Domestic Liturgy: St Paul’s in Waterloo by Jean Cosse (1968)

St Paul’s church in Waterloo, Jean Cosse, 1968, the community celebrating Mass on Sunday (© picture by Jean Cosse, published in Art D’Église, Nº 153, 1970, p. 112-113).

St Paul’s church in Waterloo, Jean Cosse, 1968, Communion during Sunday Mass (© picture by Jean Cosse, published in Art D’Église, Nº 153, 1970, p. 115).

St Paul’s church in Waterloo, Jean Cosse, 1968, floor plan (© Jean Cosse, published in Art D’Église, Nº 144, 1968, p. 218).

St Paul’s church in Waterloo, Jean Cosse, 1968, the community exiting the church after Sunday Mass (© picture by Jean Cosse, published in Art D’Église, Nº 153, 1970, p. 117).

St Paul’s church in Waterloo, Jean Cosse, 1968, design of the exterior (© Jean Cosse, published in Art D’Église, Nº 144, 1968, p. 215).

The foundation process of the St Paul’s parish in Waterloo, a wealthy suburb south of Brussels, was a bottom-up experiment different from normal practice: the parish was to have no territorial boundaries, welcome all interested Christian worshippers and ignore the infamous language frontier that ran across it since 1962. Its church building challenged the norm too: conceived by local architect Jean Cosse (1931-2016) as an informal meeting place, it resembled the neighbouring dwellings in terms of style and scale. Precisely for this reason, the influential periodical Art d’Église heavily promoted St Paul’s as a model for it embodied the then popular post-conciliar idea of the liturgy as a gathering of like-minded people, embedded in their daily routines and environment. As you can see in these illustrations , the periodical not only gave attention to the architecture itself, but also tried to illustrate the way it “lived”. 

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75 years parish in Kessel Station: images from the archive

Dedication of the temporary church and school in Kessel-Statie by auxiliary bishop Van Cauwenbergh, 10.07.1949 (© Our Lady of Peace Parish in Kessel-Statie).

Dedication of the temporary church and school in Kessel-Statie by auxiliary bishop Van Cauwenbergh, 10.07.1949 (© Our Lady of Peace Parish in Kessel-Statie).

Beginning of the construction of the church in Kessel-Statie, ca. 1954 (© Our Lady of Peace Parish in Kessel-Statie).

Yearly parish procession in Kessel-Statie with several peace symbols such as the rainbow, 1951 (© Our Lady of Peace Parish in Kessel-Statie).

Yearly parish procession in Kessel-Statie with several peace symbols such as the peace dove, 1951 (© Our Lady of Peace Parish in Kessel-Statie).

Dedication of the church in Kessel-Statie by auxiliary bishop Seunens, 26.05.1956 (© Our Lady of Peace Parish in Kessel-Statie).

Dedication of the church in Kessel-Statie by auxiliary bishop Seunens, 26.05.1956 (© Our Lady of Peace Parish in Kessel-Statie).

Construction of the parish hall in Kessel-Statie, ca. 1957 (© Our Lady of Peace Parish in Kessel-Statie).

Our Lady of Peace church and presbytery, ca. 1960 (© Our Lady of Peace Parish in Kessel-Statie).

This year, the Our Lady of Peace Parish in Kessel Station celebrated its 75th anniversary. The parish community seized this opportunity to dig their collection of photographs out of the archive and to organise a small exhibition about the history of the parish. The parish has an extensive collection of photographs that document common practices in a young parish in the 1940s and 50s. These photos not only show the engagement of parishioners in the construction of a temporary church and school building, the definitive church and a parish hall, but also the way the finalisation of these building was celebrated with rituals and processions. Such a large collection of photographs of the key moments in the establishment of a new parish is a wonderful source for an architectural historian working on post-war religious architecture!

Provincial Architect Jozef Schellekens and Church Architecture

Jozef Schellekens at a construction site (Archive Jozef Schellekens, http://www.jozefschellekens.be/kerken-kerkhoven/)

Jozef Schellekens at the Sint-Niklaas church in Dessel, restoration by Schellekens in 1948-1950 (Archive Jozef Schellekens, http://www.jozefschellekens.be/kerken-kerkhoven/)

Sint-Dimpna church in Geel, restoration by Schellekens in 1949-1953 (Archive Jozef Schellekens, http://www.jozefschellekens.be/kerken-kerkhoven/)

Jozef Schellekens at the Sint-Niklaas church in Dessel, restoration by Schellekens in 1948-1950 (Archive Jozef Schellekens, http://www.jozefschellekens.be/kerken-kerkhoven/)

In Belgium, the construction of a church building is not only a matter of the parish community and its architect, but also requires the approval of municipal, provincial and national authorities. My research on post-war churches in Belgium has identified the influential rol of provincial architects in the process of church building. For example, in the capacity of provincial architect, Jozef Schellekens (1909-1963) was involved in the construction of many twentieth century churches in the district of Turnhout. In 1942, in the case of the Sint-Antonius Abt church in Mol-Donk, Schellekens urged architect René Van Steenbergen to design a site plan for the further development of the neighborhood before choosing a location for the new place for worship. As Schellekens already made clear in his De architectuur in ons landschap en het stedebouwprobleem publication (1941), he was convinced that “finding the right place for building a church is a matter of town planning.” About twenty years later, in the case of the Sint-Jozef Werkman church in Veerle-Heide, Schellekens affected the building style of this new parish church. Although the church council and the parish priest preferred a traditional style, Schellekens demanded a modern design. He saw it as his responsibility to aim for modern churches. Moreover, Schellekens not only advised other architects in church building projects, but was also in charge of projects himself, such as the restoration of the Sint-Dimpna church in Geel. Thus, it should not be underestimated that church building was an important assignment for many architects in the post-war period.

More information about Schellekens’ architecture and artwork can be found on the following website: http://www.jozefschellekens.be/. On the occasion of Open Monumentendag, this week, you can visit the modern house that Schellekens designed with Theo Op de Beeck in Turnhout. More information: here.

 

Constructing a Genius Loci: The St Pius X’s Church in Wilrijk

Interior of the St Pius X’s church in Wilrijk, after its construction (ca. 1967) and during a First Communion Mass (1977), architects Paul Meekels en Lode Wouters (Archive of the St Pius X’s parish, in Antwerp – Records about the construction of the parish infrastructure).

The St Pius X’s church in Wilrijk is not only a remarkable modern sacred building, but also an interesting case to study the way the Roman Catholic Church negotiated on its presence in the ‘ordinary’ suburban context of Antwerp during the post-war period. Read more about the establishment of this suburban parish and the construction of its principal sacred site in our new article in the proceedings of the conference Genius Loci: places and meanings. 

Weyns E., Sterken S. (2017). ‘Constructing a Genius Loci: the St Pius X’s church in Wilrijk, 1957-1967.’ In: Rosas, L. (Ed.), Sousa, A. (Ed.), Barreira, H. (Ed.), Genius Loci: lugares e significados | places and meanings: Vol. 1 (pp. 251-263). Porto.

Report Territories of Faith Workshop

 

Front facade of the Sint-Lukas church along the Bergensesteenweg in Anderlecht, Belgium, designed by architect De Keyser in 1962, photo from 1972 (© KIK-IRPA, Brussel, cliché M084097).

Church an parish center in Seinäjoki, Finland, view on the eastern facade of the church and bell tower, designed by Atelier Alvar Aalto, 1958–1966 (© Alvar Aalto Museum, in Jyväskylä, photographic archive, photographer unknown).

Read more about our Territories of Faith Workshop in this article (in Dutch) in the latest KADOC newsletter (pp. 10-15).

“Catholic Territories” in Contemporanea

Exterior and interior of the St. Paul’s church in Westmalle, architect Marc Dessauvage, 1966 (© KIK-IRPA, Brussel, cliché M087314 en M087316).

Read more about our research project in this new article (in Dutch) in the online journal Contemporanea of the Belgian association for contemporary history (BVNG – ABHC).

You’ve got mail: church postcards

René Van Steenbergen, Onze-Lieve-Vrouw van de Berg Carmel, Zevendonk (Turnhout), 1975 (Architectuurarchief Provincie Antwerpen)

René Van Steenbergen, Onbevlekt Hart van Maria Koningin der Wereld, Zwaneven (Oud-Turnhout), 1956 (http://www.bloggen.be/wandelroutes/archief)

René Van Steenbergen, Heilig Sacrament, Berchem (Antwerpen), 1960 (Architectuurarchief Provincie Antwerpen)

René Van Steenbergen, Onze-Lieve-Vrouw van Altijddurende Bijstand, Den Hout (Beerse), 1968 (Plomteux, Greet, 1996, ©Vlaamse Gemeenschap)

Here is yet another post about our small exhibition on the religious architecture of René Van Steenbergen. To stay in the holiday mood, this one is about postcards! For the exhibition, we printed postcards displaying historic and contemporary photographs of all the buildings, of which you can see some examples here. This idea was inspired by the custom of making postcards of newly constructed church buildings. On the backside of the cards, we also added a short text about the background of each church to quickly inform the visitors. Best wishes from Turnhout!