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| Concrete Box (Church in Vienna) |
To me it looks like a fire station. Bells could ring and lights could flash. A red machine could come roaring out of the place. It's the church belonging to the tower in fog I showed last Sunday.
It's an appropriate piece of architecture since we all end up in the flames of an expanding solar fire when the sun breaths its last sigh.
We come from fire and we go back to fire. It's not "down there below in hell". It's simply how it is. A natural process of nature.
This reminds me of St Bride’s East Kilbride which the locals refer to as 'Fort Apaache'. It looks nothing like a church put it that way.
ReplyDeleteThanks Jim. Interesting link that. 'Brutalist' is the word they use. You'd never guess it was a church.
ReplyDeleteTo my mind, this almost goes beyond brutalist given it's function. I don't see a fire station, but it does suggest a crematorium. It makes me shutter.
ReplyDeleteRachel also sees a crematorium. Ashes to ashes. Gets the message across obviously.
DeleteLooks like a warehouse to me. So perhaps quite appropriate when selling religion to the masses ?
ReplyDeleteHas a car park big enough to turn a large truck. Eminently suitable for the purpose.
DeleteThis one looks to me like a crematorium. You also have a concrete blocks church which looks architecturally very good to me, and when I studied Plecnik's work he did one church in Vienna with poured concrete. This building is not his though is it?
ReplyDeleteKarl Schwanzer is the architect here. The bmw building in Munich is also from him. It looks like something you'd find inside a car engine.
DeleteFunction and structure was his thing. I will look at him some more. He died a long time ago, I somehow thought he might still be working, but no.
DeleteIt doesn't inspire me to go to church Gwil.
ReplyDeleteIt's difficult to be inspired, but the interior is interesting in a minimalist way. I'll try and get a photo, but it's mostly locked, except when there's a service. So might take a while. Don't hold your breath.
DeleteIn the Hansa-Viertel in Berlin they have a concrete church that was very modern then. It did not age gracefully.
ReplyDeleteThough I have to admit that the Königliche Botschaft der Niederlande in Berlin - steel, concrete and glass - impressed me - many thoughts and surprises in it, and very light.
Fire - a clear thing. (I have the strong feeling I have met it painfully before - in the Middle Ages, or in Massachusetts 1666...)
I'm intrigued by your last paragraph.
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