The Costliest Church in the World

Progress, Volume XI, Issue 8, 1 April 1916, Page 595

The Costliest Church in the World

ST. BARTHOLOMEW'S, NEW YORK ' A reproduction from a model of a new church (St. Bartholomew ’s, New York), is shown on this page. It is estimated to be one of the costliest

The necessity for a Romanesque motif is therefore obvious, says Mr. Cortissoz in the New York "Tribune," and the architect has gone to Italian rather than to Provencal sources for his inspiration, and what is more has used them with originality. Speaking broadly the design is an organic composition. The facades are exactly expressive of the plan. And their successive stages are united with a fine sense of proportion, a fine sense of architectural values. Let the reader explore, one by one, the different passages in the design, the relation of the portal to the nave and that of both to the dome, the placing of the columns and arches just below the roof-line, the adjustment of the chapel and Sunday-school building on the street side to the mass of the main structure. These later episodes, it is true, constitute stubborn elements in the problem, and we could wish them otherwise. But since they have to be there, they are remarkably well handled. Consider, finally, the effect of the whole, the warm picturesqueness of the conception, combined with its essentially massy character, and the rich play of light and shade secured, the qualities or relief, of texture, developed without fussiness. It is Romanesque, yes; but is it so with any implications of pedantic borrowing? The design is large and free; in the impression of living architecture that it conveys it makes us think of that other fine example of style individually exploitedthat Westminster cathedral which was founded on Byzantine ideas, but embodies the genius of a modern artist.

churches in the world when finished and is an interesting piece of American architecture designed by Mr. Bertram G. Goodhue. The present church is to be pulled down— except the beautiful portals shown herewithand the new one erected in its place.

The waste of actual workmanship is always painful, as soon as it is apparent. f I “Wriggly” French new — H. L. Honey man. “It is not the building we admire or condemn but the mind that appears in it,”— Garbett. 1