St. Gabriel Monastery | Washington St | Brighton

Wow, those last few shots really capture the scale of the project.
 
before .jpg
after .jpg
 
An American Monte Casino for the new dark ages?


Quoting ourselves is always dangerous -- Nonetheless every once in a while its worth reviewing what we previously posted -- buy accident I hit the wrong link on the frontpage of the thread and came upon a page from 4 years ago -- Jan 6, 2016

[Tangent said:]
I dislike old churches and chapels being used as ornamental architecture for apartments. It is disrespectful. Either keep the chapel as a chapel or bulldoze it.
Click to expand...

[My reply] Tangent -- come on -- even St Benedict would approve of the reuse -- if the place built for the monks is used for graduate students

Grad students are the closest thing today [in the secular world] to new initiates in a traditional monastery say 1000 years ago

While the monastic orders mostly were into preservation of the knowledge-base created by the ancients until such time as it would be useful again[1] -- the modern grad student is all about creating the new Knowledge Base -- how it is to be treated by posterity is unknown and unknowable

So let the graduate students appreciate / enjoy? the quasi/pseudo neo-medieval monastic calming aesthetics as they drive us relentlessly into the future!


[1] there were of course quite a few new contributions provided by monks of many orders while they were doing their preservation work -- one notable one was the several hundred years of work [1400 - 1600] leading up to the Gregorian Calendar, another notable one was the invention of modern farming methods by Cistercian monks
Click to expand...
 
It just hit me where this is. I was an alternate juror on a trial over a decade ago for one of two kids who robbed and murdered a cab driver right in front of the old church and then fled down to the projects below. A horrible story, and a difficult 2 weeks to listen to. We did take a field trip to that area as part of the trial. Seeing it get rebuilt into something inherently more positive is, in some small way, kind of a personal relief.
 
I'll say it again...mid-2010's to present cladding trends are going to be instantly dateable and seen so very derisively as "of their era" once this boxy fad finally runs itself into the ground. That gorgeous church and so rare-for-the-area Spanish architecture rectory building don't deserve the trendy, anti-complementary box next to it. If there's any site that demands as companion piece something a bit more inspired than blind-adherence "prefabness", this is it. 👎
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
Mid-2010's to present cladding trends are going to be instantly dateable ... That gorgeous church and so rare-for-the-area Spanish architecture rectory building don't deserve the trendy, anti-complementary box next to it.
Click to expand...

+1. Years ago when I toured Dartmouth I remember there were some atrocious 1960s/70s dorms they called "the showers." These basically look like that. I have a feeling that rather sooner than later we'll all be hoping a whole lot of schlock built the last 10 years gets rebuilt, or at least refaced.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top