Interesting. Churches built in the '60's and '70's really are...weird. I guess if there was ever a thing as socialist architecture...
Weird isn’t the only word. Shameless, Godless, form-trumps-function, ugly. Wonder if anyone’s ever checked the religious (or nonreligious) leanings of the architects chosen by modern church boards. A parish I left long ago opted for expansion and redesign. The church’s lovely saint- and angel-laden stained-glass windows were replaced by a glass wall “stained” with leaves (JUST leaves). The final irony, however, is that the new glass wall separates the church structure from its natural, lush environment . . . of leaves.
Of course it’s socialist (communist, actually). From the 1963 Communist Goals as read into the Congressional Record:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/651116/posts
22) Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all form of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to “eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings,” substitute shapeless, awkward, and meaningless forms.
23) Control art critics and directors of art museums. “Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art.”
This has to do with art and museums, but can easily be applied to architecture, especially church architecture. The fact that the beautiful Gothic cathedrals and churches were specifically built the way they were so as to point the way to heaven (with the spires leading the eye heavenward), and as well as the stained glass windows telling the stories of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection (once again leading heavenward with the beautiful interplay of color and light), would make them all the more susceptible to being trashed into ugliness (think wreckovations). If beauty points the way to heaven, to where does ugliness point the way? I think we all know the answer to that one...
Weird? Try sterile with next to no craftsmanship.