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1997
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Contents © 1997
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.

St. Elizabeth Seton

In October, St. Elizabeth Seton church in Carlsbad was awarded the Grand Orchid for architectural design in San Diego County. Does this building -- designed by Dominy + Associates, and completed in late 1995 -- deserve such praise?

Yes, indeed! As a work of architecture (including the surrounding landscape design), St. Elizabeth Seton is a triumphant achievement, at once beautiful and imaginative. As a house of Catholic worship, it provides a joyous and exalted environment.

From outside, the church has a shape that is hard to grasp. At the heart of the group of roofed masses clustered together on a vast corner lot between Alga Road and El Fuerte Street, a cruciform structure stands, with a gabled nave and its transept, and a tower rising out front. But, everywhere, smaller adjacent structures obscure this shape, emerging at unpredictable angles, even between the tower (through which you enter) and the facade (completely obstructed below the circular stained-glass window at its peak). Other masses of varying heights move off in varying directions, some long with deep overhanging eaves, others mere appended sheds connecting the larger architectural components.

At the rear, a group of chapels, with a zigzag footprint, is surmounted by a repetition of the front tower. A variety of window and door treatments increases the sense of irregularity: a double glass door in a semicircular-crowned recess, small square or rectangular sash windows, side walls made of uninterrupted glass, circular stained-glass windows, tall narrow stained-glass openings in the tower (developed into inset crosses). Even beyond the church proper, this mode is continued, with several vine-wreathed pergolas in the large adjacent plaza going off at angles and slopes of their own.

What holds the exterior together, visually, is the simplicity of its colors and textures and the repetition of a few fundamental motifs (such as the square columns holding up eaves and pergolas, the shallow circular or semicircular recesses for windows and doors, and the more elaborate pilasters, recesses, and roof supports of the two towers). The result is a strong feeling of calm sensory unity, giving coherence to the asymmetrical masses that dizzy and stimulate the intellect.

The interior is a great open fan space, in which the cruciform plan melts into the angled walls at the rear and sides. From here, the church reveals itself as grandly symmetrical, yet with a symmetry of complex shapes and angles that echoes (in a more perceptible way) the visual excitement of the exterior.

Most impressive of all, in the building's brilliant fusion of tradition and invention, is the array of wooden trusses (tied together with metal cables) that radiate from the four columns of the crossing, intersecting at the square skylight in the middle of the ceiling. These powerful members, which at the same time create a dynamic abstract design over the parishioners' heads, recall the ribs of Gothic vaulting -- but instead of dark stone, the architects have re-created the visual effect with blond wood, in an airy, Southern California space. The same wood is used for the compound square columns (with their wedge-shaped capitals) and the entablatures that separate the lower and upper levels.

The crucifix behind the simple altar is an abstract form, made of framed glass panels with pastel squares and circles reflecting at their centers. It fills a large, semicircular arch that repeats the motif already encountered on the exterior. The effect is pleasing, although perhaps more impersonal than most of us are used to in the central symbol of our Catholic faith. But, in general, both symbolism and decoration play a very minor role in this church, which relies for its aesthetic and spiritual impact on large, strong architectural ideas, executed with noble taste and refined artistry.

-- Sean-Michael de Carvalho

St. Elizabeth Seton
6628 Santa Isabel Street
Carlsbad