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Posted on 11/18/2016 4:27:34 PM PST by marshmallow
When the Rev. Robert H. Schuller decided in the mid-1970s that his congregation was outgrowing the drive-in, low-slung Garden Grove church that Richard Neutra had designed for him 15 years earlier within earshot of Interstate 5, and that he needed a purpose-built cathedral to accommodate his increasingly popular “Hour of Power” televised sermons, he flew to New York to visit the architecture firm run by Philip Johnson and John Burgee.
On the face of it, Schuller and Johnson were a very strange match, the self-made Orange County televangelist and the smoothly moneyed New York architect who was also an atheist and gay. But at heart they were both salesmen.
Johnson, who always knew how to make headlines, once said, “Whoever commissions buildings, buys me. I am for sale. I am a whore. I am an artist.” Schuller described his Garden Grove compound as “a 22-acre shopping center for Jesus Christ.”
Together, between 1977 and 1980, they produced one of the triumphant landmarks of Southern California kitsch, at 415 feet wide, 207 feet deep and 128 feet high bigger than Notre Dame in Paris. A giant asymmetrical mirrored-glass iceberg of a building, equal parts Bruno Taut’s 1914 Glass Pavilion in Cologne, Germany, and Superman’s Fortress of Solitude, it was immediately dubbed the Crystal Cathedral.
So maybe it was oddly fitting, a kind of historical rhyme, when in the wake of the Schuller ministry’s messy bankruptcy, the buyer that came swooping in to pick up the remains of his empire in 2012 turned out to be the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange.
For the fire-sale price of $57.5 million the diocese acquired a property that had grown in the intervening years to 36 acres and that included not only the Neutra and Johnson buildings (and their adjacent towers) but a cylindrical, four-story.....
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
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I have lived a few miles from that place for the last 15 or so years I think its ugly
Let there be no idols before thee.
I just went and looked at some photos and I agree ... there’s no place for it ... it just doesn’t fit.
Neither did that huckster Schuller
Robert Schueller was a heretic who deceived millions of people with his false teachings saying, “never call people sinners”, “Islam is a wonderful religion”, “there are many ways to God”
I’ve never heard anything that contradicts what Schuller presented himself as. An honest, god fearing christian.
Like the Crystal Cathedral or not, it’s just a building, with as they described it.....Kitsch.
Kitsch... little or no artistic merit. That pretty much sums it up.
“Why Tasteful Updates Add Up to Architectural Disappointment”
If they’re so “tasteful” then what’s the problem?
Whenever more than one follower of the Lord meet, there is a Church. I am not sure why they need such a building.
Just one visit as a tourist—thought it uplifting and impressive. (From inside).
I have done a fair amount of work for them in the past two years. I don’t think the building is ugly at all, and I think this article fairly obviously reveals the Times’ attitude toward religion. That being said, I’m not sure I like the quatrefoil panels that are planned for the substructure within. I’m also not sure the elements that need to change to facilitate Catholic worship work with the overall design of the structure.
On the other hand, I think Christ Cathedral will be much more attractive than the cathedral in Los Angeles.
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I have no feeling about the crystal cathedral. Maybe it will become housing for the poor...or ARE there poor in Orange County?
He started out using a drive-in theater for his church to meet at.
“Crystal Cathedral” is a rather odd name for a denomination that has no bishops, and therefore no use for a cathedral. Kind of like Crispy Cream doughnuts, which are neither crispy nor made with cream, or Chock Full of Nuts coffee, which does not contain a single nut.
Why am i not surprised this is from the LA TIMES???
I don’t think that was ever the official name, but I’m not certain of that.
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