BY DIRK SUTRO AUG 17, 2024
How does the architecture of a church shape a congregation’s experience?
In his new book, “Sacred Architecture of San Diego/Tijuana,” Dr. Mark Hargreaves provides some answers, with the focus on our region’s modernist churches. A companion photo exhibit is on view at the La Jolla Historical Society through Sept. 1. The book’s release coincides with World Design Capital San Diego Tijuana 2024.
The Church of the Nativity in Rancho Sana Fe. Photo by Maha Bazzari
Hargreaves is part pastor, part architectural historian. He studied theology at Oxford and earned a masters in Christianity and the arts. He was rector at St. Peter’s in Notting Hill, London and part of an architectural review committee for church renovations and expansions.
Nine years ago, he and his wife moved to San Diego to be closer to her mother, and Hargreaves became rector at St. James-by-the-Sea Episcopal Church in La Jolla. He hadn’t heard of Irving Gill and had no idea of the “unrivaled” collection of modernist buildings he found here. He soon realized he could trace the history of San Diego modernism through its churches.
Many architecture books focus on forms, but Hargreaves goes for the souls of these sacred structures. “As a priest I work in these buildings,” he told me. “I know how they work, how they function. Church designs are meant to express a set of beliefs and create a certain atmosphere.”
In his book, 18 churches are presented from three periods of 20th-century modernism: protomodern (Irving Gill), mid-century modern (including Richard Neutra) and postmodern (including San Diegans Rob Wellington Quigley, Doug Austin, David Keitel and Randy Robbins).
Gill’s First Church of Christ, Scientist in Bankers Hill (1910) is plain but dramatic, with banks of arches and a high colorful dome. His Christian Science church in Coronado (1929), though, is so stark that Hargreaves says it “has nothing to distinguish it as a sacred building. There is a distinct lack of ‘churchiness’.”
Other churches in the book feel much churchier, but unlike grand European cathedrals, their spiritual power is in their architectural design, not frescos and gilded columns.
For instance, San Diegan Robert Des Lauriers’ mid-century Carlton Hills Lutheran Church in Santee has a stunning thin-shell concrete roof: “a hyperbolic parabaloid…in the shape of a saddle…a convex curve on one axis, and a concave curve on the other axis.”
Inside, beneath the curved striated ceiling, natural light comes in through 188 small windows of various shapes and sizes, scattered like stars across the walls.
Des Lauriers — who designed some 70 churches — found inspiration in Mexican architects including Felix Candela, a pioneer of thin-shell concrete. Candela was instrumental in hiring Homero Martinez Hoyos to design the Parroquia Nuestra Señora del Carmen (1955) in Tijuana, another experiment in concrete.
Hargreaves’ personal favorite among his selections is the Church of the Nativity in Rancho Santa Fe (1989), designed by famed architect Charles Moore (who also designed the Oceanside Civic Center) with staff architect Renzo Zecchetto, in collaboration with Robbins of San Diego’s AVRP.
Layered details make for a sublime experience. Postmodern touches (i.e. derived from historical art and architecture) range from the Mission-style courtyard and citrus grove, to the entry arch and bell tower, as well as a 16th-century cross that came from Mexico City and a medieval statue of St. Joseph brought from France.
Beneath a latticed ceiling that filters natural light into the space, the nave’s in-the-round seating wraps the pulpit to create intimate connections among congregants and with the priest. Color is rare in a Gill building, but here, Hargreaves found “judicious use of color, red on the cross, yellow on the wall and gold in the ceiling.”
“The building is meant to inspire a sense of awe in its worshippers,” he writes. “Moore wanted to engage with the emotions of the congregants, and he was very sensitive to how a building made someone feel. It is an overwhelmingly beautiful space, with an ineffable natural light that shines behind the altar as Mass is celebrated.”
“Sacred Architecture of San Diego/Tijuana” is available from La Jolla Historical Society. Hargreaves will present a series of lectures on modernist San Diego architecture at the Athenaeum Music & Arts Library in La Jolla beginning October 16.
Dirk Sutro has written extensively about architecture and design in Southern California. His column appears monthly in Times of San Diego.
CityScape is supported by the San Diego Architectural Foundation, promoting outstanding architecture, landscape, interior and urban design to improve the quality of life for all San Diegans.
This article originally appeared in timesofsandiego.com on Saturday, August 17, 2024.