UK-wide exhibition: Churches in the Modern World’

The Lighthouse

A new exhibition: Churches in the Modern World’ has opened at the The Lighthouse, Glasgow, running to 16 October 2012. It is also at Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral, until 7 October 2012 and will be at St Chad’s Cathedral, Birmingham, from 9 October to 5 November 2012. Further venues, to be announced.

This exhibition, designed by Collective Architecture and curated by Ambrose Gillick and Robert Proctor, is freestanding and designed to tour to non-traditional venues such as churches as well as galleries. It presents nine significant case study buildings using new and archive photography, new drawings, original architects’ sketches and quotations, alongside important quotations from documents of the period, including the Second Vatican Council.

The case studies are selected to illustrate three key themes in the research: Tradition + Modernity; Devotion + Liturgy; Church + City. At the Lighthouse in Glasgow, projection facilities were used to show additional Scottish churches that echoed these themes. The exhibition was designed by Collective Architecture in Glasgow, whose simple and effective designed used cardboard modules and paper inspired by modernist architecture, religious icons and midcentury graphic design. Further details of exhibition dates and venues will be given in the blog and on this page. If you belong to an institution that might be interested in hosting this exhibition, we would love to hear from you.

The exhibition is part of the project 'Roman Catholic Church Architecture in Britain, 1955-1975', led by Dr Robert Proctor, Lecturer in History of Architecture at the Mackintosh School of Architecture, Glasgow School of Art, a major 20-month Research Grant furnded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

For more details, visit the project website: http://gsachurchproject.wordpress.com/