the various sects and creeds, but mostly there was a desire to express the Old World traditions that were remembered first hand, or that were part of the narrative of their family, with the means the settlers had at their disposal. The originally quickly thrown up structures were soon enlarged to accommodate the newcomers who kept arriving. The handouts provided by the churches explaining the history of the various buildings speak of demolition, additions, extensions and mergers, of added second floors in tall naves and many other manipulations that make it often hard to see what the original architecture may have been like in those days before photography could record it.

Calvary United Methodist Church nave,
N. Bentz Street

While walking along the streets to find the next participating church one sees some sacred architecture that remains dark, churches that have closed and their buildings adaptively reused for worldly purposes or downgraded to support other functions, such as community rooms or daycare facilities. This suggests that at peak times there actually would have been even more houses of worship, as hard as that is to imagine. The City of Frederick is the second largest incorporated town in Maryland and both, the town and the surrounding county, are rapidly growing in the orbit of thriving Washington. Maybe it is this continued growth that keeps all those churches going. This annual day of the walk in which each congregation tries to show itself from its best side likely helps as well.

In Baltimore, Maryland's largest city, the condition of the many churches in the inner city communities and in downtown is more precarious as it is also in many other cities. Churches are sold and demolished for lack of a parish even though many of the grand old churches draw their congregations from as far away as the surrounding counties while the immediate surrounding community often crumbles.

Tiffany window in the chapel of Calvary Church

The Frederick experience is almost like a throw-back to another time when churches were walked to, the parish lived in the surrounding streets, and no massive parking lots were needed.  It is also a reminder that architecture can express beliefs and build community, and be more than just a functional shell or an embellished shed. It is a reminder, too, that even in hard times it is worthwhile to erect edifices of which future generations will not only be proud but will also turn to and use.

The Frederick churches, and grand places of worship around the world. teach us that sustainability is much more than using green materials or saving energy. Sustainability includes preservation, adaptation and a level of social stability and cohesion.  Monuments of service and pride are a result of such consensus, but they can also help maintain it or even re-create it in that they are an aspiration of permanence. They were that even in the middle of all the change that the early settlers went through, and they can be in our generation, which experiences tumult and upheaval in different ways. Clearly the historic houses of worship are a rejection of the type of disposable architecture for which we often now settle.

St John Catholic Church, choire and organ,
E. Second Street

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

edited by Ben Groff

Related articles on this blog:

Public Markets - Places of Community
Three Libraries - Places of Community
Schools as Place Makers


External Links:

Guide to Frederick Churches
Candlelight Tour of Historic Houses of Worship Dec 26
Deep Placemaking, a Theology of the Environment (podcast of a lecture)
Ecclesiae pro Pauperibus
Architecture of Worship (Yale)
Religious Architecture (St Bonaventure)

Richard Leyman, a DC blogger and revitalization advocated brought his 2012 article to my attention which delves much further into the issues of church and community, demographic changes, adaptive reuse and the transformation of how communities relate to religion and churches.