Christian Ecclesiastical Architecture - Developments from the 1920s to the Present Day

Throughout history, the search for the essence of belief has exerted an influence on church building. In this article, the author analyses a series of outstanding structures, from the Corpus Christi Church in Aachen (1930) by Rudolf Schwarz (who sought to formulate a typology of ecclesiastical spaces) down to present-day projects. The Second Vatical Council at the beginning of the 1960s led to many architectural changes and conversions in church building. In the 1980s, however, the number of new ecclesiastical structures declined rapidly. Only in the past decade have individual schemes caught the public eye again. Examples of these include the Sacred Heart Church in Munich, St Francis's Church in Resthof, Steyr, Steven Holl's St Ignatius Chapel in Seattle and the recently completed San Giovanni Rotondo by Renzo Piano.