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Contents © 1997
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.

Disjointed Attractiveness

BUT NEVER FULLY THOUGHT THROUGH

Its design is conventional (for 1963), its materials are far from opulent, and its workmanship is often crude. However, the building has a disjointed attractiveness. It even exhibits a few fine points.

The facade, under its shallow pitched roof, is covered with thin horizontal courses of wide, pinkish-beige bricks, interrupted on both sides by vertical bands of brown brick panels, slightly recessed. The effect is drab, and the vertical bands seem like a futile afterthought, having no organic connection with anything else on the building. In the center, a gabled recess encloses the entrance doors and a decorative mosaic, the two areas separated by a purely utilitarian overhang.

The overhang briefly interrupts two vertical bands running from the wooden doorways to the mosaic upper story, and made up of coarse concrete squares pierced in an X pattern. The X-patterned blocks reappear at the base of the square turret on the tower, which is faced with the pink-beige bricks. This indicates some effort to achieve a visual unity, as does the repetition of the gable shape in the open turret. Other decorative motifs are more or less random: the panels on the doors, designed with elaborate crosses, and a series of concrete squares on the front of the tower, featuring an anomalous fleur-de-lis.

The upper story of the recess introduces additional pastel colors, not well matched, in the grayish-tan background tiles and the blues and yellows of the large, mosaic of an angel hovering over a kneeling child. The mosaic itself, with its combination of lyrical curves and of sharp rays bursting outward from the angel's chest, has a pleasing visual energy, and there is an appropriate strength and tenderness in the way it illustrates its doctrinal content, reinforced by the Gospel inscription surrounding it: "See that you never despise one of these little ones. I assure you their angels in heaven constantly behold my heavenly father's face." There is perhaps an intended analogy between the blue of the angel and the light-blue tile of the small dome topping the tower, but the connection is at best a weak one.

The basilica-shape interior displays some interesting -- if never fully thought-through -- features. It was a nice idea to give a curved lower profile to the wooden beams that support the brown gabled ceiling; but the intriguing transition from triangle to curve evokes no resonances elsewhere. The wall behind the altar area is industrial gray brick, like the back wall of a theater stage from which scenery has been removed. The only decorative elements on this stark backdrop are the wooden crucifix, with its stylized, skinny image of Our Lord, and -- behind the cross -- three tall, narrow triangles, painted on the brick and descending like rays from the overhead light panels.

It is hard to judge whether this minimalist visual idea is a bold stroke or a botch, necessitated because the money ran out. The color scheme of the tall triangles -- dull gold above, melting into dark green below -- is striking, but in the context of the church it does not have much to do with anything.

Realizing this, perhaps, the designers attempted to refer to the same colors on the simple, white-brick side walls, where a dark-green painted band, smudged with gold and white, extends the length of the building; but the linkage works only feebly. The disposition of the pathetically few stained-glass windows on each wall reveals equally weak thinking: a square window at the front, another at the back, and two taller rectangular windows between them, the static symmetry undermining any visual thrust toward the altar.

The windows themselves, however, are excellent, with a rustic strength and vivid colors. The square panels represent the four evangelists, with their manuscripts and quills, while the taller windows depict the return of the prodigal son, the baptism of Our Lord, the miracle of the loaves and fishes, and the miracle water turned to wine. Individually fine pieces of ecclesiastical art, the windows nevertheless seem randomly chosen as to subject, and none of them is connected with the church's specific dedication. The building's decorative elements appear to have been devised in an impromptu fashion, without any meaningful program. A pair of sculpted and painted kneeling angels appear flanking the altar area, and if they are not exactly guardian angels, at least they belong to the right species of being.

Guardian Angels
9310 Dalehurst Road
Santee