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Abstract
This article is a critical investigation of the buildings and writings of Étienne-Joseph Gaboury, a prolific French Canadian architect who, in the 1960s, designed several modern parish churches and engaged with various liturgical documents issued in the context of the Second Vatican Council. How have the various calls of priests and theologians advocating for artistic and liturgical renewal—calls which became increasingly frequent in the North Atlantic world after World War II—been adapted and implemented in specific architectural landmarks by Gaboury, such as his famous Précieux-Sang Church and Blessed Sacrament Church in Manitoba? I argue that Gaboury’s account of the origins of Christianity and his description of religious experience in both embodied and spiritual terms, found in his essay “Design for Worship” (1968), can be understood not simply as an aggiornamento, or bringing the Church “up to date,” but also as echoes, in aesthetic and architectural terms, of some of the key tenets of the “new theology,” which were central to the changes put forth by the Second Vatican Council. I also argue that Gaboury’s interests in materiality and in the evocative power of light need to be read through the rise of phenomenology in postwar North American architecture. By looking at various archival documents, I propose that Vatican II was not a unilateral, top-down paradigm shift, or a rupture with tradition, but rather a complex and ongoing negotiation between the architect, ecclesial authorities and lay people.
Notes
An earlier version of this article was originally presented in the panel “An Intellectual Hinterland: Religion and Modernist Art in the Postwar Period,” at the Annual Symposium of the International Society of Intellectual History (ISIH), “Intellectual Hinterlands,” The University of Toronto, Canada, June 22–25, 2014.
1. Price, Temples, 10.
2. While Price is here commenting on the American situation, this is also true in the Canadian context, where publications on the subject are few and far between. Most studies on modern Catholic parish church architecture in Canada tend to be monographic or are focused on questions related to the heritage value (“valeur patrimoniale”) of individual buildings and sites. Many are also focused on the province of Quebec, which has the largest Catholic population in the country. See, for example, Bergeron, L’architecture des églises, and, more recently, Noppen and Morisset, Les églises du Québec, and Gauthier, Le devenir de l’art. Along with Price’s study, another notable scholarly publication focused on the intersections of postwar modernism and Catholicism in Europe is Proctor, Building the Modern Church.
3. On this movement, see the comprehensive volume by Flynn and Murray, eds., Ressourcement, in particular O’Collins, “Ressourcement and Vatican II,” 372–91.
4. Key information on Gaboury’s early life can be found here: “The Biography of Etienne Gaboury,” nearvana.ca/gaboury/xsbl/proj21.html. Accessed December 12, 2016.
5. During his time in Montreal, Couturier published on Fernand Léger, Pablo Picasso and members of the local Montreal art scene. See Couturier, Art et Catholicisme. Couturier’s visit to Canada is detailed in his autobiography Dieu et l’art. On his impact on French Canadian architectural and artistic life, see Gauthier, “Marie-Alain Couturier O.P.,” 103–23, and Lamonde, “Un visa chrétien,” 35–52.
6. The Encyclical of His Holiness Pius X.
7. For example, Gaboury owed a copy of Dom Paul Bellot, OSB, Propos d'un bâtisseur du bon Dieu and Rev. Louis Bouyer, Liturgical Piety. I wish to thank Mr. Gaboury for sharing with me a list of the contents of his personal library.
8. On Liturgie et Vie Chrétienne, see Laflèche and Routhier, “Le mouvement liturgique au Québec,” 129–61.
9. See, for instance, Gaboury, Matière et structure. Placide Gaboury also rose to media prominence in Quebec with his various writings that critiqued the so-called “institutional Church.” See his essay L’homme inchangé, which was co-dedicated to someone named Étienne (perhaps his architect brother). Placide Gaboury later left the Society of Jesus due to his growing opposition to the Church’s teachings and became increasingly engaged with “New Age” spirituality.
10. Pauly, Le Corbusier, 75. See also Samuel, Sacred Concrete.
11. Stirling, “Ronchamp,” 155–61. See also Rubin, Modern Sacred Art, 45–63, and Caussé, La revue L’Art Sacré.
12. Gaboury, “Metaphors and Metamorphosis,” 24.
13. Samuel, “A Profane Illumination,” 74.
14. For more information on the architectural developments in Western Canada, see Keshavjee, ed., Winnipeg Modern.
15. Gaboury, “Architecture and the Spiritual Phenomenon,” unpublished conference paper, 3. I wish to thank Mr. Gaboury for sharing this document with me.
16. Le Corbusier, Toward an Architecture, 87.
17. See Routhier, Vatican II au Canada; and Attridge, Clifford, and Routhier, eds., Vatican II: Canadian Experiences.
18. However, it is worth noting that this change in the liturgical orientation was not explicitly called for by the Council Fathers, but happened gradually, in the “spirit of Vatican II.” Similarly, the current Roman Missal rubrics suggest, tacitly, a continuing use of ad orientem. This important matter became the subject of renewed discussion and debate within the Church in July 2016, as Robert Cardinal Sarah, the prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments, tried to reinstitute ad orientem worship at the beginning of the Advent season, but was later overruled by Pope Francis.
19. Gaboury, “Design for Worship,” 33–42; hereafter cited parenthetically in the text.
20. Montreal Diocesan Liturgical Commission, The Building of Churches was the first document published in Canada that established Vatican II inspired guidelines for the construction of churches. It was used in many French Canadian parishes, until local dioceses issued their own version of it in subsequent years.
21. Flannery, ed., “Dogmatic Constitution,” 15.
22. See Flannery, ed., “Decree on Ecumenism,” 499–524, and “Declaration,” 569–74.
23. However, as some traditionalist liturgists have correctly observed, arguments that use broad notions of “authentic” and “primitive” Christianity to defend different forms of liturgical experimentation can be rather tenuous, as few detailed written records exist that clearly attest to practices of the first centuries of the Church. On this matter, see, for example, Malcom Cardinal Ranjith, “The Sacred Liturgy,” 33.
24. Flannery, ed., “Renewal of Religious Life,” 386.
25. Roguet, The New Mass, 16. Roguet was making similar arguments even before Vatican II took place. See, for example, his contribution to the special issue of La Maison-Dieu, 96–134, on the planning and construction of modern churches.
26. Montreal Diocesan Liturgical Commission, The Building of Churches, 37.
27. Price, Temples, 152. For an extensive bibliography of articles published prior to Vatican II on the versus populum organization, see Price, Temples, 225. On the centralised altar, see Harwood, “Liturgy and Architecture,” 50–74.
28. Reinhold, Speaking of Liturgical Architecture, 6. See also Reinhold, Bringing the Mass. For a study on his influence in North America, see Upton, Worship in Spirit.
29. Le Corbusier, quoted in L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui 96 (June-July 1961): 3.
30. This project is discussed in Otero-Pailos, “Eucharistic Architecture,” 63–78. On its Canadian exhibition in 1955, see de Repentigny, “Unité de la peinture.”
31. “Église St-Marcel, Chibougamau,” Architecture, Bâtiment, Construction, 25–31, and “Église Notre-Dame-d’Anjou,” Bâtiment, 16–19.
32. Seasoltz, OSB, The House of God. Although he does not remember exactly, Gaboury may also have been acquainted with the famous book by Peter Hammond, Liturgy and Architecture, which also discusses such church plans.
33. The Blessed Sacrament Church shows the continuing influence of Le Corbusier, as it bears a notable resemblance to his St. Pierre Church in Firminy. Although construction of the church would only begin in 1970 and be completed in 2006, Le Corbusier began to draw up plans in 1960 at the request of his friend and patron Eugène-Claudius Petit, mayor of Firminy and former Minister of Reconstruction and Urbanism. Many of these preliminary sketches were included in Le Corbusier’s Oeuvre complète and may therefore have been a source of inspiration for Gaboury.
34. Letter from Fr. Aurèle Lemoine, OMI, to Étienne Gaboury, April 22, 1965, n.p. Précieux-Sang dossier, Fonds Gaboury, Centre du Patrimoine de St. Boniface, Manitoba.
35. This change no doubt reflects the gradual shift initiated by the publication in 1965 of the Vatican II “Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy.” Although it is rather general, the Constitution clearly affirms: “The rite and formulas for the sacrament of penance are to be revised so that they more clearly express both the nature and effect of the sacrament” (141).
36. On St. Maurice church, see Bergeron, L’architecture des églises, 279–80, and Roger D’Astous, Architecte.
37. Caron, “Un confessionnal rajeuni,” 160–61. In Fr. Caron’s pre-Vatican II proposal, the priest does not meet as directly with the parishoner, but is still behind a curtain. A kneeler was also kept as an option.
38. “Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy,” 157.
39. Montreal Diocesan Liturgical Commission, The Building of Churches, 14. In those years, the prevalence of “bad taste” in many twentieth-century churches was decried as a veritable “theological problem” in Dorfles’s Il Kitsch.
40. See, for example, St. Bernard’s critique of the use of “material ornamentation to rouse devotion in a carnal people” in part XII of St. Bernard’s Apologia.
41. Although the Church never formally approved this, the custom of adding a last and more uplifting station would become increasingly common after Vatican II.
42. Montreal Diocesan Liturgical Commission, The Building of Churches, 42.
43. Gaboury, “Wood,” 29.
44. Ibid.
45. For a longer discussion of Gaboury’s interest in Métis and First Nations vernacular constructions, see Pezolet, “Spiritual Matter,” 90–101. Right around the same time, a prominent figure associated with ressourcement theology and Vatican II, Marie-Dominique Chenu (who founded the Institut d’études médiévales in Montreal, Canada) also wrote on the place of divine creation, corporality, embodiment and materiality in Christian theology and spirituality. It is interesting to think that Gaboury may have read his work as he worked on these church projects. See Chenu, Théologie de la Matière.
46. Cardinal Ratzinger, Spirit of the Liturgy, 131.
47. Gaboury’s parish meeting notes (May 1968), n.p. Précieux-Sang dossier, Fonds Gaboury, Centre du Patrimoine de St. Boniface, Manitoba.
48. See Kane, “Is That a Beer Vat?” 1–32.
49. Ibid., 9.
50. Winnipeg Tribune, January 16, 1970, n.p., quoted in 190 Avenue de la Cathédrale, 7.
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