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Book Review - The Sacred Architecture of Irving J. Gill
By Allen A. Hazard
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Just when you thought you had all the Irving Gill books you need, along comes a new one on the San Diego architect’s “sacred architecture” by the Rev. Dr. Mark Hargreaves. He has personally studied Gill’s work as the Rector of Saint James-by-the-Sea Episcopal Church in La Jolla.
Hargreaves’ compact 117-page volume from the Irving J. Gill Foundation ventures into areas that the author found missing from other books on Gill and includes images not seen in recent ones. He takes a fresh view through the lens of a minister, not a historian, exploring themes such as “what sacred architecture is,” “divine power,” and how Gill’s churches “…led the hearts of the faithful to the divine with few distractions.”
For the author, Gill’s simplicity takes on special meaning when focused on impact, such as the Bible’s placement on the altar desk. The stark walls were in purposeful contrast to the rich purple cloth under the Bible. The author adds, “The attention of the worshiper is held on the ‘place from whence come the teachings.’”
While it is well known that natural light was important to Arts and Crafts movement artists and architects, and certainly to Gill, Hargreaves adds a layer of ecclesiastical insight when he notes that Gill fills “…the building with a natural light, a light that speaks of plain truth. The church appears empty, but is filled with light, an analog of the Word. Just as God’s clear and illuminating Word can be relied upon to speak directly without comment and interpretation, so the light in the building must be direct and unmediated.”
While Hargreaves explains in meaningful detail the initial “religious version of Gill’s modernistic architectural vocabulary,” the First Church of Christ, Scientist (1910, Bankers Hill), I found his account of designing the 1911 AME Church, for 1649 Front Street, San Diego, a window into Gill’s character. We learn that a maid in one of Gill’s larger homes recommended him to the Black church elders. Hargreaves describes the collaborative process whereby Gill made his working drawings available to the congregation so that members could have input into the design.
The Reverend argues that the assumption that Gill’s late career produced little architecture of note is wrong and that his third Christian Scientist church (Coronado, 1929) is a highlight of the architect’s fourteen sacred buildings. “Its magnificent clarity of form represents the fulfilment of Gill’s mature design sensibility,” Hargreaves writes.
His perceptive prose leaves us with an understanding that Gill’s churches aren't merely monuments of concrete, stone, and light. They can be conduits of the divine, vessels that may connect us with inner peace and higher truths. In Reverend Hargreaves' thoughtful meditations on his own and other churches, Gill's architecture transcends time, inviting us to experience the sacred within these sanctuaries.
The Sacred Architecture of Irving J. Gill is available at the Marston House Museum Shop, 3525 Seventh Avenue, San Diego. Open Saturdays and Sundays 10am to 4pm.
SOHO Board member Allen Hazard gave a seminar lecture on Irving Gill’s work at the 2019 National Arts & Crafts Conference at the Grove Park Inn, Ashville, North Carolina, and at Pasadena Heritage's 2021 Craftsman to Modern virtual conference. He also wrote "Eleven Things You Might Not Know About Irving J. Gill" for SOHO.
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