In the last few decades I had seen countless parishes be made 'new' by introducing horrid Modernist elements, such as, at best, "Church As Concert Hall": Redeemer Presbyterian Church, NYC And at worst, "Church as Brutalism": Wotruba Roman Catholic Church, Vienna If this will be the look of our churches from now on, then the Church is as good as dead, and the Lord's Promise has failed, which it cannot.. Thus I have begun collecting (online and from friends) the stories of churches which restore the sacred and the timeless of our patrimony.! Here are some examples: "Before and After" / St Mary's in MI (source) "Before and After" / Anglican Church, Our Saviour, Oatlands VA
Hideous architecture is a feature all too common today, Anglican74. Just yesterday I was exposed to the Scottish Parliament building in Edinburgh for the first time on TV. What a ghastly place, and an insult to anyone with even a modicum of appreciation for beauty and aesthetics. I think (at least I hope) that the worst of it, regarding church buildings, is at an end. Time will tell. (The second image is of the Roman Catholic cathedral in Los Angeles, California. Uggh!)
More! Before and After https://www.liturgicalartsjournal.com/2018/09/before-and-after-blessed-sacrament.html
New churches being built, all in the traditional style! Before: Saint John's Abbey, Collegeville After: St. John Neumann Church, Farragut, Tennessee (Consecrated 2009) St. John the Apostle Church, Leesburg, Virginia (Consecrated 2012) St. Paul the Apostle Church, Spartanburg, South Carolina (Consecrated 2013) https://aleteia.org/2018/09/26/brin...new-traditional-catholic-churches-of-the-u-s/
Those these new churches are a hopeful tide against left over churches from the mid-century modernism. I love seeing the re-vamp! I visited the church in Ave Maria, FL and found it rather..unsettling. It is somehow a mixture of traditional architecture and industrial design. It's very odd, cold, and feels unfinished. Even though it gives an outward appearance of looking traditional, once you encounter it closely and go inside it really is it's own creature; it feels like the construction workers just left for lunch. I've read that the city's founder designed the church himself which makes sense because it lacks a sense of harmony and peace which I think a professional architect would have noticed. Maybe others have a different take on it, but it seems that not all attempts to go back to traditional church architecture are a success!
I will give a small defense for some modernist styles of church buildings, as I love the incorporation of nature with some of the designs. I think they are wonderful for chapels as it suits a small scale. Maybe not so much for larger churches or cathedrals. An example would be the Wayfarer's Chapel from Frank Lloyd Wright https://mikeshistoricbuildings.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-wayfarers-chapel.html
My parish is in the process of renovating a building. One thing it has not been in its career is a church. Most recently, the local school system was using it as an indoor practice facility for some of the sports teams. We are going to have the first service Sunday and I guess the sanctuary is going to be something like 50-60% complete. I'll try to remember to take a few pictures.
I find a lot of modern attempts at Gothic, Romanesque, etc., to be far too "smooth" looking and influence by minimalist neoclassicism. Either go all the way, or don't. There's something flat about even those "traditional" new churches. Certainly it's an improvement over the industrial wastelands of 1950s-1980s churches, but there's still something rather dead about them.
Here is the restoration of St. Mark's, in Peoria Illinois, which although restored according to the Romanist aesthetic is still better than the earlier 1970s horrible modernism. Original tweet: https://twitter.com/faithfulgadolic/status/1086805550871048192 1970s vs 2018:
I have seen some of the great Romanesque, Gothic, Crusader, and Baroque Churches. Inside they capture a spirit of worship, reverence, contemplation, and solemness. I find the modwernist style, which even often removes the cross or make it more geometric and faded in the background of the architecture.