The following comes from a Southern Cross article by Denis Grasska:
SAN DIEGO — The Diocese of San Diego’s newest church received top honors at an annual awards ceremony recognizing the best and worst in local architecture.
St. Thomas More Parish, located in Oceanside, received the coveted Grand Orchid at the San Diego Architectural Foundation’s annual Orchids & Onions awards. The awards ceremony was held Oct. 13 at Spreckels Theatre, following a reception at Horton Plaza Park.
The decision to award the Grand Orchid to St. Thomas More Church was unanimous. In comments read at the awards ceremony, the church was described as “truly exceptional” and as “beautiful, refined and elegant.” The architectural style of the new 23,000-square-foot church, which was blessed and dedicated on Dec. 16, was praised by one juror as an example of “warm Modernism.”
Father Ratajczak told The Southern Cross that the new church is “modern, but it’s also classic in many regards,” and he predicts that “it’s going to age gracefully, it’ll get better as it ages.”
While delivering his acceptance speech at the awards ceremony, Father Ratajczak was joined onstage by Bishop Robert W. McElroy and representatives of several groups that had a role in the design and construction of the new church, including Renzo Zecchetto Architects, T.B. Penick & Sons Contractors, Rozak Construction and the St. Thomas More Interior Design Team.
Father Ratajczak reflected on the theology behind various aspects of the church’s design.
“There are three main elements in our church: wood, creating a warmth for when we are spiritually cold; glass, bringing in the light of the day, a transparency to take away the temptation for people and institutions of being dishonest and hiding the truth when caught in weakness and sin; and thirdly, unfinished concrete, a reminder that all of us human beings are works in progress, and our life’s journey is about growing in holiness, and presenting, one day, to our God, a being who struggled to be the best that she or he could become.”
Philip Goscienski, who was among those who stood onstage alongside Father Ratajczak, served as co-chair of the St. Thomas More Interior Design Team with his wife, Pat. The team held regular meetings for almost nine years.
Goscienski, who along with his wife has been a parishioner since the parish was established, remembers the large churches he attended in his youth, as well as the European cathedrals he has visited since then. They were “remarkable works of art,” he said, but “none of them conveys the warmth” that the new St. Thomas More Church does.
At least show pictures of the interior to let your readers judge for themselves:
https://www.google.com/search?q=st.+thomas+more+parish+oceanside+ca&biw=1165&bih=708&tbm=isch&imgil=KZEU674RLjisUM%253BAAAAAAAAAAABAM%253Bhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Fwww.stmoside.org%25252Fournewchurch.htm&source=iu&pf=m&fir=KZEU674RLjisUM%252CAAAAAAAAAAABAM%252C_&usg=__7noQ13ClADzSPnVC0h_cKH7Q7vs%3D&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiWreq2uMzQAhVDzFQKHXQGAMQQuqIBCG0wDQ&imgrc=XWSkBsw25crRnM#imgrc=XWSkBsw25crRnM%3A
Thanks Jim McCrea for the link to the pictures. I looked but could find the tabernacle. Is it housed in a separate chapel, similar to the Rog-mahal here in Los Angeles? Looks like a very well-conceived priest-centered construct. At first glance ad-orientem would not make much sense here. Or am I wrong?
Dan, much is in the eye of the beholder. I looked at the pictures of this church shown on the link. You saw a “well-conceived priest-centered construct”. I saw a church with a very large crucifix behind what is supposed to be the main focus of churches, the altar.
Bob One, I agree. What is “stark”, “austere” and “sterile” to one set of eyes can be, to another, an inspired embodiment of the “noble simplicity” fostered by the Church.
Let’s hope this space isn’t hi-jacked by the rad-trads with their heretical denials that the NO is valid, the absence of a “high altar, use of altar girls, Communion in the hand, and the like. Or off-the-wall accusations that other posters are Saul Alinsky-ites, “left-wing radicals”, etc. etc.
Bob One, where is the tabernacle?
the architect did not visit enough european churches against which to judge his work for warmth. many of the large churches in rome convey a feeling of warmth.
Re Euro cathedrals, totally in agreement. This space is sterile to the point of being antiseptic. Dont see any “warmth” entirely too angular and “modern” If they wanted majesty they should have considered Notre Dame or similar high ceiling structure. The cross is really an abomination, looks like a 50s modernist scultpture…whatever happened to wood, was Our Lord crucified on an I beam?
Really wanted to like this, think whomever the design team was needed a far better understanding of classical church construction. To me it’s soul-less and again I wanted to be positive, but…
A “warm” and beautiful church!
Well, at least the Oakland Diocese can breath a sigh of relief.
“Warm”? You must be joking!!!
sterile, stark not sacred
The problem is that Catholics in California, generally, do not know, or recognize, what a true Catholic Church looks like. The modernism here is stark, and awful, calling to mind nothing more than an auditorium or assembly room, or a Protestant Church. (In fact, many post-VII writers refer to churches as “Eucharistic halls” anyway.) And, that is the point, to take away any sense of the Divine, of the centuries of beutiful art and architecture designed to glorify Christ and the Father (and our Holy Mother). But, this new stuff is so much better in slopping out the crappy brand of Catholicism that clerics like B. McElroy produce. What a shame.
The place looks like a WWII German bunker.
Good grief! Nice lines and colors and the exterior looks OK. No Jesus inside. Must please the current bishop no end.
Typical Novus Ordo “office building” nothing sacred or Roman Catholic about this office building. And of course no TLM offered there no doubt.
Romulus, why is it not sacred or Roman Catholic. Didn’t you see the Altar in the center of the church? Didn’t you see the huge crucifix behind the Altar? Didn’t you see the pews arranged to face the Altar? Didn’t you see the simplicity of the Altar itself? I for one, didn’t see any cubicles for working! The outside is a very creative design. What more do you want?
I would have been ticked if I had given money for such a project.
You probably didn’t so stop complaining and congratulate the Parish on winning this design award!
“Ticked” are you? Perhaps the symbolism of glass and “transparency” was just a platitude? Where did all my money go?
Sir, a crucifix does not cut it, I have seen churches that have crucifix, high altar, communion rail and at he same time, kiss of peace, hand holding, altar girls, dancing girls, communion in the hand while standing given by lay people, drums, guitars, banjos, clapping, without the TLM Bob one it means nothing!
To Bob One— See, it didn’t take long!
The Progressive Church Brethren deserve our sympathy: Why? Unconscious self-mockery.
They are delighted that:
1) St Thomas More Church “has a crucifix” (Bob One). (Wow!)
2) It has “noble simplicity” (?. Sacro. Concilium, hoorah!) (Roberto V-caritas-etc)
De gustibus non est disputandum.
3) It is “priest-centered” ! (Bob One) (Well of course: we just knew it would be.)
4) It even has an “altar”! Yay! (Bob One) (Actually it is a table, more like a work-bench.
Cranmer would be proud).
5) All this is “warm & beautiful” (George). Well, maybe. Pulchritudino in oculo conspicientis est. (“Beauty is — definitely — in the eye of the beholder.”) (Roberto wouldn’t be able to translate that one)
This is all remarkable, because as we all know (and as they unconsciously witness by their thrilled excitement at having a table and a crucifix), a large number of ostensibly “Catholic” churches in recent years have some bizarre architectural “code” written into the plan (cf. “Cathedral” of Our Lady of Angels; or my personal favorite, the UC Berkeley Holy Spirit Newman Center, a concrete bunker celebrating the death of God), lacking these essential elements.
If even including these elements (crucifix, altar, sacerdotal centrality) are a “Yay, Lord!” event, what indeed does the New Church believe in?
Indeed, the mostly horizontal lines (except for the water tower, er steeple) are nothing new, except revealing the same…
…purpose designed into Frank Lloyd Wright’s “Temple to Man”, Unity Temple, Chicago (1908):
Wright wanted horizontal lines and a meeting hall design to celebrate man, since God cannot be known:
https://williamchyr.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/flw_unity_temple.jpg
Frank Lloyd Wright’s design principle was “Form follows function.” That is the critique of St. Thomas More Church, Oceanside. Functional agnosticism now has architectural enshrinement. No wonder the Progressive Catholic Brethren are falling all over each other in excited breaths.
The Catholic architectural revolution, seen in examples like S. Thomas More, Oceanside, is paralleled by the attempted doctrinal coup by its present “ordinary”, Bp. McElroy (McElroy has called the section defining marriage in the Catechism of the Catholic Church “destructive”).
Yesterday was the feast day in the traditional calendar of S. Vibiana, the patroness of LA Archdiocese. (Of course, S. Vibiana, as were large numbers of the Roman martyrs, was stricken from the sanctoral cycle in the Bugnini liturgical revolt of 1969-1972.) Here is what S. Vibiana looked like:
https://travelswithmaitaitom.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/vibiana1880.jpg
What happened to “St Vib’s”?
Well, being a link with the traditional Catholic past as it was, and an identifiably classic Catholic Italianate church, it had to go. The public was told it “had to be torn down” because it was “earthquake-damaged” after the Northridge quake.
Oh, but now it is safe for a restaurant (“Redbird”), where you can eat and drink in pagan splendor, staring at its vacant altar and tabernacle space and architecture:
https://www.atrero.com/venues/vibiana-wedding/
Well, here you have two vacant interiors, S. Thomas More, with its “work table” and no tabernacle, and “Redbird” restaurant with tables, food and drink, perfect for your flamboyant wedding reception.
And empty tabernacle too, BTW.
Best of all, Bob One and Roberto and the other celebratory Progressive Catholic Brethren can go to Yelp and celebrate their next big event “in the ruins” at Redbird:
https://www.yelp.com/biz/vibiana-los-angeles
LOVED all of your posts, Steve Phoenix! Bravo, Bravo! Thanks!
16 Churches So Beautiful They’ll Take Your Breath Away
https://churchpop.com/2015/08/25/16-churches-so-beautiful-theyll-take-your-breath-away/
“Ticked” are you? Perhaps the symbolism of glass and “transparency” was just a platitude? Where did all my money go?